I am a 26 year old American man who acquired musical savant syndrome at age 19. Today I am a self-taught multi-instrumentalist. I can play both left-handed and right-handed guitars, as well as the drums, the piano, the bass guitar, the cello, and the violin. I also have chromesthesia which means sounds invoke colourful mental imagery in my brain. I don't want to tell my life's story but feel free to ask me any general questions about what it's like to be a savant and to experience sound in an incredibly clear way. I am able to create music off the top of my head, new music.
I do also suffer from health maladies like anxiety and a constant lack of appetite. Besides anxiety I have no mental health issues, and have been studied by psychiatrists. My syndrome is neurologiocal rather than psychiatric
I intend on meeting with members of the Treffert Center in May. It is a comprehensive medical institute that diagnoses and studies disorders like autism and savant syndrome. Hopefully I can receive an "official" diagnosis to help explain to me why my body is like it is today.
I was eating Burger King in my car today and listening to "Nambia" by John Coltrane on his Equinox album. The sax sound looked like red, yellow, blue, and purple raindrops. Music I really know that pumps me up, like "Cherub Rock" by the smashing pumpkins, invokes 3D colorful geometric shapes that transform in innumerable different ways. Cherub Rock always starts out as a pinwheel of colour before the strands of the pinwheel's colours spin off into different shapes.
This is really neat,Musicanon! Yotsuba is glad a mystery like that might be solved! It's going to be a good step for science and yotsuba thanks you so much that you're contributing yourself to this research!
dduuuyyyoo please wipe my saliva user i am a helpless vegetable incapable of anything interesting or unique.
Alexander Johnson
I am really excited to finally see what is happening inside my brain! I spent a long time thinking something was "Wrong" with me, not realizing I simply have a different neurology than a lot of other people. Not good or bad, just different.
Samuel Campbell
As a baby my head was always massive compared to my torso. At the age of 1 my head was larger than my body. Today I am very skinny but extremely strong. I am not fit but because I do instruments all the time my forearms are strong as hell.
Christopher White
Thats unfortunate
Dylan Williams
*That's unfortunate.
At least I can spell. You'll learn one day.
Jason Ross
>At the age of 1 my head was larger than my body. Kek.
Caleb Foster
So if I post some songs/music will you tell me how it looks like to you?
William Perry
of course! go ahead.
Caleb Brooks
How does one just "acquire" this? You were just sitting around one day and was like "oh wow, now I'm a musical savant, thanks Obama"?
Also I thought it was impossible for adults to develop perfect pitch?
Cooper Clark
I’m mildly synesthetic, too. Tastes are colored shapes, etc. I consider you fortunate. No real questions ... wait. Here’s one. Having acquired musical creativity kate and all at once, do you have any insight into the “where” of inspiration? I see my own creative processes, but have always felt that inspiration is sort of ‘whole’ before it’s perceived.
I am a natural lefty. I spent my whole life believing I was a righty because I wrote with my right hand. I sucked at everything. I sucked at baseball, I wasn't a good martial artist, and I sucked at guitar.
My last and only friend from childhood betrayed me and tried to stick me up for money with two other guys. I remember how angry I was, like my world had just collapsed. He was my only friend in the world, or so I thought. This was in November, 2012. I was very upset and I remember having problems sleeping. I developed a strange sense of energy. I felt almost a compulsion to pick up an instrument and use it. I walked into a pawn shop and asked to try a guitar. I turned it upside down, played the righty guitar as a lefty, and off the top of my head I played the most beautiful phrasing of music I had ever heard. The rest is history.
My inspiration is to honor my love of sound. Thats my inspiration.
Nathaniel Jones
What color is an Aztec death whistle?
Justin Hernandez
sound is sound. it all looks good to me, albeit some kinds of sounds/music will be more complex and colourful than others.
Nicholas Martinez
His works are incredible. The difference between Daniel and I is that Daniel aquired his abilities from physical trauma. I aquired mine by tapping into a part of myself I had always been but was deluded into believing I was not (left handed)
Sebastian Turner
I don't know.
