When 16-year-old guitar prodigy Jack Heath plays or listens to music, he experiences it in a way that very few other people do.
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Jack is a synesthete - when he hears music he also sees a visual representation of it.
"It's hard to explain but when I listen to music I can relate it more to art because the musical notes become a visual thing," he says.
"In my mind I see them as colours and lines and textures, like in minimalist art or graphic design.
"It happens with other senses too - if I taste something it's like a visual experience also. It has something to do with the cross-wiring of the senses in the brain.
"I saw a psychiatrist and she told me that when the brain was forming wrong parts of the brain attach to wrong parts, more or less, so everything comes out in this one jumbled mental sense."
The Woonona teenager believes his synesthesia has helped him develop his musical talents, but his ability is also down to a lot of hard work and practice.
Jack has been playing for less than four years but is already an exceptional guitarist.
His mother gave him a guitar for Christmas when he was 13 and he says he hasn't put it down since, practising for hours every day.
He is now finishing high school at the Australian Institute of Music in Sydney.
"It is pretty much like a normal high school but with a magnified music component," Jack says.
"We do extra music classes and everything is music-based. It's a great environment to be in."
Two years ago he won a national competition with the prize of a jam session with guitar great Steve Vai. Earlier this year he won a similar contest for a masterclass and jam session with another guitar legend, Joe Satriani, beating 2000 other entrants who all entered videos of themselves playing a Satriani piece.
"He's one of my idols," Jack says. "I started playing guitar listening to his music and he was right up on a pedestal as one of the gods of guitar, so to play with him was pretty incredible."
Jack says his unusual condition makes it easier for him to remember pieces of music.
"It helps with memorising notes because I can remember what they look like," he says.
"It sounds really weird but they have a look and a shape and a feel and a smell to them - because all the senses are bundled into this one thing. It is almost tangible."
Synesthesia has also helped shape a passion for music that is both broad and deep.
"I've been playing music from all around the world, like Ethiopian jazz and Afro-Cuban music and just normal jazz, bossa nova," he says.
"I play R&B and I play rock and I play metal and blues, so just about everything.
"I think [synesthesia] lets me relate to music on a deeper level than most people."
Jack has also become adept on a variety of instruments - the piano, bass, drums and flute.
"Learning the guitar gave me a musical understanding so it was easy to adapt those musical skills to different instruments," he says.
When he finishes his studies Jack plans to be a professional musician, composing his own music, working as a session artist and writing scores for film and television.