Part 1: A synesthesia visual
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Recently, I made a post about how I experience synesthesia, which included paintings I did on Gimp (a free photoshop program). I had a lot of people ask me to depict a few songs. Especially TOOL for some reason…
I told them I’d do a second album.
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I listened to your recommendations of TOOL, heavy metal, pirate metal, Rick Astley, Cake, and other artists. Then I put this together. I hope you enjoy it!
I do not say this in a pretentious way. Everyone has that one feeling, experience, or thought that they struggle to explain to others. I am not more special than you just because I have synesthesia. I’m actually including this disclaimer as a recognition of my failures.
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This album was ESPECIALLY hard. I had a headache at the end of it. So many of these pictures are only a fraction of how I see it in my brain, and I worry that they are underwhelming. I’m sorry about that, but I tried my best! I will also add a verbal description.
“Baby Elephant Walk” by Henry Mancini Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1z4JfxFb6c&t=78s
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This song is bright pink, with a lot of squiggly lines. Think of a person writing a signature, and how the ink squiggles with it. That’s how the bright pink lines in this song work. I think they are adorable!!
“Blister In The Sun” by Violent Femmes Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE-dqW4uBEE
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“Blister In The Sun” has a lot of beige, light blue, and wooden hoop thingies that congregate – like bubbles do when you blow through a bubble wand… except they’re made of wood. A lot of indie-guitar has a beige color to it, so I wasn’t surprised by that. But the wooden bubbles is interesting. It’s exclusive to this song as well. I’ve never seen it on any other song.
“Elastic Heart” by Sia Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RYY0hwHIRw
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I actually made this particular picture back in 2014. “Elastic Heart” is extremely difficult to verbally explain, but it’s crazy beautiful. This is the one picture that describes what I see perfectly. It’s like these fractals cut through the green. I will try to come up with a better description later.
“Danger! High Voltage” by Electric Six Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-FxmoVM7X4
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This song is not in a color scheme that I personally like, but it IS fun! Lots of zigzagging, and orange and yellow. Do you remember when DVDs had that logo that bounced about the loading screen? That’s how I would describe this, only it’s extremely fast. It’s the DVD loading screen on meth, and the colors change frequently. It’s such a fun, but crazy song!
Soundtrack from the video game “Ar Tonelico” Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbcbmZydHCw
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Someone sent this to me as a request. I couldn’t find the name of the song (I did not understand if the title of the video was the title of the song…?) but it is from a video game I’ve never played. I don’t have a lot to say about this one. It’s a very pretty song, with magenta ribbons in a breeze, and cerulean petals popping up and floating away with them. It’s peaceful, I would say.
“Psychosocial” by Slipknot Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5abamRO41fE
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A lot of folks asked about heavy metal, and send me links to Slipknot. My experience with heavy metal isn’t terribly exciting, though it is terribly painful. I see a void, which I suspect comes from the multitude of intense colors being flung at me faster than my brain can process it. I feel the intense guitar + drums, and the screaming as asphalt that seeps into my skin, and scrapes me up from the inside out. It’s extremely, overwhelmingly intense. But I DO respect metal as a genre of music, it just tends to beat me up lol.
“People = Shit” by Slipknot Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqK1FrO3BdM
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I had more than one person ask me about this song, so I did it in addition to the other Slipknot song. I had a slightly different experience with this song than my usual experience with heavy metal. There were more colors, it wasn’t an empty void. It was actually really cool looking! But I couldn’t look at it for long… it still beat me up like the other metal songs!
“Hold The Heathen Hammer High” by TÝR Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu2bgwcv43o&list=PL8547A72000830AF9
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Someone asked me if pirate or folk metal was different for me than heavy metal. I had never heard of it, so I decided to try it out! This was better than heavy metal, but not by much. I want to acknowledge the creativity in pirate metal! It’s a lot of fun! The colors are neat, and make an interesting blend of black, red, and blue. I know that’s such a generic description, but I was a smidge distracted by THE ASPHALT AGAINST THE SKIN!!!! THIS IS SYNESTHETIC ABUSE!!!!
“Stronger” by Kanye West Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsO6ZnUZI0g
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Someone asked me about Kanye West, so I included this song. A lot of techno-sounds have that psychedelic swirly stuff. I would say that this is EXACTLY like the ambient color animations that the computer will make when playing a song that lacks a music video. I think that might be partially imprinted psychologically, because a lot of techno songs are represented that way. I sometimes wonder if my synesthesia has an environmental influence. I with there was a way to test that…
“Lapland” by Ratatat Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VA9mo3rK9I
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This song is various shades of purple, with tendrils that bend, twist, and curl. All of them swirl about, as if they were being stirred into a brew. Sometimes I taste a hint of lavender, but not always.
“Panzermensch” by And One Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeIGuCof97A
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I love this song. It’s so much fun! I see dark green steel with sharp edges engraved into it, that make up these intense fractal patterns. It crawls across “the screen” of my brain, and then breaks apart… and then congregates again. It makes me want to dance, and I don’t like dancing lol.
“Never Going to Give You Up” by Rick Astley Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
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This doesn’t adequately describe the Rick Astley experience. I learned that I am not yet good enough at Gimp for that one. However, I promised I’d do it, so here it is! The song moves about. It’s like it’s floating, and these pastel and crazy colors sort of blend together to create a blob of… something. You would see it in a modern art museum, only it has Rick Astley singing in the background. Maybe someone should make a modern art piece that involves a singing Rick Astley… that would be both very modern, and a work of art!
“Santeria” by Sublime Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZeUL4fRyk
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I included this one because of its simplicity. Sometimes, all I see is a single color/texture. It’s not always so fancy, with multiple ribbons and patterns. Santeria is a lilac color. I like to listen to it sometimes because it’s so simple to look at. Ignoring the lyrics about wanting to Murder someone, this is a relaxing song.
“Schism” by TOOL Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80RtBeB61LE
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I had at least ten people ask about TOOL, and those comments were highly upvoted. “Schism” was highly recommended, so I took a listen. I can see why y’all were curious about it. I liked the song a lot! But it’s also the weirdest song I’d ever seen. It had a beige, parchment-like background, hit with all these ice-blue pointy ends jumping out at me. It was like there was ice that was cutting through parchment.
“Short Skirt/Long Jacket” by Cake Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7aDstrDMf0
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This song is a lot of fun! It also looks more exciting in my brain… I hope that isn’t too disappointing. I see a plethora of magenta rectangles in a 90° angle. They zip about, reconnect, break apart, and make conga lines.
“Follow You Down” by the Gin Blossoms Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfFgp0po0OU
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This song is so beautiful. It’s a deep blue sky, with sprawling greenery and a little sunshine. At the same time, I always feel these odd physical sensations. Sometimes when I hear this song, my body tenses up, as if I’m in a bear hug. Other times, I feel weightless, like I could float away in a mild current on the river. I will say that I have a lot of sad memories with this song, so that might be part of it. But it’s still beautiful, despite my association with it.
There’s a reason my text layout includes the little dots and extra paragraph breaks. If you’re interested in the reason behind this, I explained it here.