Listening To Music With Your Eyes (?)

Yo mangz and womangz~

How many of you have noticed how much of a role your eyes play in listening to music? And I don't mean I want a number-- I just needed a sentence to start this thread.

When I listen to music and am really enjoying it, I notice that my eyes are gazed upon something or are set at some angle in my eye sockets. This is especially true when critical-enjoyment-listening or repeat listening of a track.

I've been making music "seriously" for about 20 years now, and I realized just the fuck now that my eyes weren't as important for listening to music when I first starting making it. I think "the loop" starts in music makers (which I assume many of us are) when they listen to that one badass bit in their working track over and over and over... Then eventually the eyes become activated in listening, by consciousness pulsing so hard that it starts up other senses through resonance. I have seriously listened to the same few seconds in my tracks for hours, thoroughly enjoying it and patting myself on the dick.

I believe the eye-lock is tied with production and critical listening, and then, this practice carries over to listening to others' music.

It's like nowadays if I listen to music with my eyes closed, I just don't have enough senses involved to fully enjoy the sonics.

But if I'm in Rave Mode 9000 in da underground club or whatever, my body becomes the secondary sense, and my eyes basically become just for seeing. The only time peoples' eyes "become serious" in their sockets and gazed upon nothing and everything whilst dancing, is if they're tripping fucking hard and realizing that God looks way more beautiful in person.

Anyway- so how are your eyeballs during music listening?

(I realize WATMM is 95% female, so it'd be interesting to hear that perspective, also, as I feel this phenomenon could be tied-in with the male practice of putting on glasses to use the telephone.)

I am slightly synesthetic since a very young age (it was much stronger when I was younger) and to me, music has always had a visual connotation, a sense of form.

When I listen critically in post-processing I get the eye-lock thing you describe, like I'm looking in my eye sockets or almost cross my eyes. I almost lose sense of my actual vision in an involuntary attempt to visualize what I'm hearing. When I analyze high frequencies my eyes go up and outwards, and my attention moves down into the body with lower frequencies. When I listen purely for enjoyment, I find that my eyes tilt slightly upwards and my vision becomes wider and more peripheral.

A long time ago I made a digital painting to try to depict how music would appear to me in my mind's eye (in this case a richly textured electronic track with a strong kick). Sadly, impressions of colors do not appear as vibrantly anymore, but the overall shape and form is generally the same.

Shit, that's pretty fucking sweet, dude.

I think visuals can be somewhat of a distraction, for instance, we've all sat and listened to our favorite tunes late at night, lights off, on headphones and theres so much detail. It's like sensory information from your eyes move to your ears to compensate.

edit: I don't get synesthia so maybe its just me

it's synesthesia

It depends on the track. Most aren't very visual for me but some, like someone said, will result in me seeing lines and colours.

Yeah, I get it more when I'm intensely listening, I don't see fireworks every time there's some random track playing on the radio. And yeah, I do the looking up thing as well, I think I learnt it from not looking at the screen when listening back to something I made, to avoid adjusting the structure of the track to what looks ok instead of what fits musically.

  On 6/4/2015 at 3:55 AM, chim said:

I am slightly synesthetic since a very young age (it was much stronger when I was younger) and to me, music has always had a visual connotation, a sense of form.

 

When I listen critically in post-processing I get the eye-lock thing you describe, like I'm looking in my eye sockets or almost cross my eyes. I almost lose sense of my actual vision in an involuntary attempt to visualize what I'm hearing. When I analyze high frequencies my eyes go up and outwards, and my attention moves down into the body with lower frequencies. When I listen purely for enjoyment, I find that my eyes tilt slightly upwards and my vision becomes wider and more peripheral.

 

A long time ago I made a digital painting to try to depict how music would appear to me in my mind's eye (in this case a richly textured electronic track with a strong kick). Sadly, impressions of colors do not appear as vibrantly anymore, but the overall shape and form is generally the same.

 

Perfect, great explanation. I sometimes enjoy music (I wouldn’t normally particularly like) because I like the way it looks. Sometimes I make the image instead of its sound, but I usually prefer to paint with noise. As for my eyes while listening, I tend to stare through whatever I appear to be looking at, watching the forms, details dissolve or be built upon, you know yourself. I spend most of the time at a gig with my eyes closed or looking through the lights and smoke to get the bigger picture. My eyes move to watch the sound like a car chase or a TIE fighter battle, I also like to twirl or shake my head and see how the dust settles. Dark noise does ‘it’ for me every time, I love the way it gets touchable while still reaching from over the horizon. Great tread, enjoyed that, now off to listen to picture of a sleeping tiger.