AS and Musical Talents (not sure if this belongs here)

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I know this may not apply to some of you, but is there a correlation between AS and musical abilities (e.g. perfect pitch, being able to play something by hearing it, ect.), even if it isn't a savant? I've had experiences with that, I guess, but I'm not sure if it has anything to do with Asperger's.

Well in my house I have 3 autistic people, I am pretty sure I am too but haven’t gotten diagnosed as of yet. Still working on it. I picked up a guitar around 14, I just started playing notes, within a few weeks I was figuring out chords and scales, people say I’m really good but being a perfectionist I am never happy with my work. I still can’t read or right music, but I record my own pieces which people seem to like. I can also play anything I hear ( if I like it ).

We were at a concert last year and I told my fiancé that the cello was not in tune, she didn’t believe I could hear it over the other 50 instruments, sure enough they stopped to tune it right after I said it… it was like nail on a chalk board to me…

My 13 year old also autistic is already composing his own classical music and performing.

My fiancé also aspie wrights her own music and plays.she has a wonderful voice too.

None of us are savants just good at music.

Temple Grandin, in her many books on autism, talks about the three types of AS. "They are: (i) visual thinkers such as I who are often poor at algebra, (ii) pattern thinkers... who excel in math and music but may have problems with reading or writing composition, and (iii) verbal specialists who are good at talking and writing but they lack visual skills." I think I am third type, but I do have visual skills... however, I am definitely not the second type. I suck at math and music both. I'm jealous now.

Honestly I think I'm developing Perfect pitch. I've also been able to pick up new instruments with extreme ease. The only one that wasn't easy was guitar(due to the myriad of techiques you can learn on it.)

I'm a pattern thinker. I'm a very musical aspie.

As far as a know, it's a typical talent - like math. I'm no genius, but I can play a lot of stuff by ear. My ex was a classical pianist, and she couldn't do it at all. Which really used to annoy her :p

i'm temple grandin's third type too i do write songs though, and actually i'm not bad at "hearing" music, or singing

Asperger's is believed to be genetic. I suspect that I have it but no official diagnosis. My dad is definitely a little eccentric but I don't know if he has it. He gets along well enough with others in a social setting, but he always picks eccentric crowds like hippies, animal rights extremists (and I say that as a vegetarian, they are extreme even for me), jazz musicians, etc. So maybe he's socially awkward but masks it by hanging out with other eccentrics that make him look normal. I really don't know.

I do have an above average ear. Not perfect pitch, but excellent relative pitch. I did ear training classes in high school and always scored top of the class for relative pitch. My mind is very aural. I have heard some autistics describe their mind as being like a movie with the way that they play back memories. I can do that with the audio but not the visual, especially with music that I have heard a few times over.

My dad on the other hand does have perfect pitch. It just came to him one day as a child. He can hear any song and play it back on any instrument that he knows. And he can pick up most any instrument and after fiddling with it for a bit (pun intended) be able to play some songs on it. He's excellent at improvisation. This is in any genre, not just jazz / rock. He can even improvise while playing classical music. He used to improvise Phantom of the Opera melodies underneath church hymns when he played music for his local Catholic church. No one noticed except me.

Not me. I am tone deaf and I don't have the dexterity to play stringed instruments. It all stinks because I love music,

Same here.

I compose and play music on the piano. I taught myself as a child. I can play by ear, I also memorize sheet music the first time I play it and then I don't read it again.

what you said made a lot of sense to me. Surprisingly, I play the guitar and i have attended lessons. My guitar teacher told me that I can quickly identify the notes and sounds when i play it. My teacher also said that people RARELY find notes through sounds. I believe this had something to do with having AS since having it can increase our sensory stimuli especially for hearing sounds like you said musical abilities. It is also responsible for some people who are sensitive to loud noise for have AS.

I may be the pattern music/math type, but I still visualize music/math, but I really enjoy playing piano.

I'm a pattern/music type for sure. essentially music is a pattern I do have strong visual thinking also, but that too is related to patterns. I never realised until I found out about ASD, but just about everything I enjoy is a pattern in one form or another.

