Asperger's & learning music

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Is it hard for other people with Asperger's to learn music, or is it just me? I haven't taken Irish harp lessons in years, but am thinking about starting to take them again. My original reason for stopping was monetary, but my second was how hard it was to learn. It was like pushing hard cheese through a fine sieve. It was absolutely painful! I always felt like I should pay my teacher extra because of how aggravating it must have been for her. My repertoure would never grow beyond five - six tunes because I forget anything previous when constantly learning new tunes. The only way I got a good grip on the tunes I now know by heart was by stopping lessons. Any thoughts? Insights?

Learning songs by heart is hard for me as well, but the playing itself comes almost naturally; like speaking a language (although i'm a brass player, that is a different technique).

I almost always have sheet music written in front of me, although after i while, i will know some passages internally and only use the sheets as reference and to remember the order of the passages; but this comes only after time and many repetitions

@izzeme- I'm guessing you have to sight read, too. That's another thing I'd never be able to do.

So, I saw my teacher at a concert last night & we talked about taking lessons again. I told her that I have Asperger's & that learning new harp music was always painfully difficult for me. She then told me that she always goes at the student's pace & that she went so fast with me because I was actually learning the music very quickly. Quicker than most. Imagine my surprise! All I could say was, "...you mean normal people have a harder time learning tunes than..me..?" I had been told that I had some kind of learning difficulty, amoung other things, that I figured i was performing poorly at the harp, too.

Memorization is not difficult. Trying to learn from a traditional approach is impossible, IMO.

Scales and notes usually seem mind-boggling, which most instructors don't understand. Since you think and comprehend differently, you gotta use what works for you. I've used synesthesia to memorize music for years.
Think "what am I hearing?" "How is my brain processing thing (sounds, shapes, colors, etc)?" "This is how I'm gonna remember this."

It's hard if I have to learn it "their" way. If I do it MY way, it's a lot easier. This is why I use online classes rather than teachers. And I can't follow others by listening, I have to see the notes.

Also: perservation is your friend here. Just over-learn the things you love -- you probably have more patience than NTs do for that.

I was put down for piano lessons as an extra curricular activity by my parents while I was at prep school(8-13).
In 5 years I made minimal if any progress. At the end could manage 2-3 very simple tunes. Whereas other pupils were taking grade 5/6 etc I never got to taking grade 1. I struggled with using my fingers which I think would have been a fine motor issue. I dropped the lessons when I went to public school.

Well, it's been nearly ten years since I started playing, but I do remember that I was slower figuring out how to Read music than my classmates at first. (Although, it quickly got to the point where the other trombones were watching my slide to keep up )

It also took me ages to really "get" counting rhythm. I had to fake it for several years by listening to the other players instead of counting for myself. I'm currently majoring in music in college and I've only just begun to get a really solid grasp on counting in the last few years. No idea if any of this has anything to do with autism though (I'm only "suspected" ASD anyway). I think some people just naturally learn faster than others.

i play violin and i started in august bc i wanted to participate in my school's orchestra program

i thought i wasn't very good and then we did our auditions a couple weeks ago and i've been put as second chair! my lessons teacher says i've progressed as much as most students do in a few years even though i've been playing less than a year.

maybe it depends on person? i've been interested in music from a young age and i've been playing other instruments for a long time....