Musicians - what does aspergers do for you?

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OK folks serious question here. I am doing some preliminary fishing for a doctoral research thesis. I have no idea if the forum moderators will let this through but here goes ..

I'm interested in the Aspie musicians out there (I'm one too) and would like to know what aspects of the syndrome YOU think help or hinder you in your music making.
EG in my case, I'm a composer and music technologist and do lots of cross-art collaboration in things like theatre and film. Certain aspects of my Aspieness seem to "fit" my choice of profession (and the particular sub-section). I suspect that performers have different thoughts n this

Fitters -
- control freak (studios)
- perfectionist
- technology and gear slut
- creative work done alone
- communication asynchronous with creative moment (eg. perform then discuss, as opposed to simultaneous such as in an ensemble)

The helpers
- ability to focus on small details
- lateral, left of centre interpretation of emotive content in scenes (theatre and film)
- emotional / intellectual disjunct
- non-verbal cues can be clarified verbally

The hinderers
- misunderstanding of non-verbal cues
- tendency to 'take over and lead' collaboration
- perceived arrogance
- weak central coherence and 'big picture' (form and structure)

you see what I mean??

I'd love to hear directly from folks on this but happy to watch the thread. Really looking or clues..

auralsculpture

Well I'm not a musician but I do live audio mixing - I'm the sound girl for my husband's band (Christian rock) and other bands sometimes too. I don't know if that counts but I thought I'd reply anyway since no one else has said anything yet.

The AS traits that help me... attention to detail, ability to hyperfocus on what I'm doing (although that can be a bad thing too), planning and organizing ahead of time so I'm ready for anything, the fact that I enjoy reading technical manuals (to learn how to use my equipment to it's full potential).

The AS traits that get in the way... communication is a big one - I don't communicate enough with the musicians, inability to read nonverbal cues of the musicians (and I can't lip-read either), I can't multitask at all so if my attention gets pulled away I'm in trouble, and the tendency to get stuck on setting things a certain way (eq's, efx, etc) instead of trying new things that might sound better. The social aspect can be a problem too sometimes, as it is in any situation where you're around other people - I can't hide in the sound booth ALL the time (I can be pretty aloof, don't mind some social interaction but I don't want very much, and I'll rarely initiate it myself - of course NTs don't understand that).

thanks neongirl, this is exactly the sort of reply I'm after.

Interestingly enough, I was actually a professional live audio engineer for two years, specifically a monitor engineer. I initially entered the field from a desire to help a singer/songwriter friend of mine as I didn't want the shows he would be performing with his new band to turn into fiascos. From there, I spent all of my free time (when I should have been studying for school) reading pro audio web sites, downloading white papers and products manuals, and educating myself generally regarding electro-acoustics and live audio stagecraft. Spending hours by myself studying and working with electronics, looking back on it (I didn't even know about AS then) played well to my tendencies. Very good Problem-Study-Solution-Result feedback loop. Problems typically had to do everything with communication and the subjective side of things. Onstage was generally fine because musicians used hand signals to tell me what they wanted (tone preferences are set before the show and they could be interesting... "I want more 'oomph' or 'darkness'" or "Can you make it 'brighter?'") but "shooting the s**t" with the guys and communication with my boss was a weak spot. I even worked another job for a while because I thought I had been let go, a misinterpretation I later found out.

As a performer, sitting for hours by myself practicing is certainly no problem. What I find interesting is that I have trouble performing in small groups. When I have a real audience, my discomfort is nearly nil. I suspect this may have to do that I want to be "me" in the small group but with an audience I go into "pretending to be normal" mode and have a known identity that I can fall back on to present.

I've been making music for years. It would be accurate to say that I know much more about musicianship than Asperger's. There are however a few facts that seem suspect now that I think about it:

I tend to use shapes and colors to "tag" (to borrow a term from a memory program that my teacher forced the class to listen to long ago) things in memory. I assign shapes to guitar chords, thereby transforming a chord progression into a simple list of shapes, which in turn come together to form a larger shape (otherwise known as a song). The leap from chord to shape is not difficult to make, especially with hand-operated instruments such as the guitar where the shape of your hand determines which notes are generated. This allows me, in a sense, to see the music in my mind as I play it. I have found that these song images can be recalled long after the songs themselves have been forgotten.

My Achilles heal is the fact that I tend to instinctively avoid anything that focuses attention solely on me, and - lacking the social skills to connect with other musicians - am uncomfortable performing in front of people as a result. Although I still enjoy making recorded music I have not played in front of an audience in some many years.

I gave up performing years ago. Couldn't gel with the ensemble. Didn't know why then. Do know now!

I have occasionaly found (later) that I have "bulldozed" collaborators into creative outcomes they are not comfortable with. My own "confidence" in an idea over-rides my reception (perception) of displeasure / disagreement unless it is explicit and verbal.

I taught myself spanish/classical guitar when i was 11 and have been playing for about 16 years. However i've never done much in the way of performing though i would like to. I write my own stuff too which is fun.
As for AS (i'm self dx) I think it helped me in that i found learning from books quite easy, especially with diagrams. I will get into research mode and find out new things about guitar playing or music which is helpful and of course i can hyper focus which when i was inniatally learning was very good.
In hinders me in that i go through phases and will often not pratice for weeks or months. I can't seem to get music theory stuck in my head at all. And i've never managed to take my music into the outside world. Something i'm currently working on.
I learn tunes alot by ear and have good instincts for music i think. I know what sounds good and what note/chords work well together though i am kind of stuck by playing a lot of my own stuff in Am. It seemed to be a favorite of mine.
Incidently when i read music i see the different phrases and individual notes as a story, with a plot and charectors.....weird huh!!

