A non-musical Aspie

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Here's the thing: I've read somewhere that Aspies/HFAs can be musical and have perfect pitch. The thing is, I don't read music and I found learning to play a violin quite boring, so I gave up, (this was in school). I liked the idea of playing a musical instrument, but found practising too much like hard work - this is a bete noire of mine; giving up when things become too much like hard work, or I find them boring.
Are there any other Aspies/HFAs, on here, who are not musically inclined? I can make songs up - words and tunes - quite easily. I don't write the words down andbecause I don't compose music, I can't write the tunes down.
Because I'm not musically inclined, does that mean I'm not an Aspie?

I am not really musically inclined as far as playing music, but I certainly enjoy listening to it.

It means you are within the range of variables of human abilities. It is going to take a lot more things than that to determine whether you are aspie or not. It would be nice to be musically knowledgeable and skill but that is not what life has given me. Even so, it is fun to make up song titles, band names, and play around with writing potential song lyrics.

I've found that if you set up a reward system for anything you want to get good at which takes years of practice is a good way to go about it. You'd have to figure out what to reward yourself in though.

For me every time I learn a song or a certain part of a song I just pretty much go and get my favorite food or drink. Small things.

I read a thing about this setting a reward system up for your brain so it expects it whenever you do something a while ago and it seems to work for me.

Keyword: "can".

Sure, some Autistics can be very musical and/or have perfect pitch. Others do not. Just like some NTs can be very musical and/or have perfect pitch. While others do not.

Personally, I couldn't carry a tune to save my life. I like listening to some music, but it's not a passion as it is with some of the people I know.

So, I too, am a non-musical Aspie.

I don't listen to a lot of music nor do I play any instrument.

I don't like listening to music. I mean I don't mind music but I'd rather not be listening to music.

I don't mind the piano music though I never learn't to play it. And I don't really want to play any instrument - I feel like it's too much work for nothing because I don't like spending time listening to music.

I'm speaking as a musical Aspie here, but as with everything else, the important thing to note is that there are two ends to the thread. Some Aspies are very musical, others not so much, if at all. I think it chiefly depends on which hemisphere of your own brain works more prominently.

I've heard about Aspies who excel at math and whatnot but couldn't do anything artistic for the life of them, as well as artistic Aspies who, for lack of a better word, suck at math. And I myself am a prime example of the latter. Like I said, there are two ends to the thread.

I am better at artistry than I am at mathematics, though I have never felt particularly artistic...like I mean its hard for me just from scratch come up with a creative idea. I like other peoples so I tend to incorporate that, I mean the treelike war-hammer miniatures I recently painted I did in a scheme based on certain trees in Game of Thrones so yeah looks awesome but I didn't come up with white bark, read leaves and red bloody looking sap coming out of their faces that's a reference from something else. I also did ok with a charcoal portrait sketching class but that was doing sketches of photos of people or live models not drawing a face you made up...I suppose if I had really liked it I could have chacoal sketched whatever rather than sticking to that but can't say I really got that much into it.

So yeah I am not super creative, I enjoy creativity also find like facts and scientific knowledge very interesting...but I am bad at the mathematical parts of thinking about it also not very good at memorizing small details. Like for example I might describe something I learned and someone else will at some point describe the same thing but just with more technical wording. And of course I really like music but not so much playing it or attempting, I have kind of learned very small parts of songs on keyboard but anything more is realistically too daunting and I don't have the motivation. I don't even have the amp for the base guitar I bought a few years back anymore. Not a very good one anyways, I tried taking it to a pawn shop and they had no interest in it whatsoever.

I am like this. I am a fairly good artist. I spent a lot of my childhood drawing but I can't draw from scratch really. I could draw some very elaborate pictures and make them identical to the source material but I couldn't do it from memory or from my imagination. I guess that just like being able to mirror social skills. I haven't drawn in a while but I'd like to get back into it.

As for music, I don't have perfect pitch. I never really learned to read sheet music or music theory. Never had a professional class. I taught myself a little bit of violin, harmonica and flute. Also piano, which I know a little better. Oddly, I can compose music if I feel like it (but I can't draw from scratch?). I can get by with sheet music if I'm singing a song and looking at it, I'll know when to pause, stop, and I can sort of tell pitch. But that's it.

i've never been more than decent at the clarinet, i don't instinctively understand pitches, rhythm is beyond me.
still managed to get a 3 on my AP music theory test in high school.

but barely. i am the worst at aural skills. also, in my year's test one of the songs to aurally notate was really randomly a k-popish song. that was hard to adjust to and i did very badly haha

i also suck at math, unless its very basic visual/practical.
i would never consider myself to be musically inclined. the only thing that makes me seem okay is because i've put effort into it.

Lol even if thus far I have only gotten frustrated ever trying to learn instruments and gave up on it..I still find myself interested in the idea of playing instruments, and I like instruments they are interesting to me and sort of works of art in themselves. I am kind of curious about the Hurdy Gurdy I learned about it looking into what instruments folk metal bands use outside of typical modern instruments:


Or at the very least I'd like one to display on the wall or something as its a cool looking instrument, seems like it could be simple to learn to play at least a little but that is what I thought about drums when I joined band class in middle school to someday get good at drums...stayed in band throughout highschool, never learned to drum..at least nothing more than very basic stuff on a single drum.

If you can make up tunes, I think you ARE quite musical! And creatively musical at that, which is rarer. It's just that you're not geared towards playing instruments or reading music notation, which are particular skills that not all musicians have. Not all professional musicians, even. And perfect pitch is actually quite rare.

The drummer in my band knows nothing about music notation and theory. He keeps saying he's "not really a musician," to which the rest of us reply "look, you're playing the drums. You're a musician, all right?"

According to legend, Pavarotti became the world's most famous opera singer without ever learning to read music. He did it all by ear. I certainly couldn't do that. Also, I don't think he ever bothered picking up an instrument in his life.

When you make up songs, could you sing them into a voice recorder on your phone or something? I know some songwriters who do that to make sure they don't forget the tune.

Aphex Twin can't read music. It bores him so he finds ways around it.
Here he is controlling an orchestra.



I can read music but I prefer to use intuition (and find it easier). 'Musical ears', my teacher used to call it.

Absolutely not.



This is a common thing among aspies. If I'm not interested in doing something, it's almost like I can't do it, even if logically I should be able to. The information doesn't stick, my brain won't cooperate, etc.

So I guess I'm musical?

I play everything by ear, and sometimes I can play something as I'm hearing it even if I haven't done it before (basic notes, nowhere near perfect pitch). I can also play and sing simultaneously. I want to learn all these songs and have the sheet music for them (I'll be honest, 80% of it is video game music) but it's easier to just play it by ear for me. And the sheet music I have learned, I committed to memory like everything else I play so I can't actually look at sheet music and simultaneously play...which kind of makes it useless. My brain doesn't work that way.

I've been told that's a good thing. I guess I should give up on the idea that I have to be able to read sheets.

As far as I know a lot of members of metal/rock bands don't actually know how to read music, yet it still sounds awesome so there is that. Problem with me is I can't read music or play by ear...

holyy.y....i did not know that about aphex twin

genius