Who can play musical instruments?

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With enough practice and determination, I think most Aspies could master pretty much any co-ordination skill.

After a great deal of practice, I became quite good on rhythm guitar as long as the chords aren't too hard, can play a passable solo, and can play some nice stuff on keyboards, and I can sing, don't know if that counts as an instrument (it's the one I put the most work into). I'm not a virtuoso, and tend to stick within fairly tight limits, but what I do, I tend to do well.

Autistic traits do influence my playing though.

I'm OK about the noise, I don't feel particularly upset by noise that I'm making myself, I guess because it's fairly predictable and under my control (unlike the bloody neighbours), and distraction doesn't apply because I'm supposed to be listening to the sound I'm making anyway. I've played in rock bands that are very loud, but it's usually rather quieter on stage.

I focus so much on the sound that when I perform, I largely ignore the visual dimension, and the spoken bits between songs.

I get too perfectionist and spend ages smoothing out rough edges that nobody else notices. I didn't like the way the interval between the nut and the first fret is usually slightly too large on guitars, because it makes open chords sound slightly out of tune to me (though everybody else seems to get away with it), so I try to work around it by tuning down a semitone and always using a capo, which means I have to calculate the increase in string thickness I need to exactly offset the slackening of the strings required for the de-tune. I never quite feel my guitar is in tune anyway.

In the past I've had trouble reconciling my own stringent standards and rigidly personal tastes with the preferences of the musicians I've played with. I tend to want to do the mixing as well as performing, which I can't do, and I don't like being at the mercy of an amateur mixing man I don't know. I can't easily get other musicians to try out my detailed ideas, it feels too bossy to push them very far that way, so I've always needed to record my own multi-track versions of most of the songs I wanted to play, so my own ideas can get expressed, and doing the whole thing myself takes ages - there are too many things I can tweak to improve the sound, too many options, and I'm not very experienced with good drum parts.

I keep finding myself trying to copy existing records instead of making my own, different version. It works out quite well usually, because it's almost impossible to copy a record exactly, so the shortfall passes off as my interpretation. I'd be in hog heaven in a Beatles tribute band, but I'd also feel I was missing out on doing something original.

I get massively distracted into the technology and theory of playing at the expense of artistic expression. While most musicians are working on the art of playing, I'm making electronic gizmos, programming music computers, or making A-B comparison recordings to document the effect of changing to new guitar strings. The results are often impressive, but it's not art.

I often feel drained for a few minutes after a performance, because I focus so strongly on getting it right.

I tend to latch onto individual songs rather than noticing any particular genre, so I often raise the hopes of people who hear me play one song - they think I'm steeped in that genre and they ask me if I know some band or other, I say no. Loads of famous musicians I've never heard of.

I find it difficult to play impromptu or unrehearsed, and to take technical hassles in my stride. I can't think of a song to play just like that, I have to look at long lists of songs I know, and try to find the best one, which takes too long. Small changes in the acoustics of the building can throw me.

But none of those things have been fatal, and I've managed to reconstruct myself to some extent.

I notice a lot of coincidences with characteristics of Asperger's and that of the god/principle Mercury/Hermes. Fluid information, musical/artistic talents, mathmatic savants and others. But there's also the communication issues. Communication is supposed to be a specialty for Hermes.

I'm good at the music but I am horrible at being in front of audiences. Last time I checked anyway. It's been awhile.

I really identified with these statements. Especially the one about playing unrehearsed and technical difficulties. I used to have recurring nightmares about forgetting key pieces of gear or something not working correctly during a show. When something did go wrong I really had to work to keep my mind in the game.

Ritualdrama mentioned problems with being in front of an audience. I always kind of hid in the back (or the darkest part) of the stage and turned my rig sideways. I would look up at the audience occasionally but that would usually overload my senses. I learned to just focus on what I was playing and let the other guys work the crowd.

I have an "ok" ability, I think.
I have a keyboard and I'm nowhere near as good as I wanted to be mainly because of motor coordination issues. But after so many time trying I can play it quite nicely today.

Yes it's hard to attend to an unexpected task (the technical hitch) and to the audience at the same time. Slowly I'm getting better at it. Seems to be a matter of sharing the problem with the audience, ideally by turning it into a joke, if only I can think of one in time. But when that can be done, it can turn the hassle into an asset. People seem to quite like it. I've seen confident performers just laugh it off with the audience. It mostly seems to be a matter of not worrying (no wonder I'm no good at it). I think performers sometimes even fake a problem just so they can crack a pre-arranged joke.

I can sort of play freestyle on the harmonica, since all I need to do is move my mouth along a general axis. But I can't do anything requiring fingering or any semblance of embouchure; I can never get the notes to map to my fingers, and I can never get my mouth right if I have to do anything special with it.

I play piano and saxophone very well.

I don't know what people are referring to when they say people on the spectrum have problems with fine-muscle coordination. I have taught two diagnosed piano students, and probably a couple of others that were undiagnosed. No problems with fine motor skill coordination.

