Helen,

Very few people see colours when they hear musical notes. Some people do. I can't remember what the phenomenom is called. Kinesthesia, I thought, but now I think that's wrong. It sometimes runs in families. The colours seen don't usually match between different people. I remember one woman (on TV) describing a scat singer as producing wonderful moving patterns of light. There was one famous work by a composer who wrote in the names of the colours for different parts, and people with this talent/ability/condition sometimes like to speculate which composers of the past shared their talent/ability/condition.

For myself, I think I'm most sensitive to the emotional thrust of VOCALS, but other parts of my brain become bored if they're not satisified with the sense of the lyrics or the feel of the music. If I listen to a symphony, I simply cannot concentrate on the music. After a few minutes, I generally start to think about all sorts of things, occasionally concentrating purely on the music again, but more often thinking about who-knows-what.

I've run into many people who strive to censor all the music around them. I remember one guy who got angry (he'd stomp out of the bar to go have a smoke) whenever anything from the 70s was played -- a decade which he claimed had produced absolutely no good music. I don't enjoy the company of people like that. I can't tell to what extent some of the people here have their tongue in cheek, or really would prefer to wish away music that has brought emotional release to so many others.

Helen, it's nice to see someone who's trying to reconcile others' differences :-) but the people I've met personally who routinely shoot down other people's music don't seem to care that other people may experience the music differently than themselves.