Everyone seems to knows what it means when a music teacher describes a passage as ‘flowing’ or ‘full of energy’ or ‘treacly’, or describes a note to be ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ or ‘bright’ or ‘split’. Yet some people say that they don’t have synaesthesia and there are even people who say they have no imagery at all.
Are there people who instinctively know what a ‘bright sound’ is yet don’t automatically visualise such sounds as being brightly coloured? Or who instinctively know what a ‘hammering note’ is without feeling any physical pain when they hear one?
Are there people who instinctively know what a ‘bright sound’ is yet don’t automatically visualise such sounds as being brightly coloured? Or who instinctively know what a ‘hammering note’ is without feeling any physical pain when they hear one?
Yes, I am an example of both such types of people. However, this is not because I think of those words as arbitrary, but because I associate those words with different concepts. I’ll elaborate on that.
But first, I’ll say the difficulty I have with your question: I’m not sure where to draw the line between “having synesthesia” and “being able to understand metaphors”. For example, think of the non-musical metaphors “sweet” to describe someone who is kind (rather than a sugary flavor) or “tortuous” to describe an indirect chain of logic (rather than a winding river). Does one need synesthesia to understand those metaphors?
Perhaps the difference between synesthesia and metaphors is whether the relation is arbitrary. If that’s the case, I would call all of those terms metaphor, not synesthesia: I can define all those terms you mentioned with reasoning by analogy about properties of the waveform.
For some reason, the terms about passages you listed make me think harder to understand, just like when a work of literature uses a metaphor, while the terms about notes you mentioned (except for “split”) seem so common that I’ve mentally added them as an alternative meaning in my dictionary.
My definitions of those terms about passages:
“Flowing”: I find myself thinking of a river that keeps flowing. Matching this to passages my music teachers have described as “flowing”, I define “flowing” music as music where notes are constantly played at a fairly regular pace, without long pauses or sudden volume changes.
“Full of energy”: to me, this means music that would take a lot of energy to play on instruments, or music that builds energy in the listener. Loud music with a hard beat would count, as would music with many notes played quickly.
“Treacly”: I haven’t heard this used to describe music before, but I can quickly guess the intent: music with notes played slowly and without sudden volume changes. This is by analogy to a high-viscosity liquid being poured out of a container.
My definitions of those terms about notes:
“Hard”: with a quick attack on the note’s envelope. By analogy, when touching a hard surface, you feel resistance quickly.
“Soft”: with a slow attack. The inverse reasoning as for “hard”.
“Bright”: sounds made up of mostly high frequencies (treble). High notes are more easily distinguishable to the ear than low notes, just like bright lights are more easily distinguishable to the eye than dim lights. But in my mind, I don’t think of bright lights when this term is used; I immediately think of a high-pitched note.
“Split”: that’s a new term to me. But I could imagine it meaning a note split across two or more frequencies, so the note sounds like a chord—in other words, a note with an overtone. Another possible meaning could be a note that cuts off and then plays again quickly, as if someone drew a rectangle for note on a digital piano roll and then split the rectangle into two pieces.
“Hammering”: as a piano player, this makes me think of the felt-wrapped hammers inside a piano. So I think of those hammers “hammering” the strings of the piano quickly, producing a repeated note. I suppose the meaning of “hammering” as hitting repeatedly rather than hitting once is arbitrary, and is derived from the same arbitrary meaning of “hammering” as “using a construction hammer to hit repeatedly”.
All but three of your definitions are exactly the same as the definitions that I would give.
Split notes are what novice brass players produce.
To hammer a note is to play a note that is loud and sudden and short.
Music is flowing if every note feels like it is the natural continuation of the notes before it. So an unanticipated discord or pause or change in volume will break the flow, but if it feels like the music is building up to a sudden change then the flow will be broken by not having this sudden change.
I endorse all these, and also all of roryokane’s that you haven’t taken issue with, except that to me “bright” doesn’t just mean high notes but also notes whose timbre includes a lot of energy at high frequencies. Also, “soft” is ambiguous between something like Rory’s meaning and simply “quiet”. (It maybe also suggests to me the opposite of “bright”.)