Hunter Brown
white lines, angling up, green, black, gray, silver, dark crimson red, an array of semi-circles and cresant-moon shapes.
The more complex the music is, the more 3D it will be. This, at least for me, are blue and glowing green circles.
It changes. It is fluid. The visuals are not static.
John Bell
Oh! I love this one. Orange, black, lots of textures of spheres. The spheres explode into swirls of purple and silver lines.
John Morales
The whole song feels like a nice airy pastel blue.
Easton Baker
Cool this reminds me of when I took high dose synthetic psilocybin.
Oliver Scott
yup, it's basically that and I can do it automatically. I don't need drugs. It's nuts.
neat Thats pretty cool dude. Im no neurologist but I believe that parts of your brain that normally do not communicate with each other are more linked up than a normal person’s. Atleast thats why psychs make us “trip”. The different brain centers begin sharing info that normally never happens under normal circumstances.
Try youtu.be/sn_fDGYCOIs when you gave the time. Heavy metal cover of Tupac - Hail Mary
Eli Anderson
grey, brown, brick red, lots of small holes and dots. squares transforming into shapes with an extraordinary large number and amount of sizes. i cannot fathom how many sides these shapes have.
this is a good visual one, thanks bro.
Noah White
I've having flashbacks to elementary school where I had a stencil that had lots of different shapes in it. I have not had this memory in probably close to 20 years. all because of your music so thank you :))
Ayden Long
taxiclub yellow, royal deep purple, shards and lines spinning and transforming in a 3D space.
Lots of purple in this song. Blue and black. It does not have as much dimensionality as some other stuff. I'm also not too hot on the N word, i don't know what.
Aaron Cruz
*why
Julian Mitchell
I can remember the feel of the stencil against my skin, I remember its texture and weight, and I have not had this memory in 20 years. Had I not heard that song I know I never would have recalled it for the rest of my life.
Robert Robinson
How distracting is the chromesthesia in normal daily situations? Does walking through a big crowd with lots of noise hinder you in any way? Or is it more of a subtle kind of thing?
Very interesting. When tripping, this song had a specific tint to it, I wonder if it's the same for you: youtube.com/watch?v=gKdQDrh8yF4
Shame you can't turn it on and off at will, then I'd be properly jelly. Since I started occasionally tripping several years ago, my quality of life has improved drasically, and I absolutely fucking _love_ all kinds of music now.
Christopher Allen
boring
Aaron Hill
I can become very annoyed and upset at sounds. The problem is that certain sounds are so clear and loud and it gets annoying. Even silence is loud. A bird chirping seems like a screech. Even now as I type I am getting tired of listening to my hands on the phone screen.
Adrian Rivera
1. It is simple and gorgeous. Splashes of blue and purple light, lots of silver. I love this song.
Nolan Moore
It is silver and white but edgy. I wouldn’t listen to it if I didn’t have to. The visuals are gritty and shattered. That is due to the acoustic guitar.
Easton Wright
This song started out with the colours and shapes on black background. When Inperceive shapes against a black background that means I love the song and the imagery is going to become more involved and detailed. Simple tones and pitches will probably be a simple color. Things in the key of D are purple, in the key of A are red, yellow in the key of B, brown in the key of F, orange and gold in C, G is orange and black. E is pastel blue.
Brody Watson
Odd, for me it was a very mellow, thick liquidy orange. Then, how about youtube.com/watch?v=j1RzxBBAQzA One of my favorite songs.
Sebastian Cooper
Odd would be if our imagery was the same. That, I fathom, is impossible.
pink, silver, lots of bursting bubbles. an array of moving and dancing tiny spheres. there is green and brown in it too.
Jose Turner
and the singer sucks and made me turn off the song.
Liam Evans
Im guessing you dont watch animu Try Savage Garden’s “I Want You”
Sebastian Lee
Really reaching for the lowest possible bar here, aren't you.
Ryder Wright
*You're really reaching for the lowest possible bar here, aren't you?
Keep studying schoolboy.
Luke Anderson
You believe you are smarter than other people, right?
Teenage boys tend to believe they're really smart.