The people I have met with terrible coordination are dyslexic. I have taught two diagnosed dyslexics, and at least one other that was likely undiagnosed. Perhaps a specific learning difficulty is what leads to the fine-motor skills problem, and it just happens to be that many on the spectrum have this learning disorder?

I am clumsy, but it involves my larger muscles/whole body. I trip easily, bump into things, and the like.

My handwriting is not incredibly neat, but it is legible. I know many, many people with much worse writing (who are also likely on the spectrum.)

What I see, and I'm going to start a thread about this, is MUSCLE TENSION. This DOES affect how easily or well an instrument is played, but is different from the actual fine motor "skill."

I play piano, violin, clarinet, and saxophone. I'm best at piano, and I can only read sheet music for piano. I also like to make electronic music.

i can play intermediate violin, guitar and tuba and beginning piano. my poor manual dexterity, however, prevents me from being really good and from having pursued music as a career.

And yet another reminder to pick up that guitar that I have but have been to busy/lazy to play and too broke to get lessons!

Here's some thoughts - musical instruments are like machines, and there's maths in music (though someone once told me that every note starts in Chaos, an M.A. in electronic music, or so he said).

Also, looking at me, I'm good at analysing poetry - if it has pictures in the mind for me to find, and to a degree, I can turn fairly abstract writing into pictures in the mind (Walter Pater on pondering what Beauty is? _ aggh! it just hurts).

Now, go far enough back in history and poetry is called numbers, or numbers is another name for poetry.

So poetry has maths in it, or a mathematical base or frame or cage for the meaning, or whatever. The pictures in the mind haven't. Interestingly, to my mind, if you push the severity of the maths and strict rhyme rules (sonnets), it can result in even more distinct pictures in the mind (?) - I think so, or it works on me. Francis Bacon MP wrote using the parallel of music in praising sonnets - a tune sounds brighter through a smaller trumpet. (Goo goo muck).

Playing a musical instrument can be a very taut experience. I'm thinking about classical guitar at the moment, or flamenco, the adoption of un natural posture, severe hand positions. And again, jazz woodwinds, the rigidity of Charlie Parker's mouth and the fluidity of his solos. Or what can happen to your life if you take an instrument seriously, the astonishing beauty of Art Pepper's solos and the actuality of the man's life. Contradictions that unite (?) extreme orderliness and chaos.

To play the sax well takes / develops a mathematical sense in that lipping the notes into tune needs an appreciation of logarithmical relationships, the instrument is a cone and the section is actually slightly oval, getting the thing to play well can be very complex. "An ill wind that nobody plays any good" said someone on the jazz scene years ago. You don't need to be conscious of logarithims to play sax, you just get on with it - repeat until you fail then fail better. It's just that you're definitely on a machine with the sax.

Don't know what I'm saying anymore. Attracted to rigidity used with chaos to make beauty.

More ponderings from my trailer park ivory tower later, if you'll all stand for it. Gig tonight impersonating music a la Blues Brothers - better than hanging round on street corners.

Anyone seen an Ondes Martenot?, I'd love one of them. The name sounds like an exotic pet in a zoo.

I can play the spoons.

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I play violin and used to sing in a choir. The music notation program I have used since 1998 lends itself to scripts and other means of manipulating text and have written my share of them.

I own a few musical instruments, but I don't have a single synapse dedicated to musical talent. I was taught keyboards when I was a kid, but my performance was strictly and painfully rote memory. There have been times I really, really wish I could play something, anything well enough too be asked to do so. I recently bought a handcrafted bodhran from Ireland, and my family and friends wondered aloud if it would just gather dust. I admitted that I probably wouldn't learn to do much with it, but, because of the man who made it, it will likely appreciate in value; so it was an investment to me.

I hate being known for my lack of musical talent.

^ that.



I do not think so. The Aspie community is as diverse as people in the normal "spectrum", some got it, some don't. Temple grandin described 3 types of Aspies:

1) The math type - someone who geek down on a specific subject and become very good at that.
2) The musician with a good spatial ability. (This is me).
3) The "walking database" who can remember things well.

I can record things in my head, like music and images. I can listen to something once and replay it on instruments (that i know how to play on), normal people thinks this is special for some reason, this is not a trait unique to the world of Autism, but it is prevalent. I have a set of digital drums (TD11KV with dual kick and one extra cymbal), one cheap guitar + Metal distortion and a RC3 loopstation + a keyboard and Reason 7. Havent played much recently since a bad thing happened a few months ago.

I spent my teens writing a pile of .mod's on Protracker on the Amiga. I had loads of discs with 8 bit samples, some of the music i made was quite complex and of high quality. Dont know where those discs are now...

I also write code (been a teacher in VB, C++, Javascript etc), i read exceptionally fast, i can also see patterns very well and one of my long lasting special interests is Cryptography (another subject i have taught in, twice).

Things like these just "flows" out of me.