I play the keyboard, and I'm in a music college at the minute, and the communication things definetly get in the way a lot, but even though I was scared out of my wits, I did manage to perform at a place called the Shed, in Leicester, and it was the best thing ever... It does take alot of practice though, because when I actually went to go up there, the fact that I had practiced my parts alot made me feel a lot better about playing in front of everyone there.
In being a musician, at first, I was really quiet, didn't say much, sat in a corner and glared daggers at people, because I just never knew what to say, and these are all symptoms, but being around people who are actually nice, really friendly and chatty, actually helps so much.
I have heard somewhere that aspies are meant to be good at music, and often have "perfect pitch", which I do have, and confused my friends further by identifying the pitch of which the drinks machine was humming at, which was pretty fun.
I reckon that so long as we can find a way of overcoming the social barrier somehow, then we can make the best musicians!

I have been a professional recording engineer and mastering engineer, I play many types of instruments, i dont read music.

I have had this conversation many times with standard people, where I attempt to make them understand that I hear music differently.

I hear the music as many elements, as a great collection of many parts in real time. So where tou hear the music as a result I see it as the question. You hear the music, I hear lots of sounds and structure.

The reason for me (in the studio) to reposition a microphone was to change the sound of an instrument and not the volume. I could hear (for example) certain nuances given off by the piano that were taking away from the double bass. I changed the position of the mic at the lower end of the piano and pointed it in a better way and removed the conflict.
We listened to both recordings after and there was an agreed clarity to the second recording, "it just sat better" said the pianist.


The down side is that it is very hard for me to enjoy a piece of music as a whole. It have to have a particular rhythm, disjointed or overwhelming.
When a piece of music does get me then I listen again and again untill i understand what is entriging me.

Marcus.

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I have said on another post that I am an abstract thinker. I feel that this abstract side of me helps me to see AS filtered music as an advantage input and allows me to play with many variables in abstract.
I have a very good aural memory and can enjoy whole pieces of music in my mind with great accuracy, and even alter the arrangment to my preferences yet still maintain the same structure.

I play with my mind alot, s'why I dont need friends! By playing with it I guess I have harnessed my AS.

Marcus.

OK, still unsure as to whether to self-dx or not, but here goes anyway. A lot of them I think are probably just my personality, but some of them may be recognised by others.

Help:
Obssessiveness is useful for researching and constantly learning about new things, which gives wider understanding and somehow seems to increase musicianship by default. Don't ask me how.
Having such a passion for the music breaks down barriers between myself and other members of the ensemble. I have made a very close friend this year who has taught me so much about just about everything in life, thanks to music.
Going through phases of wanting to practise ensures I progress because these phases mean I will try to practise properly at least every other day, if not every day.
I don't have perfect pitch but I find it easy to work out notes because I know how the strings of a viola are meant to sound, and go from there - I don't know if it's a possible trait, but it amazes me at how many people around my age, or even older, still can't tune their instruments!
I pick up new things (eg reading a new clef) fairly quickly.
Music theory is a doddle.

Hinderers:
HATEHATEHATE performing solo.
Am often disappointed not to find people as passionate about music in the ensemble.
Am often disappointed to find that when people have said 'we'll have to perform such-and-such a piece' that when it comes to it, they were actually joking.
Never knowing whether people honestly think I sound alright or whether they're doing the whole superficially nice thing again.
Going through phases of not being bothered to practise.
Not being able to hear myself when playing in ensembles. (APD)
Getting frustrated far too easily - having no patience.
Not taking criticism very well at all.
Being completely stuck for musical ideas for composition.
Co-ordination being poor - not useful when I know exactly how I'm meant to be playing something to which the motor skills do not extend. That's the major cause of frustration in me.
Not having a clue whether I'm expressing myself or not, because I can't really put emotions into music when they don't exist at that time in me. Usually the only emotion I express is fear
Frustrating to meet people who seem to be enthusiastic about music (this applies to all of life, not just in ensembles) only to find their entusiasm runs out after five minutes of talking to me.

Hmm. I think that's possibly about it. Oh, except I frequently mis-read lines and spaces, and my brain tends to randomly switch clefs now and again, if that's at all relevant.

Yeah. I think I'm done.

I think what AS does for me in terms of producing has to do with mood, when people hear what I work on what they usually like the most is my taste in emotion and melody. Having a real discriminating taste in that I think has come from just having a real critical ear for music. That and seriously, I get ideas for melodies and sounds in tracks that just give me chills as their going through my head, particularely merging certain sounds in ways that different themes pull at you and mess with your head (a deep and intelligent head-twisting), having an eerieness or pain to the melody in some tracks much realer than what's ever been pulled off in stuff I've heard (like one idea - taking some lessons maybe from some of the Alice In Chains Dirt cd's melodic themes like the grime vs. major/minor-scale twisting and adapting that to some of my jungle tracks - plan to work on that more when I have a good track for application), and I've also had enough lucky audio accidents that there's a lot of things I wanna try just because I've been lucky enough to hear them happen by accident and catch some pretty wild inspiration. The biggest thing is I need to learn to master the sounds and literally make what I have in my head, that's the hardest part and in the past I used to just take what I literally could make with what I had, that cramped my style pretty badly.

My biggest weakness though is while I can throw a hell of a mood together I've had problems in the past with just not throwing enough tricks, stunts, or change-ups in my tracks for them to sound professional or I'd just throw to much sound at it instead of finding just a one or two-part melody and having all kinds of constant new effects that kinda dwell in the background but are nonintrusive (on the brightside though I have some new means of production, more sounds, it shouldn't be as tough these days to improve on the technicals a bit).