Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Do you smell or taste music?

I just started reading Oliver Sachs' book Musicophilia and in the introduction he says that some people experience colors(I knew that because it's been talked about a lot at PW and I think some members have this experience),

and other people experience smells or tastes or feel various sensations in their body when listening to music. And some people can be passionately moved by music despite being unable to make any "sense" of what they are hearing.

Has anyone heard much about or actually experienced what I mention in the second "paragraph"?

Yes! Sometimes music really stinks.

No smells or tastes from listening to music, but I have developed a liking for the slight odor of old pianos and old sheet music. The odor is associated with music in general, not the other way, though.

As for colors, there's a physical basis for an association. Light is a wave phenomenon, and if you keep on doubling frequency, going up octave after octave, eventually you get to the visible spectrum, which is just short of an octave wide.

If we continue the way octaves are numbered on an 88 key piano, A0 through C8, it turns out that F#44 through G#44 are red, A44 is orange, A#44 is yellow, B44 and C45 are green, C#45 is cyan, and D45 through F45 are all blue.

Does everyone who sees colors see the same color for a given note?

From what I've read, the answer is no.

Sometimes, when I'm sight reading horn parts with my butt. I haven't eaten any sound lately but I'll let you know.

The Dies Irae by Verdi is so vivid you can nearly smell the sulfur from the day of wrath, and see the flames.

Listen to it though, don't watch it on youtube (or close your eyes).

Sometimes I can taste it, especially playing Bach. Usually, it's creamy.

Sometimes I smell the wine from my beverage. But that probably doesn't count

Alas I seem to only be able to hear music.

I definitely see colors. All the time! I often see scenery and images in my head while playing.
As for tastes and smells... Not really. Actually not at all. I do get feelings of hot and cold. For instance, in the 7th movement of Papillons, I always feel like I'm inside a warm cottage, looking outside where it is snowing and windy. I get such a warm cozy feeling as if I really am warm inside a cottage... And funnily, my professor said the same thing! Ha!

OP is talking about synesthesia; everybody has the experiences you do, but few have synesthesia.

No, but I've noticed that certain pieces will pop into my head based on how I am feeling and what is happening, and a disproportionate number of them are from Scriabin. If I hear the big piano run from the third movement of Scriabin's Concerto, I know that I am stressed. If I hear the C# minor etude, Op. 42 No. 5, I am pensive. If I hear the 4th Sonata, I am curious or searching. For some reason, his music just resonates with my moods, such that it starts up with seemingly no provocation at all.

When I smell something, I blame it on the dog.

I can't decide if I have synethesia or not. Sometimes I have experiences of colors while listening to music but they are pretty faint. They do seem to be fairly correlated to the key - the same keys seem to induce the same colors, but it's not so cut and dry. For me emotions and feelings are also almost always woven into music that aren't so concretely emotional or sensual but something in between. Also, I'm not sure if I have perfect pitch, but I've taught myself through practice to recognize notes and keys by referencing songs in my memory. I have a very accurate, spacious, and robust tonal memory that lets me do this.

I've read the same book, and there is a chapter about a guy who can infer the keys of music because he remembers songs and instruments, and also that he has a kind of 'looser' synethesia. Dr. Sacks believes he has relative pitch. In any case, that character more closely describes me.

I have never experienced the smell or taste thing! That's a lovely book by the way - the story of the man with permanent amnesia was so terrifying, interesting, and inspiring!

I've heard a person with synesthesia describe food tasting like music but not the other way around.