Our Prowess as Artists

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That makes a fair amount of sense. The autistic spectrum does tend towards extremes. We tend to be either very good at something or very bad at it, with little middle ground.

Art, design, guitar, singing, and surprise, surprise....
Acting.

But I'm also math and science gifted, although except when I'm acting, I am a bit of an unemotional machine...

Sorry it hurts your ears! Lol. The castings are tuned a certain way unique to bells, and with most metal instruments there is a higher degree of inharmonicity that you don't get with other kinds of instruments. But there's nothing you can do about it.

Our set is three octaves, so 37 bells in all. And yes, they are expensive since we're dealing with fine bronze alloy, let alone craftsmanship that goes into making them. The bells we play are loaner Schullies. We're trying to save enough to buy an identical set of Malmarks, but that will still run us just over $9000.

The real talent is figuring out how to make it all easier to handle. We're learning traveling four-in-hand, but it's slow going at the moment.

Unemotional acting is a large issue for me as well jamieevren1210, But I don't do acting so it's not a big issue for me.

Also I have another one to add: guitar. Recently picked up guitar again and found my rhythm skills are very good. Lead parts not as much, but only some like lead guitar playing I imagine.

$9,000 dollars for a good quality instrument is insane to me, well crafted or not. The most expensive thing I'm looking at is a $1,900 6 string Musicman bass, buit that's absolutely top quality and plays everything perfectly. I imagine a superb set of 3 octave bells would be ungodly expensive...guess that's why you always have a few people, so that the costs are split

Definitely. I am very talented at drawing - I can draw things exactly as I see them, but only if I'm "in the zone". This is a state of hyper-focus in which I am completely absorbed in my subject, and it's just a translation from what is in front of me onto paper. I can also pick up any instrument and figure out how to play it very quickly, and play it fairly well, from being able to listen closely to the sound. It's a combination of extreme focus and an attitude of "Yep, I shall learn this and it shall be good." I've been working for a while, since I started art school, on killing that Doubt-Monster that likes to hang out in that carnival of anxiety that swirls in our heads. That headspace is a huge factor. If I'm convinced I can do something, just like that, I can learn to do it, and well..... except for team sports, politics, economics, or card games. Haha.

Basically, yeah. I think aspie talent is a translation of our noticing skills.

Nuerotypicals love to tell autistic artists to "first learn the basics". The nuerotypicals do not want to admit that the autistic artist is a genius but would rather nit pick the art work in order to find imperfections.

Handbells are typically purchased by large institutions like churches, high schools, and some college or universities. You're not likely to find individuals who will invest in them, but there are a few dedicated solo players who will sink money into a 2-octave set (25 bells). The ones that do create a pretty heavy demand for themselves and get high-paying gigs, so ultimately they get a huge return on their investment. But it takes a lot of time to build up the skill to get those kinds of gigs. I want to go in a less traditional direction, but while we're learning the instrument and the advanced techniques, we settle for interlocking 4-in-hand just playing simple hymn melodies and playing every few months at a nursing home. The kind of playing I have on my youtube channel takes months to learn, but as we get better it should take less time to work up new material.

As far as spending a lot of money, it strictly depends on what you're spending it on and what your musical goals are. I like the sound of vintage instruments, but I don't have much money to spend. So it's better to splurge on ONE high-end monstrosity while picking up a few under-appreciated pieces off eBay. I chose the Synclavier as my primary go-to synth, and I have it MIDI'd up to some less expensive DCO analogs, some Yamaha FM synths, an Akai sampler, and maybe even my laptop running Absynth for some granular synthesis, and even my Korg X50 for those classic Triton sounds.

I spent $3500 on my clarinet early in my college days, and it certainly paid off in the long run. Money has certainly never been anything we had a lot of, so decisions on spending have had to be very careful in the risk/benefit analysis. When it comes to electronic instruments, I have to ask: 1) What are my musical goals? and 2) Is there ANY other way to reach that goal without THIS instrument? You can't polish a turd. So if you lack musicianship from the outset, owning a Synclavier won't magically make you sound better, no matter how much money you spend on vintage instruments. But if you DO know what you're doing, having the best tools will only make a good product sound better.

