Question 4 aspie musicians

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I have a question for all you aspie musicians out there... But first, I need to provide a bit of background (because details are essential...)

I play basically play the guitar, bass and drums comfortably... and I sing. I LOVE to sing. This ties in with my mimicry ability, I think. Therefore, I can pretty much produce the sound I want when I want. However, I do have this one problem: I CANNOT UNDERSTAND HARMONIES. Well, to be truthful, very rarely... AND I LOVE HARMONIES!! ! I love the layers of sound, the complexity, the output!! ! But I CAN'T DO IT, it's confusing, I can't break them down in an intelligible way, and this has always frustrated me to no end.

Please someone tell me that this is normal for people like us?.... *pulls out another wisp of already thinning hair*

I didn't understand them when I was 8 but I just kept trying and suddenly got it.

Hmmn, I used to only be able to pick out one aspect of the music at a time (ie: voice, guitars, bass) until a certain day when I discovered I could separate the parts of the music, then combine them together.

Still harmonies confused me, for quite a while, until I heard the music of Devin Townsend, in which I was forced to handle more than 10 harmonies coming together, this overwhelmed me and I battled with it for months, until I realised I could comprehend everything going on, simply through learning what I'd heard before but searching for more.


Maybe the problem is the way in which sound combines, the way it transmits to you is one wave, but the separation of melodies must be a concious decision, try listening to something relatively simple, and breaking down each part, then combining back together, then upgrade the amount of harmonies in the music...

In my experience it involved separating the aspects of the music I could interpret easily, then applying this knowledge back into the whole sound, what was left over, is the harmonies..

What I find strange is most people I meet either only focus on the words, or the main harmony in the music, whereas in the beginning all I could focus on was the rhythym, the percussion, and the actual progression of notes. I think its about knowing the strengths (and weaknesses) of your "ear" and using that as a springboard to the aspects you don't understand.

Don't know if that made sense.

When I listen to a song I can pick out the melody and play it on my flute. I guess I can pick the melody out the easiest because it's what the flute usually plays and I am more experienced with flute than other instruments.
If there is a harmonic element to the melody then I just keep listening carefully until I get it. Just keep listening and plugging away, that's about all the advice I have to give. This may sound silly but try listening to barbershop musics. This website may be of interest.

it's something that bothers me too,
some songs have things i want to understand.

that's why i'm learning an instrument (4th year learning to read notes,
so that i can try to figure it our myself, cause everytime i try to explain what i want
to someone who knows about music they don't know what i'm talking about)
it's a puzzle i want to solve and won't stop before i got it.

but this was the same thing with drawing, and in drawing it was the light,
colours are interesting, the composition as well, the lines, etc. but if you get the light right you can
almost draw anything.
(it took me about 20 years before i knew)

i think in music it's the scales (i hope i say it right in english bcs my lessons are in french,
which is not my mothertongue either which makes it difficult to translate)

Diatonic harmony is a piece of cake. I used to sing in fifths with a buddy of mine. We tried moving on to thirds but it wasn't that easy heheh... My singing isn't that good. On guitar I have close to relative pitch, which means I can identify intervals easy. For musicians, relative pitch is more usefull than perfect pitch. Singer however, have a better usage of perfect pitch.

Try harmonising the harmonic minor scale singing with a friend. That should prove a challenge. The scale got its name because in baroque times, choirs had a hard time harmonising that particular scale