- Hearing is the dominant sense when it comes to music. The human ear is finally tuned to pick up vibrations and send those signals to the brain to be interpreted as sounds. Some people, however, have more finally tuned ears than others; there are people who naturally have perfect pitch, and others who have been trained to play or compose music.
- Touch is another sense often associated with music; after all, perceived sounds are translations of vibrations, and these vibrations can be picked up by the sense of touch. Bass sounds are particularly easy to feel, but most sounds can be felt if enough volume is applied and attention is given. Many deaf people experience music by feeling it rather than hearing it.
- Some people have a condition called synesthesia that confuses sensory inputs and leads to involuntary secondary sensory interpretations; current research indicates that there is a neurological basis for this condition, a possible overlap or entanglement of some kind between regions of the brain dedicated to one particular sense, but the exact cause is not yet known. One variation of synesthesia causes the person to "taste" music; though it is very uncommon, people with this type of synesthesia might, for example, experience a sweet taste when they hear a certain pitch or instrument.
- A far more common form of synesthesia is the visual interpretation of -- or "seeing" -- sound. A certain pitch, for instance, will often be associated with a specific color. In the book "Wednesday Is Indigo Blue," the author Richard Cytowic describes the experience as "something like fireworks." Depending on the individual case, synesthesia may be triggered by only a few specific tones or by the whole audible spectrum. There are many notable musicians with synesthesia, including Ida Maria and Brian Chase (the drummer from Yeah Yeah Yeahs).
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