Can Aspies be good songwriters?

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Well, I heard that my favourite guitarist only plays 3 strings, and that his parts are fairly easy to play; But let's face it - people's tastes change overtime... And to be honest, I haven't even started playing guitar, I was just *contemplating* it over the past few months.

I appreciate all of the posts, but I'm not sure how to answer each and every one of you personally, so - just thanks. Maybe I'll reply to everyone overtime.

I've been writing now off and on for about twenty years.

The biggest problem I've had in terms of my "Aspieness" is literal thinking, which leads my lyrical writing to be very literal. The best songs, lyrically speaking, use a lot of imagery and don't "spell out" everything. I sent one of my earliest works out for a critiquing by a professional (no I didn't pay for the critique), and the one term he kept using was "laundry lists." It's fine to tell stories if you're writing a ballad, but ballads get old and tired after a while.

Imagery, innuendo and metaphors seem to me to make the best songs. Imagery and innuendo are hard for me because of my literal Aspie mind. I always feel as though I need to explain things literally and with specifics rather than simply eluding to ideas. Metaphors can get me into trouble because I guess I don't have enough faith that listeners ought to be able to figure out what the metaphors mean without explanations.

I've gotten better at it over time, but I certainly wouldn't say I'm great at it. I'm just driven to do it because I love doing it so much. The one thing that has helped me the most is putting my stuff "out there" (either on line, or having people listen to it, and asking for feedback. The best places I've found for feedback are online, unless you have a good network of acquaintances in RL that are musicians or writers, but both are good. RL people who aren't in the music field will tend to get only opinions of whether people like it or not, and people who aren't in the field have a harder time separating production quality from the writing itself. Unless you're producing your own recordings, you wouldn't want opinons affected by production quality. Musicians and others who actually work in the field (even if they only play covers in bars), might mention production quality if it's bad enough to affect their ability to hear what you intended, but for the most part, they'll talk only about the song and how it's written apart from production. There's a lot of web sites where you can interact with musicians and writers for nothing. Just search for them. Some of them have a higher percentage of hobbyists that don't really know much. The only way to learn which sites are the best are to sign up for them and interact with the users there. It's not that hard to tell over time which ones will get you the most valuable feedback.

I do think our Aspieness will most likely affect how we write, but I don't believe how it affects our writing is ever an obstacle that's impossible to overcome.

I think it depends on the person. I've been writing music for a long time, but I still have trouble. I have a problem with figuring out where to go with a song, but the people that I let listen to them really seem to love what I've written and wonder why I haven't finished anything. Most of the stuff I've written was when I didn't have an instrument in hand, but I think that has more to do with my savant skill set than me being an aspie.

When I read the title of the thread, I immediately thought, "Perhaps they are even better songwriters" because, I guess, convention does not play such a big role for them. That you take a song for what it is, not what it stands for. Because a lot of music is designed to be played to certain audiences and I don't like that. It's very restricting.

I don't think that you need an "inner world" to be a good songwriter. I think it's just a myth. Thoughts like this have bothered me all my life, but the more I think about it... It's not really relevant.

I talked about this with my best friend a lot and my main problem basically is that I don't feel very... confident. Confidence is everything it is about. Just to do things rather than wonder whether you'll be good enough for them. And that is what I have always struggled with. The feeling that maybe I'm not good enough. I think it's just because people do great damage to you by making you feel irrelevant.


That too.

It's not even a question of Aspie or not.


Aw, man, that's totally me.

I don't get most poetry or lyrics.

I know I like certain poems and certain lyrics, but for most of them all I feel is indifference. I don't care about most poetry. It's not my problem with poetry itself, but the cliché of it. A lot of poetry just seems so clichéd and repetetive to me.

Yeah, on second thought, I'm inclined to agree with you - because I believe songs are a combination of materials around you and only some of it is insights/impressions of the world, it doesn't have to be completely soul-baring unless you use it as therapy, which not all musicians do.

I personally prefer rock music based on improvisation to a lot of personal songs. That's why I generally am not a fan of singer-songwriters, even though I like some. The funny thing is that even when I can actually relate to some of the insights of songwriters, it does not really hit me. I like music for its aesthetic value.

Some people say they can't like a song with bad lyrics. I don't like a song with good lyrics that does not have good music. If I really hate the music, there's no way the lyrics can change it for me.

Sure! I have been a singer/song-writer for around two years now. I would have to say that lyrics are not my strong point, however. Look up a band called Days of the New. Travis Meeks, the band's front-man/lyricist/song-writer, has Asperger's.

You are spot on with this! I also have a very hard time (sometimes) with finishing songs. Like I can always write an amazing verse followed by a strong chorus. But when it comes to writing bridges/solos, I don't know where to go! I do have songs that I've completely finished though; I just hate it when I get stuck with a really good song.