Like I genuinely feel if I’ve heard a song enough times, I can repeat it in my head and still get the same enjoyment as actually listening to it. Maybe everyone can do that idk

But I do know that the only thing I don’t have is speed, otherwise I’d basically have perfect pitch 🥲

  • miz [any, any]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    there are so many amazing talented people out there. if only we had a system dedicated to human flourishing instead of profit

    I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.

    —Stephen Jay Gould

  • TheDoctor [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    That’s your mind’s ear! It can be more vivid or less vivid depending on the person. Neat trick I learned in college that everyone in the room could do (we were all musicians, so may be biased). You can take any melody and hear it as a different instrument. You can make yourself hear it as a flute or as a guitar or as a trumpet. And getting good at this skill can make it so you can hear entire fully harmonized orchestras in your head on command. It’s wild.

    Edit: I suppose the specific instruments you can hear would be culturally dependent just because of frequency of exposure. Like I’m pretty good at hearing a full metal band playing including what effects are on what instruments, but I have a hard time imagining a duduk play a simple melody.

    • TheDoctor [they/them]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      No one is tone deaf. Matching pitch is a skill that can be learned (actually it’s 3 separate skills and you may already be good at 1 or 2 of them without knowing). I studied voice in college and saw a fellow student go from being unable to match pitch to being one of the most sought after singers in our class. It just takes practice and usually a patient teacher who knows what exercises will help.

        • TheDoctor [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          2 months ago

          Okay, so I misremembered slightly. The 3 skills make up perfect pitch specifically. If I’m remembering correctly now, there’s hearing relative pitch in your head, there’s hearing the absolute pitch of songs from memory, and there’s matching the pitch of your voice to the pitch in your head or to another instrument you hear. So there may actually be people who are very good at two of the skills but you’d never know because they don’t have good voice control.

    • the_post_of_tom_joad [any, any]@hexbear.net
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      2 months ago

      This happened to me early yesterday and it drove me crazy as my brain wouldn’t stop replaying the 5 seconds the whole goddang day until i found out what it was and played it. Twice. Stupidass brain

      • Smeagolicious [they/them]@hexbear.net
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        2 months ago

        I have had this last for years. Perfectly hearing the same 5 seconds of a song I can’t remember the name of until I randomly hear the phrase like 2 years later

          • Smeagolicious [they/them]@hexbear.net
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            2 months ago

            It’s not constant but it’s noticeable; at quiet times I’ll be thinking of some music and I’ll get that repeating music excerpt thing for a while until it goes away when I’m distracted by something else. It’s not so much intrusive as “that song again where did I hear that?”

            It’ll come back soon enough but funnily, it doesn’t stick around after I’ve found out the full thing. One I remember most was the plants vs zombies 1 rooftop theme which I hadn’t heard for 2-3 years. And yes it was a cathartic “Quest Complete!” when I found it again

  • HexKay [none/use any]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    I have aphantasia and no inner monologue. Unfortunately the only times I can “hear” music in my mind is when it’s stuck in my head and manages to repeat so loudly it breaks out of my silent thoughts

  • QuizzaciousOtter
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    2 months ago

    I can often listen to like a 5 or so songs I currently like on repeat for many hours a day, many days in a row. I’m autistic, too.

  • khizuo [ze/zir]@hexbear.net
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    2 months ago

    I have a pretty good mind’s ear too, not perfect though. I also have perfect* pitch and also audio-visual synesthesia, I see music as colors in my head. One of my favorite things to do is play covers of song on piano by ear. I’m also autistic. Music is just so cool.

    (* there are different levels of absolute/perfect pitch and mine isn’t the best, I’m not really able to identify complex jazz chords or individual notes in large stacks of notes for example, but other people with perfect pitch can)