Love playing music - don't go to gigs...

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I'm a musician with probable undiagnosed Asperger Syndrome, and I was wondering if anyone else has the same experience as me regarding music.

I currently play keyboards in a 9-piece ska/funk band (as far as I can tell the other band members are all NT). I love playing music, I enjoy being on stage, I never get stage-fright, and I get totally immersed in the music while I'm playing. But once I'm off the stage I just want to pack up my gear and drive home. I don't want to hang around to hear the DJ or the other bands (although recently I have done, but not usually out of choice). It's not that I dislike listening to music - it just has to be on my own terms. YouTube? Yes. CDs? Fine? Radio? Not usually - I have no control over what they're going to play.

And that's one reason why I don't go to other people's gigs. The other reason is quite simple - I'd rather be playing. I see the bass player or the keyboard player and wish I were up there on stage. I know it sounds selfish (or maybe it doesn't) but that's how it is. Incidentally, my entire social life is related to music - all my long-term friends are musicians, and band rehearsals and gigs are the only regular social event in my life. The rest of the band know that I'm a bit strange, but they just accept it - they're a nice group of people and I'm pleased to count them among my friends. My family have always supported my musical activities (even if my elder son is going through a "My dad's a rock musician - how embarrassing!" phase!).

I'm mostly the same. I go to play music, have fun performing, pick up my cheque (if any) and go home. I don't want to sit and watch others play bass/keyboard/Ukulele, I want to be playing. It's the same reason why I don't watch sports on the tele, I'd rather be doing than watching.

Hi! Nice to hear from you.

Before I joined The Skanx (my current band) I went through a 10-year stretch of not being in a regular band, and at that time I went to local jam sessions. What I found was that I just wanted to be on stage as much as possible, and a way round this was to guest on keyboards with the house band - keyboardists and bassists tend to be quite rare. Then I would stand in on bass for a couple of songs, and possibly even try a bit of rhythm guitar. Occasionally I outstayed my welcome, but I learned to hand over quickly if anyone else wanted to play bass or keyboards. Another thing to do is to turn up with a rare instrument (Theremin, anyone?) and you're unlikely to tread on anyone's toes! In fact, I really need to take my electric upright bass out of the house sometime...

My musical roots are in the Blues, and I did quite a lot of home recording at the time, multi-tracking bass, keyboards, harmonica and a bit of guitar in blues-related styles from boogie-woogie to funk. When I get "linking privileges" on this forum I'll post a link.

I often play solo, so I usually never have to worry about sharing with other people. :D Though as a result, I'm not good at syncing with a band. :\ I probably haven't as much gig experience as you too. My experience has been mostly school things and a couple shows on the side. Never played in a bar or anything you'd usually gig at. :P

My roots are in Jazz. I played bass for the both jazz bands at school as well as in all the music classes I've ever taken. Suffice it to say I'm Jazz trained. That's it though. I've been studying classical, rock and post-rock styles lately. But any bass line (Or any line for that matter) I do always has some element of Jazz. I've been branching out quite a lot to folk lately. I've been kinda ignoring the ol' Ibanez bass the past couple days for my keyboard and baritone uke...

I'm just going on and on now though. I do love talking instruments. My special interest is obscure instruments especially.

You might be interested in a website which I have been working on for the past 10 years - "Simon's Hall of Electric Pianos". It's a "train-spotter" site with information about (as far as possible) every electric piano ever commercially produced, from the 1929 Neo-Bechstein grand to the 2011 Vintage Vibe tine pianos.

Here is a link to some of my solo blues-based material including (I'm afraid) one vocal number and, more interestingly, a solo guitar composition of mine called "Sunflowers". You can also hear "Funky Hoedown", featuring my world debut on electric violin which turned out better than I expected, and "Late O'Clock Blues", featuring Wurlitzer electric piano, bass guitar and a subtle drum machine groove.

More recently I have been putting together some rather quirky arrangements of classic '60s and '70s songs which I call "Uneasy Listening". The idea behind this was to use as many unconventional instruments as possible; no guitars, no bass guitar, no conventional keyboards. So, for example my version of "Walk On By" uses three ukuleles, electric upright bass, Stylophone, penny-whistle, triple-tracked badly-played electric violin and chromatic harmonica. If you're interested, I've done half-a-dozen of these, including this video of "Do You Know the Way to San Jose", complete with Stylophone, kazoo "horn section" and harmonica solo.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-swFoCBSiOE[/youtube]

I'll definitely look through those when I get access to a computer (Can't because I'm on an ipod)

Never heard of a stylophone though.

The Stylophone is something of a 1960s/1970s British pop-cultural icon. It was a simple transistorised monophonic "organ" measuring about 6" by 4" and whose "keyboard" consisted of just under two chromatic octaves of printed-circuit pads, played with the metal tip of a ballpoint-like stylus (hence "Stylophone") connected by a thin wire.



Playing technique consists of sliding from one note to another, giving a characteristic "fretted organ" effect. There is a switch for vibrato, but essentially that's it. The instrument can be heard on David Bowie's "Space Oddity", especially under the first verse and later, the line "Tell my wife....". The Stylophone was heavily promoted by (and to this day associated with) an eccentric Australian entertainer called Rolf Harris whose photo appeared on the packaging and who narrated the play-along records available for the instrument.

A few years ago, a reissue appeared, instigated by the son of the Stylophone's inventor and the instrument became once again a huge success. The new version uses the same interface but with digital circuitry, two additional sounds and (joy of joys!) a volume control. This time Rolf was nowhere to be seen... You can buy them for about £10 ($15) at novelty shops or on-line.

There is a very funny series of videos on YouTube by "Brett Domino", the self-proclaimed world's greatest Stylophonist...

Yup! Me too.

If I do go to see another band, I will study technique rather than watch the performance.

I always thought that it was just me.

Yup! Me too.

If I do go to see another band, I will study technique rather than watch the performance.

I always thought that it was just me.

My wife tells me that when I listen to music, I'm always analysing it instead of just enjoying the sound - I'll say "I love that bass line!" or "Is that a Mellotron?" all the time. That's just what I hear. It means that even though I have no formal musical training I can analyse and (usually) reconstruct a piece of music by ear.

Here is an attempt to play classical music (Haydn's "St Anthony Chorale") on solo ukulele:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItcYgMXjiOI[/youtube]
Oops - now you can see what I look like!

I hear you. While I love to gig, I'm not into hanging out after. I will talk to fans if they want to, but I just prefer to pack up and go.

I also sometimes find it difficult to watch a band because I'll be analyzing the music, instead of just listening. I'd rather be up there playing.