I have never understood what music teachers mean when they say things like this. I’m not a professional musician by any means, but in the before-times I was usually in 1-3 choirs at my university. One of the conductors would describe sounds as “round” or “purple” and then everyone would nod as if they agreed...but I was always utterly lost. I swear they’re making it up, but maybe I’m even less of a synesthete than the average non-synesthete.
I also think there’s some degree of consistency. If I was forced to imagine a “purple” sound I would probably imagine something medium-loud, orchestral, and “full;” something regal, because that’s what I associate with the color purple. But simply played a music sample and asked what “color” it is, and I would probably be making things up. Synesthesia is usually thought of as an unintentional or automatic association. People can often come up with colors to associate with letters when asked, but for non-synesthetes it’s more of an intellectual exercise than a particular fact about a letter.
I have never understood what music teachers mean when they say things like this.
Maybe you will find my definitions, which relate to the physical properties of the sound, helpful.
As for your two other terms, those are harder to define. “Round” I would have trouble understanding too… but I think in the context of a choir, it might mean a note sung by holding your mouth in a round ‘O’ shape rather than by stretching it vertically or horizontally. The shape of your mouth changes the overtones, even when you’re singing the same note.
As for “purple”, even though I was able to define all the other terms, I have no idea what that should mean such that every choir member would nod at hearing it. The only physical connection I can imagine is that violet is the highest-frequency spectrum of light… yet I doubt that “purple” would simply describe high-pitched sounds. Either the other students were just pretending to understand the term, or this is my own limitation.
I’m trying to find out which associations are or aren’t universal.
Do you associate higher pitched sounds with paler colours and feel them more in your extremities?
Do you associate lower pitched sounds with darker colours and feel them more in your core?
When you look at a visually cluttered scene, does your inner speech get louder in order to compete for your attention? If not, how would you make sense of the metaphor ‘a loud shirt’?
Would you be more likely to associate thickly textured music with the sensation of being under a duvet than thinly textured music?
Do you automatically associate some sounds with roughness and some sounds with smoothness?
When people talk about something having a ‘clear sound’, do you imagine it being translucent?
When you hear a very loud and discordant chord, is the pain localised to a particular part of your body depending on the pitch and timbre of the note, do you experience pain that is not really localised anywhere, or is it not painful at all?
Here’s one thing I’ve always found puzzling:
Everyone seems to knows what it means when a music teacher describes a passage as ‘flowing’ or ‘full of energy’ or ‘treacly’, or describes a note to be ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ or ‘bright’ or ‘split’. Yet some people say that they don’t have synaesthesia and there are even people who say they have no imagery at all.
Are there people who instinctively know what a ‘bright sound’ is yet don’t automatically visualise such sounds as being brightly coloured? Or who instinctively know what a ‘hammering note’ is without feeling any physical pain when they hear one?
Yes, I am an example of both such types of people. However, this is not because I think of those words as arbitrary, but because I associate those words with different concepts. I’ll elaborate on that.
But first, I’ll say the difficulty I have with your question: I’m not sure where to draw the line between “having synesthesia” and “being able to understand metaphors”. For example, think of the non-musical metaphors “sweet” to describe someone who is kind (rather than a sugary flavor) or “tortuous” to describe an indirect chain of logic (rather than a winding river). Does one need synesthesia to understand those metaphors?
Perhaps the difference between synesthesia and metaphors is whether the relation is arbitrary. If that’s the case, I would call all of those terms metaphor, not synesthesia: I can define all those terms you mentioned with reasoning by analogy about properties of the waveform.
For some reason, the terms about passages you listed make me think harder to understand, just like when a work of literature uses a metaphor, while the terms about notes you mentioned (except for “split”) seem so common that I’ve mentally added them as an alternative meaning in my dictionary.
My definitions of those terms about passages:
“Flowing”: I find myself thinking of a river that keeps flowing. Matching this to passages my music teachers have described as “flowing”, I define “flowing” music as music where notes are constantly played at a fairly regular pace, without long pauses or sudden volume changes.
“Full of energy”: to me, this means music that would take a lot of energy to play on instruments, or music that builds energy in the listener. Loud music with a hard beat would count, as would music with many notes played quickly.