Actually, art is what I'm best at. I play virtuoso level pieces for the piano and guitar. Try looking up this to see the sort of music I play the most:

http:/ /www.y outu be.com/w atch ?v=Z6 KVpXH_ miM

They won't let me give links yet, so you'll have to remove the spaces in the link.

Lukecash12, how long have you been playing? I am getting close to virtuoso level after a year and a half.

My drawing has come to a halt though, not finding things that inspire me much.

How long, eh? Honestly I've been playing for as long as I can remember. That's one of the primary reasons everyone started to think I was autistic, because I started playing music as just about as soon as I could handle an instrument on my lap. I started playing the guitar on my lap, with the neck and face pointed up at my chin, not out away from me. Those are fond memories... It's too bad I'm not going to major in music.

I'm not sure what your definition is of virtuoso musicianship. My understanding of it is that a virtuoso is someone comfortable adding just about any piece to his/her repertoire (but I guess that's just my understanding of it in terms of music talk with other musicians, because the term has traditionally been reserved for masters). If you're at that point in terms of technical capability, being able to play whatever piece you want to comfortably, then congratulations for your inspiring progress. It's pretty rare for someone to be that precocious.

It has taken me years of very hard work to progress as an artist. There has been no instant or quick savant about it. What I do have is single minded determination and focus. Then it seems to me that in most things I've had to put in three times the effort to get the same results as most people. Perhaps the final result is much richer, but that may not be for me to know.

Well are you talking about art in general or the form of art you are trying to get very good at?

I am at that point Lukecash12, just have to get better with my fret tapping and I'll be there by your logic. I have been doing things involving music sicne age 7 after hearing Sevendust's Home, so I can relate to you.

I suppose I'm talking about my life in general where it seems to me I've had to try three times as hard as most people to acheive the same thing. I suspect that talent has to be there in the first place somehow. I may have been showing a bit of talent from the beginning, but by that time felt I had to be another Frans Hals to be acceptable at all. I was not allowed to go to an art school as a kid and never did much at school in any case, so I began later in life. I am far from being a genius, but you can see my work on this forum.

The greatest compliment I've ever received on my artwork ironically took the form of a subaverage grade on an assignment when I was a freshman at art college. As you might expect, I had mandatory figure drawing and anatomy courses. One day, our instructor gave us a little piece of homework. We were supposed to practice freehanding some figure drawing from our textbooks. So, that night, I went back to my apartment, and I opened up the book, and I started drawing what I saw. The next time the class convened, I handed in my assignment.

A couple weeks passed, and finally we got our graded homework handed back to us. I opened up my portfolio and found a Post-It note stuck to the front with a grade of C indicated in red ink. Understandably, I was upset, because I didn't understand what I had done so poorly to warrant such a low grade. So, after the class, when the rest of the students had filed out of the studio, I approached my instructor and asked, "Can you please explain what I did wrong? Why did you give me a C?"

The instructor looked squarely at me and said, "You didn't follow instructions. The assignment was to draw, freehanded, what you saw in your book. You weren't supposed to trace. The point of the exercise is lost if you're going to trace."

I was sort of stunned. Finally, I was able to reply, "I didn't trace. I freehanded, like you said." And then, to argue my case, I was forced to get out my drawings and open the textbook once more, and show the instructor that the scaling of my drawings was larger than the ones in the book. It wasn't until I pointed this out that the instructor realized that I truthfully had drawn, and not traced, the selected images. My drawings had been so accurate in detail that they had even fooled the instructor.

Needless to say, she retracted my C in favor of an A.

That's incredible Chevand. I am a pretty good drawer but not nearly at that level, for me it is bass guitar that I do very well at. But to do freehand as if it were an outline? Incredible...