Music is the "Go-To"

I recently read this great post by a teen with Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), "Music is my 'Easy' Button." Through that post, she enlightened me to three main reasons why music is so much more appealing than talking for people with APD:

1.  Talking (for those with APD) is monotone.  Music is the antithesis to monotone.
2.  Talking is fast.  Music has long pauses, which makes processing the words much easier.
3.  Talking is random.  Music has a beat or pattern, which helps in processing and remembering the words.

What a smart young lady to analyze why music is so helpful to her. I asked Meredith if this was the case for her as well and she definitely agreed. She expanded on the fact that music has long pauses by saying that each word itself is drawn out, and as a result, easier to process.

One thing I have always been curious about is why it is that Meredith struggles with repeating conversations that she has had, yet can remember all the words to almost every song she hears.

I suspect that synesthesia has something to do with how easy it is for Meredith to remember song lyrics. I know that Meredith sees colors when she hears music. When I asked her how she remembers the words, she said that along with the seeing colors from the music, she sees the words as well--kind of like you would see on a karaoke screen I imagine.  (This sounds like what some people describe as "ticker-tape synesthesia.") Each song has different colors and lyrics. For example, one song might elicit blue and purple and the words would be green. I would think that in some form or another, this must help her in remembering the lyrics.

One other interesting thing Meredith told me was that she can listen to music in her mind.  Not imagining the music, but actually hearing it.  Here is a story that explains this a little bit...

Meredith and one of her good friends like to send videos to each other. Meredith told me that this morning, she was singing a song (into a hairbrush microphone) and recorded it for her friend. When she played it back to herself, she was surprised because she didn't hear the music playing in the background along with her singing.  She then realized that the music she thought was playing out loud was actually just in her head!