“Treacly”: I haven’t heard this used to describe music before, but I can quickly guess the intent: music with notes played slowly and without sudden volume changes. This is by analogy to a high-viscosity liquid being poured out of a container.
My definitions of those terms about notes:
“Hard”: with a quick attack on the note’s envelope. By analogy, when touching a hard surface, you feel resistance quickly.
“Soft”: with a slow attack. The inverse reasoning as for “hard”.
“Bright”: sounds made up of mostly high frequencies (treble). High notes are more easily distinguishable to the ear than low notes, just like bright lights are more easily distinguishable to the eye than dim lights. But in my mind, I don’t think of bright lights when this term is used; I immediately think of a high-pitched note.
“Split”: that’s a new term to me. But I could imagine it meaning a note split across two or more frequencies, so the note sounds like a chord—in other words, a note with an overtone. Another possible meaning could be a note that cuts off and then plays again quickly, as if someone drew a rectangle for note on a digital piano roll and then split the rectangle into two pieces.
“Hammering”: as a piano player, this makes me think of the felt-wrapped hammers inside a piano. So I think of those hammers “hammering” the strings of the piano quickly, producing a repeated note. I suppose the meaning of “hammering” as hitting repeatedly rather than hitting once is arbitrary, and is derived from the same arbitrary meaning of “hammering” as “using a construction hammer to hit repeatedly”.
All but three of your definitions are exactly the same as the definitions that I would give.
Split notes are what novice brass players produce. To hammer a note is to play a note that is loud and sudden and short. Music is flowing if every note feels like it is the natural continuation of the notes before it. So an unanticipated discord or pause or change in volume will break the flow, but if it feels like the music is building up to a sudden change then the flow will be broken by not having this sudden change.
I endorse all these, and also all of roryokane’s that you haven’t taken issue with, except that to me “bright” doesn’t just mean high notes but also notes whose timbre includes a lot of energy at high frequencies. Also, “soft” is ambiguous between something like Rory’s meaning and simply “quiet”. (It maybe also suggests to me the opposite of “bright”.)
I have never understood what music teachers mean when they say things like this. I’m not a professional musician by any means, but in the before-times I was usually in 1-3 choirs at my university. One of the conductors would describe sounds as “round” or “purple” and then everyone would nod as if they agreed...but I was always utterly lost. I swear they’re making it up, but maybe I’m even less of a synesthete than the average non-synesthete.
I also think there’s some degree of consistency. If I was forced to imagine a “purple” sound I would probably imagine something medium-loud, orchestral, and “full;” something regal, because that’s what I associate with the color purple. But simply played a music sample and asked what “color” it is, and I would probably be making things up. Synesthesia is usually thought of as an unintentional or automatic association. People can often come up with colors to associate with letters when asked, but for non-synesthetes it’s more of an intellectual exercise than a particular fact about a letter.
Maybe you will find my definitions, which relate to the physical properties of the sound, helpful.
As for your two other terms, those are harder to define. “Round” I would have trouble understanding too… but I think in the context of a choir, it might mean a note sung by holding your mouth in a round ‘O’ shape rather than by stretching it vertically or horizontally. The shape of your mouth changes the overtones, even when you’re singing the same note.
As for “purple”, even though I was able to define all the other terms, I have no idea what that should mean such that every choir member would nod at hearing it. The only physical connection I can imagine is that violet is the highest-frequency spectrum of light… yet I doubt that “purple” would simply describe high-pitched sounds. Either the other students were just pretending to understand the term, or this is my own limitation.
I’m trying to find out which associations are or aren’t universal.
Do you associate higher pitched sounds with paler colours and feel them more in your extremities? Do you associate lower pitched sounds with darker colours and feel them more in your core?
When you look at a visually cluttered scene, does your inner speech get louder in order to compete for your attention? If not, how would you make sense of the metaphor ‘a loud shirt’?
Would you be more likely to associate thickly textured music with the sensation of being under a duvet than thinly textured music?
Do you automatically associate some sounds with roughness and some sounds with smoothness?
When people talk about something having a ‘clear sound’, do you imagine it being translucent?
When you hear a very loud and discordant chord, is the pain localised to a particular part of your body depending on the pitch and timbre of the note, do you experience pain that is not really localised anywhere, or is it not painful at all?