What's the good stuff your condition can put into your Art??

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I guess this topic has been done before several times, but i'm only new here, and it interests me. I understand that Aspies have certain traits, tendencies, and flairs which are peculiar to their condition. Some of these might be detrimental socially, but i think we can use some of these traits to benefit us when expressing ourselves in our art.

My art is music, so i will tell of my benefits toward my musicality. The isolation i get from the rest of the world makes me very esoteric, so i can practice for long periods of time without being side-tracked. It also makes me get right inside the pieces i am working on. My tendency to focus excessively on one passion has the same beneficial effect. I think i also have a deeper talent which i can express through my instrument sometimes. I suspect Aspies have more of this latent talent than the average in the general population. Am i right? What are your positive experiences? i would like to know?

Good topic.

I wish I had your ability to keep focus like you describe, and not get sidetracked. I'm a little bit different though. I have serious trouble finishing my projects - I start to lose track of my stylistic focus, my direction, my concept. I sometimes start losing track of where I want to go with a song.... Or I simply didn't know in the first place.

For me, I think my aspie-ness expresses itself by my focus on details.
For example, I go to a musician's message board, and frequent the sound-design section, where people frequently ask "How do you make this bass patch for this song?" People will pop on and give all these lackluster answers, or long answers that are just not quite right; Their patch isn't actually that close - It gets into sorta the right area, but misses some important but subtle details in the patch. So then I go in there to give it a shot, and I pull off that mofo right, if I can. I get that sucker absolutely perfect and identical, as near as I can... Which usually is just about perfect match.

Kinda silly use of time, I realize... But I think it's fun. For me it's like a jigsaw puzzle. Better use of time than WoW at least. And it's the primary reason why I'm good at synthesis today, it's a form of focused practice that nearly always challenges.

In my own music, though, I suspect AS is a large source of my perfectionism as well... A quality that has been much maligned by people who know me and my music history. I've been repeatedly told that "It's good as it is!" and "You're overthinking it!" and "You're being too critical!" Those folks sometimes raise some good points....

But I'm just not convinced. Because when I reach the status of "done," according to my thermometer, there is no doubt about the quality of my results. I mean, sure, I'm limited by my level of experience as a musician, and my technical development, and my artistic vision and ideas and whatever... But you bet your ass that I'm going to execute my vision, ideas, and technique to perfection, at least in-so-far as I can perceive it.
... Yes, I realize I'm a little cocky, here....

Not only that, up until recently, I felt I was a novice, and had much to learn about technique. I could compare my material to artists I liked, and it did not measure up. To me that says something: "Keep working - Your material is not ready for release."
Well ya know what? Nowadays, after a lot of patient work, I CAN make my material stand up beside some of my favorite artists.

In contrast, I see a lot of people share up incomplete tracks that they call complete, and I think that's absurd. With just a bit more effort, a bit more time, a bit more stringent standards, a bit more attention to details, a more consistent 'inner filter,' someone could take the track to the next level, and so many more people would appreciate it!
AND, when people hear your music, they judge your future music. If you share up low-quality work early on, people will be less prone to believing you will put out something that's quality later.
(Yes, I understand that many people make music for themselves alone, screw anyone else's criticism... But me? I make dance music. If I can't make something good enough that a common DJ will want to play it on a club night, and get people shaking their asses, then I'm not doin it right.)

But then, the question is: Where do you draw the line? When do you stop working on it and call it good?
I'm just gonna trust myself, and we'll see. I either do good with my tendencies and results, or I hold myself back. But either way, I've gotta do it my way or I simply wont be happy.

It's also allowed me to do the whole hyper-focus thing on learning elements of musicianship, production, and engineering. I improved very quickly.
(Again with the cockyness...)

Recently, music theory became my fascination (ZOMG I love systems!!)
A couple months ago, I could read sheet music, barely, but not much more... I certainly didn't understand chords. However, my last piece was written in G Lydian mode, and composed from a top-down chord progression perspective. That represents some progress, and it gives me confidence that I'm improving very steadily, that my arsenal of tools keeps getting bigger.

So yeah... That's where AS leaks into my music.

There's at least one downside:
I have to fight burgeoning arrogant impulses. Bad monkey!
It might not be AS-influenced though, might just be purely me.

I'd be curious to hear other's experience with AS & music... particularly the problems it makes so maybe I can identify more pitfalls that I oughta scout for and guard against...

I like to express my Aspie-ness in creativity and imagination in writing. I write personification stories and poems. It fills my senses and makes me hyper and happy. I love the topic that you bring up about Aspie talent It's one of my favorite subjects!

This thread is only about advantages, so I'll just say creativity to the third or fourth power. Plus the detail orientation that hyperfocus can bring, when I'm in the "zone". The sum total is the ability to blow people away. If I can finish the damn project, which is unfortunately a low percentage of the time.

my 'aspie talent'?


hmmmy keen obsevation and intesity of focus on specific subjects.. such as science

also my creativity and imagination which i combine with my strange perceptions of the world

Yeah Sound and Dtox. I can sympathise with you not getting those projects finished. I have the same trouble. I start writing a piece of music, and it is good inspired material and flows freely. Then it just stops, halfway through. I think i'll just put it down for a day or 2, then finish it, but the feeling is gone, and the thread doesn't return. So i finish it, without the fire, and that part is only partly developed and seems mundane beside the first half. I've got no answer for that problem. Maybe if i just write twice as fast then i will finish it in time? Not likely.

What about you, Sassychick? Do you find you get this writers block after an hour or two, and then find that you can't get back into the topic later? I used to write poetry, and i think i managed to finish most of my poems. How can those genius authors and musicians just wake up every morning and just tap into their talent again and pick up where they left off the night before. It seems impossible.