There is a rare neurological condition called synesthesia where a person’s senses become linked in unusual ways. People affected by this may perceive, among other things, numbers as having specific colors or shapes as having tastes. Such people are termed “synesthetes” and this condition is not always seen as a detriment by them. This phenomenon has been studied and written about extensively in scientific literature as well as used as a plot element in fiction writing.

A number of inventive and strikingly beautiful visualizations of music have appeared online that can best be described as “sythesthetic”. That is, they are video creations to show what the music looks like to the graphics artists who have created them. Here is a sampling of some:

• Google’s new music service, Google Play Music, provides a “particle visualizer” as reported in an article on VentureBeat.com on November 15, 2014, in an article entitled Google Play Music, You’re Looking Pretty Fine with Your New Visualizer, by Kia Kokalitcheva.
• Stephen Malinowski’s visualizations of music from Beethoven, Bach, Debussy and Brahms on YouTube.
• A collection of some New Age music visualizations by MatthiasM.de on YouTube
• An early pioneer from this field specializing in live concerts is the Joshua Light Show.

There are also two new tools available to provide innovative perspectives on:

• Musicians’ influences on each other as presented in dynamic flow chart formats on Spotify as reported (with relevant links) on TheNextWeb.com on November 14, 2014 in an article entitled Spotify’s Artist Explorer Lets You Visualize How Artists are Musically Linked by Ben Woods.(See also this Subway Fold post on August 14, 2014 entitled Spotify Enhances Playlist Recommendations Processing with “Deep Learning” Technology.)
• The historical ebbs and flows of musical genres and musicians as as reported (with relevant links) once again on TheNextWeb.com on January 16, 2014, in an article entitled Google Research Releases Music Timeline, a Visualization of Artists and Genres Over the Decades, by Emil Protalinski.

All of these links produce big musical fun and I highly recommend clicking through to entertain and enlighten you eyes and ears.