Aspie Music

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My son is 16, he has Aspergers. He is recording some very nice music. I would post it here, but I'm a newbie and it's not allowed yet. We are wanting to know if Aspies find the music of other Aspies more interesting than music by neurotypicals generally? Please comment if you would, Thank you.

I would. I prefer the horizontal aspect of music (Bach, Chopin), but also like the vertical aspect when it is done well (Bach, Beethoven). I look forward to your future posts of some of your son's music. And, welcome!

Hey AspieUtah,

When you say "horizontal," do you mean music played on the same or similar notes?

When you say "vertical," do you mean music played on various or dissimilar notes?

Thank you. From a guy who appreciates music, but hasn't much knowledge of it technically.

Oh, I am no professional musician (that part of my brain is in perpetual "huh?" mode), but I learned in high-school that horizontal music is that which uses single notes in sequence (sometimes quickly) to portray a melody, while vertical music uses chords and fugues at the same time. I can appreciate both styles, but I prefer the horizontal.

I guess chords and fugues provide a "three-dimensional" quality--whereas notes only provide a "linear" quality.

Would that be what you "sense" as well?

That is true for me. I like simplicity in music most of the time. Chopin's nocturnes, for example, do this. The Beatles did this frequently, too. But, when I think Star Wars, I love how John Williams could do fugues and staccati together; brilliant stuff!

I love three-dimensional music. I also prefer to play three-dimensional instruments like piano, accordion and harp. I got way too impatient on guitar because it's harder to play three-dimensional music on it. I also prefer sculpture over painting and drawing. I even ended up enjoy woodworking, despite being bored by the teacher.

I was once in a band. I had a hit song that was called "Badger supernova" in Tribute to Oasis. Looking back I may have been tricked into recording that album. Good grief.

That is what we call monophonic and polyphonic music, in music theory terms. In monophonic music there is a single melodic line. In polyphonic music there are either multiple melodic lines or a melody and harmonies. It's interesting that you use terms like horizontal and vertical because although they aren't entirely accurate in the way you used them (no offense intended, I am always excited to hear/read from people interested in music theory), they can be helpful terms. The best way to think of the difference between melody and harmony as opposed to multiple melodies is to think in horizontal and vertical terms. Melody and harmony is vertical because only one "hummable tune", "motif", or "theme" is being used while harmonies are used alongside it. Multiple melodies must be seen individually and horizontally because they don't fit together vertical, as harmonies are merely incidental to the melody while separate melodies can take up a life of their own, often clashing rhythmically and harmonically.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXQY2dS1Srk[/youtube]

Notice how in contrapunctus 1 at the beginning the melodies seem to work individually and together at the same time but they can clash. This is called counterpoint.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfDmUk7ie6s[/youtube]

Here you can see the left hand of the pianist- for those less musically educated there are five lines, called a staff, and five lines just below them with what looks like parentheses at the left, these two staves represent the left (lower stave) and right (upper stave) hands of the pianist, this is called the grand staff- but you can see the left hand of the pianist exploring the register of the piano without chords. It is playing harmonies in order to support the right hand melody nonetheless, as it is playing chords that have been fragmented apart into their components and the chords it plays are all incidental to the melody played in the right hand. Also another common trend demonstrated here is how that the harmony parts keep a steady rhythm while the melody demonstrates a sense of pause, there is great variety in the rhythm of the melody.

Those terms make much more sense. Thanks.

But to answer the OP's question:

I'm sure we would all love to hear your son's music.

But if you're asking if in general aspies respond to music by other aspies- thats a problematic question because such a small percentage of musicians are aspies, and only now in the 21st centurey are folks (musicians, or otherwise) being recognized and diagnosed as aspies. So only now are the few performers and composers who are aspie becoming known (to themselves and others) as aspies. So it would be hard to find a sample of records by known aspies for us aspies to listen to to test our responses to the music.

The guy who calls himself "Owl City" is about the only famous recording artist that ive ever heard of who is official dxd. We had a sharply divided thread about his hit song "Fireflies". I, and many others love it (despite my dislike for autotune), but several hate it.

There have been many musicians in previous decades who were likely aspies though. I think that Thelonius Monk was highly likely to be an aspie. I like his music. But so do many NTs.

Yep. Wikipedia.org describes that "[Adam] Young resides in his hometown, Owatonna, Minnesota, where he writes and programs all his music. He is an only child, son to Randal and Joan Young. He has mentioned he has Asperger's syndrome, and he has often referred to himself as being deeply shy and socially introverted. Young has said that he enjoys photography and considers himself to be an amateur photographer. He identifies himself as a Christian, and writes about his faith on his blog and through his music."

I agree about the use of autotune, but in this song, it worked.

To further clarify, monophonic music contains only one voice (melody.) Think Gregorian chant.

Polyphonic music involves two or more voices (basically two or more melodies) that move independently from one another but can move between consonance and dissonance as the above poster mentioned. (Counterpoint.)

Homophonic music refers to a melody accompanied by some a harmony. This is the "vertically-structured" music.

Monophonic and polyphonic music are necessary horizontally-structured because the focus is on the line of music (how one individual note follows another.)

Since homophonic music is focused on the blending of the melody with the harmony, the focus is on the chords of the music, which requires a vertical structure.

Hope this helps.

Horizontal music has a melody line or several which move in linear motion across the page left to right. Vertical music tends to be "Melody dominated homophony" or a horizontal melody accompanied by note clusters called chords which provide a vertically arranged accompaniment. Think of chords on a guitar which are stacked vertically.

If you listen to Bill Evans or Herbie Hancock's piano playing however you'll notice that the left hand chordal accompaniments have subtle horizontal motion. This is called voice leading and is a way to avoid having stacked chords unlinked to each other. Imagine a series of tower blocks erected by an architect. These tower blocks are all owned by JP Chase & Morgan but workers have to exit one block and enter in the front door of another to access other offices. A person on the top floor has to descend 100 levels and then ascend 100 levels in another building. Its chaos! What if we installed walkways between the buildings? This means that a person on level 70 can get to level 35 by a more direct less circuitous route.

The same thing goes with vertically stacked chords. Rather than having these stacked notes jumping around the piano we try to keep the notes as close together as possible avoiding crazy leaps. We can either create "walkways" between the notes or we can treat each vertical stack as a whole and find the easiest path to the next chord.

G minor to Eb Major for example

G G
Bb Bb
D Eb

We only change one note there as you can see which means that the chord progression is far more melodic and seamless.

Don't forget heterophonic music!