I've unfortunately no perfect pitch, and almost no "melodical" (not sure what world to use here...) creativity, but I think that I'm benefited by Aspie/autistic traits in two ways:
(Warning: long and boring to read)

1. Mathematical/Analytic approach/view:
I've a good sense of rhythm. I remember myself as a kid trying to analyse rhythms.
I remember taking a popular rhythm of clapping/horns in football matches, and analysing it as (if we define O as the note):
OXOX OOOX OOOO XOOX
I've cut it out to four pieces of four, because everything relates to this number in my head.
Then I realised that if I just repeatedly hit something with my hands, but using different hands for O and for X, or using different notes on a guitar/keyboard, or different volumes/energy when playing it, I would get this tune.

I had no knowledge of music, but later on I understood that it's mathematics, and that pretty much that what I wrote earlier with the O's and the X's in a TAB. Playing the X's almost silently is the same concept as playing ghost notes for some funk guitarists/bassists (like when bass slapping is used for percussion). So I think that my mathematical/analytical approach to life, and to looking at things, led me to understand mathematics of rhythm. Plus, as I like routines/patterns, which I also relate to my autism (which I didn't know about, then), I think it also helps me to figure out rhythms and remember them (oh, and also good memory, and visualisations, which I'll right about as well).

I sometimes improvise rhythms, but I have a hard time improvising tunes/melodies. I like imagining that I'm drumming, which probably would've been good for me. I'm having more trouble at improvising using different notes, because the difference between different drums, or cymbals, is more easier/natural for me to grasp than the difference in notes/chords.
And even when I write something, I can almost always play it on different scale, as long as it's based on the same concepts of time, mathematics, length, and relations between note position. I like to play tunes (either mine or other people's) and "play" with alternating their structure, but I'm much better and comfortable with changing the rhythm/timing/lenght of notes than changing the actual notes.

2. Tactile defensiveness, synesthesia:
I have a good ear for recognising the length of a note, the way it's played, etc. I relate this to me being sensitive to sounds, as all my senses are pretty much sensitive... Plus I have syensthesia, which may help, sometimes even with notes. And those sensory conditions are related to my autism as well I think.

I can listen to someone playing a song I know, and if it's out of tune there's a good chance that I won't notice at all, if it's "close". But if it's slightly different in the length of one note, or let's say in the numbers of note played in a row - like when some bassist plays a lot of notes rapidly, let's say someone plays 17 instead of 19 or 18 - even without counting and recognising the right number, I would just know immediately that something is wrong.

I also visualise the basslines I'm playing/hearing, in a way that it's hard to define. Colours are related not to perfect pitch, but somewhat to the tone. I visualise the length, and see the order of the notes in front of my eyes, as well. If it's different notes, I also "see" some difference, which is hard to explain - but I have to figure out the notes before I play... Once I know what notes to play, I hardly don't make mistakes regarding the rhythm or way to play them. I have different visualisations in my head of notes according to the power/style of play, too - as pick/finger/slap/pop, or hardly-touching-the-string/touching-it-almost-violently/degrees-in-between, or playing-close-to-the-neck/playing-close-to-the-bridge/playing-in-the middle, etc.
I relate the sound of the note played to the different feeling of playing it, and not only to the different tone/volume/additional-sounnds, because I'm also sensitive to touch.

Overall:
As I play bass, I find these two things very useful. I like to keep in mind the rhythm in relation to the vocals/guitar/drums/whatever. I'm hardly melodic as I said, but I like to see if I play one thing for Verse A, and then change it slightly for Verse B, it changes the feeling of the song.
And since it's a very physical instrument, and I feel "intimate" with it, I like the varieties of feelings when playing using different methods or different styles.

Last edited by Omerik on 11 Dec 2010, 10:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

the only thing i could classify as a talent would be my increasingly shaky perfect pitch [not so perfect these days]. i have no musical ability whatsoever, but i can tune musician's instruments for them.