Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES • WINTER 2016 • sai-national.org 18 F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z My middle school band conductor stared down at us, holding up her baton, ready to cue us to start the piece. And although its name escapes me, I don't believe I will ever forget it, what I heard…what I saw. While we were playing, I swore to myself I could see colors dancing in my vision, as if they were swirls of smoke filtering my view. A pastel blue and gray haze manifested as a so orange churned within the fog. As the piece concluded, I rubbed my eyes…but the colors were gone. My high school band director stood behind the piano at the front of the room, the side conversations dying down almost immediately, signaling the start of class. We always warmed up like this — singing in solfege, then playing it back on our instruments. But as the room filled with the sound of trumpets, clarinets, saxophones, and many other instruments uniting in a resounding concert B flat major, I gasped silently. e deepest, purest, most beautiful shade of emerald green I had ever seen filled my view. Once again, it was as if someone had placed a filter over my eyes. Every once in a while a sparkling gold would glitter in its depths. e colors would appear again and again, changing depending on the timbre, the texture, the elements of the music themselves. e end of Alfred Reed's "Russian Christmas Music" is to this day a favorite of mine because of the bright gold and white which covers my eyes every time I listen to it, as if the gates of Heaven itself were opening before me. It is why I call concert D major "God's key signature." Concert E-flat major has a blue tint to it, like the bright Kentucky sky on a cloudless summer day. Concert D-flat major is like so lavender with shades of a deep royal violet dancing within it. And yet, I said nothing. Couldn't everyone see the world the way I saw it? It wasn't until college that I learned that the answer to this question was a resounding "no." I remember the term synesthesia being tossed around. But what does that mean? According to Jack Dutton's article "The surprising world of synaesthesia" in the February 2015 issue of Psychologist, synesthesia is "a condition in which sensory input from one cognitive stream gives rise to sensory input from another unstimulated cognitive stream" which affects "roughly 4.4% of the population." In other words, your senses get "mixed up." There are many different forms of synesthesia. Some people can taste colors. I know another person who just knows that certain numbers have particular colors and genders. In my case, it was chromaesthesia — seeing colors in sound. The stories I have shared are just two of the countless instances in my life where the colors of music have unfolded themselves before me. Synesthesia is beautiful, but it can have drawbacks. I have trained myself to cope with and even somewhat block it, as sometimes the colors can get very strong. Sia's hit single "Chandelier" is a very deep purple — swirls of countless shades of the color, accompanied by flashes of white and black. It's hard to even see in front of me; I have to sit down and wait until the song is over or skip the song by changing the station or pressing the next button on my iPod. I also live with Bipolar Disorder and Sensory Integration Dysfunction, a mood disorder and sensory processing disorder respectively. In my mania, sometimes the synesthesia becomes hard to control; it's as if my brain is traveling at a million miles an hour. Similarly, if I am exposed to too much stimulation, I can have a "sensory overload." One of the signs of an impending overload is unrestrained synesthesia — not just of music, if there is music playing, but of all of the sound that is in the room. Sometimes I'm asked if I could see the world like "a regular person." To be perfectly honest, I give the same answer as to the question of whether or not I was "normal" — a resounding "no." Seeing music — not just in the sense of looking at sheet music, but watching the colors that unfold before me when I listen to it — creates a kind of connection to the divine power of music. Really, there are no other words to describe it other than "divine." It's almost like I am experiencing the world on a different plane than others. This doesn't mean that I think I'm a better musician than other people — far from it. It's just how I experience the world. It's a reminder to me about the gift of music in this life. And it's a reminder of why I joined Sigma Alpha Iota in the first place — to spread this joy and beauty across America and the world. Rebekah McAuliffe is a Junior at Morehead State University pursuing a degree in Elementary Education/Learning & Behavior Disorders Special Education. She was initiated into the Gamma Upsilon Chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota in Spring 2013. She is also the award-winning, bestselling author of the book Gears of Golgotha. SEEING MUSIC Living With Synesthesia synesthesia is "a condition in which sensory input from one cognitive stream gives rise to sensory input from another unstimulated cognitive stream" which affects "roughly 4.4% of the population."

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