What music do autistic music geeks like?

I'm quite interested in finding out which music autistic people like

idm amirite

I once worked in a group home where an autistic man lived and he had a Walkman and headphones with him at all times. But he didn't talk so I never found out what he was listening to.

My autistic little brother is obsessed with Alan Jackson. He'll dance to the same song on repeat for hours and hours.

I think I would be more interested in knowing what sort of music autistic people age 20+ like. No offense to your little brother.

Fair enough. (He'll be 22 in a month, FWIW). The rest of the family is very musical, all playing/writing music or building instruments, so the seeds of some form of music geekery must be in his genes.

my bad, I was just expecting something totally different than Alan Jackson

I admit that I'm pretty ignorant about Autism since I have never met anyone with that MI.

autistic ppl really blew it on this one, jeez. alan jackson, how am i supposed to blog about that??

My autistic little brother is obsessed with Alan Jackson. He'll dance to the same song on repeat for hours and hours.

my autistic little sister did the same thing with "crank that" last summer. on a probably more interesting note, i know an autistic 19 year old who listens to alot of folk rock and is sort of a musical genius. he can play a song perfectly, lyrics and all, after only hearing it once. he also does this cool thing where he'll sing the lyrics from one song over the melody of another and make it work, like, perfectly.

I work with a woman who has an autistic son and he doesn't have particularly interesting musical tastes. He is really into weather and likes songs with lyrics about storms.

Huey Lewis has a strong following among the mentally retarded, tho' not sure if autism plays into it.

http://www.sfweekly.com/2005-08-03/news/a-very-special-concert/

One guy I know with an Autism Spectrum Condition likes classic 70s rock and metal, esp Deep Purple. I know another guy with AS who likes power metal and stuff like Sonata Arctica and System of a Down. Third kid I know likes trance and hard house and general modern R'n'B flavoured pop. Met a young man with AS last year who introduced me to Blackout Crew. People with ASCs are as diverse as anybody else when it comes to taste.

I guess that answers my question

Also some of these guys are seriously into their music but only the Deep Purple guy has anything I would say approaches yr stereotypical "autistic" obsession with his faves.

When I think of autistic musical savants, I think of classical/orchestra/piano music.

Well y'know I work with kids mostly 17 to mid 20s in a public college, so I wouldn't really come across people like that. I guess the classical thing is a perceived thing but I suspect the real numbers will break down the same as other groups of people.

I'm looking at wiki

* One in ten autistic persons has savant skills.
* 50% of savants are autistic; the other 50% have different disabilities, mental retardation, brain injury, or a brain disease
* Male savants outnumber female savants by about six times.

this kid likes jazz

The 1 in 10 figure I've heard a lot. The male/female thing is being contested in some quarters cos there's a suggestion that diagnosis, especially for Asperger's, might be skewed against picking it up in women.

Most of the people I've know with autism didn't listen to music at all. But they would all be classified as having severe autism now I guess-- the notion of a spectrum didn't exist as much 15 years ago when I worked in the field. Never met a savant.

you've come to the right place to ask! >:D

"Goin Places" by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass.

wow Matt Savage looks just like young spock and he is really amazing

It doesn't really get to the question of what autistics or savants like, but I've heard that the savant or child prodigy talent for classical music is, like other savant talents (chess, knowing the day of the week for any date, determining prime numbers), possibly based in mathematics. Some forms of classical music have rigorous formulas which could be seen by the savant mind as kinds of algorithms. For those (like Mozart) with the ability to play or improvise in a different composer's style, it could just be a matter of applying the algorithms to new material.

also many autistics and savants are pitch-perfect

I don't know Hideous Lump, isn't that like mixing the left brain with the right brain?

I really don't think there's any reason at all why people with autism should be more likely to like any particular kind of music than any other random sample of the population.

For real.

Did you guys read that Huey Lewis article?

Namely:

There are a lot of stereotypes about retarded people, and most of them are false. Yes, I'm going to refer to people with developmental disabilities as "retarded." After all, what is wrong with the word "retarded"? It means slowed or delayed, and when someone is retarded, that's what's going on (or not going on) somewhere in his brain. Some of my clients are great at math and reading, but cannot tell you what they did the day before, or why a joke was funny. Others cannot speak, see, or say what they want, but they can tell when I'm sad. In each person, something that works in most people's brains is hindered, i.e., is "retarded." If gays can take back "faggot," and blacks can take back "nigger," then surely developmentally disabled folks can take back "retarded." And since they can't do it for themselves, I'm going to do it for them.

That's not really the kind of thing you can just do "for them" imo

there was an autistic kid who frequented the record store i worked at a few years ago. dude LOVED 80's synthpop and new wave. depeche mode, duran duran, human league, etc. he'd come in every few weeks wearing big head phones and buy stacks of these cd's. he always paid for half of that stuff IN CHANGE which drove me and everything waiting to get checked out completely bonkers, but he was a good kid and i didn't mind him coming in. he'd also go down a list of really obscure releases by some of these bands and i'd have to look each of them up and inevitably tell him we didn't have it and we probably couldn't get it. never phased him.

I am certain autists listen to all kinds of music, but they will probably tend to be extremely devoted and "nerdish" fans of whatever they are into.

What music do autistic music geeks like?

Melodic pop music without too much annoying syncopation.

lololololool crosspost

this guy's site is something of a case study in autism (I don't mean that in a mean way):
http://www.ulillillia.us/aboutme/music.shtml

I really don't think there's any reason at all why people with autism should be more likely to like any particular kind of music than any other random sample of the population.

― Soukesian, Saturday, May 16, 2009 6:03 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

I never insinuated that ASD people all listen to the same type of music. The whole reason I made this thread was to get music recommendations for myself actually. I was thinking about how many people with autism have a real keen ear for music. Then in the process of learning about ASD people I came across musical savants. These people tend to play the piano. The piano is an extremely versatile instrument with a real direct relation to the instrument and the notes/chords which can be played. Not to mention that classical music would be easy on the ears for someone at a young age.

My autistic little brother is obsessed with Alan Jackson. He'll dance to the same song on repeat for hours and hours.

― Millsner, Saturday, May 16, 2009 1:51 PM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I did this when I was 8

to alan jackson I mean.

Curt1s Stephens - that was a very good link.

"It is actually very rare I get any new songs nowadays. The main reason was my major loss of interest in video games since 2003. I got 60 songs within the matter of 2 or so years, but only 10 in the last 3."

"Q. Do you download music?
A. No. The primary reason isn't the legality concerns, but the fact that I don't know the names of any of the songs to even begin with. Searching for "Out Where the Lake Is" may yield something completely unrelated to the song as I know it. In addition, such songs would often be as MP3 (MP3 can be converted to WAV) using 44,100 Hz, which is simply confusing to work with when it comes to changing the speed. Besides, since my games are readily available, they're the best known way of doing it and I get more control as well."

These give me a reason to believe that discovering new music would be *a lot* harder for autistic people - especially when someone has found the music he/she already wants to devote himself/herself to. I wonder to what extent different autistic people would let people help them start a new hobby of discovering music. I wonder how much autistic music savants fanatics care to discover music beyond the kind of music they are devoted to.

Once again I apologize if I am stereotyping autistic music fanatics in this post.

I never insinuated that ASD people all listen to the same type of music. The whole reason I made this thread was to get music recommendations for myself actually. I was thinking about how many people with autism have a real keen ear for music. Then in the process of learning about ASD people I came across musical savants. These people tend to play the piano. The piano is an extremely versatile instrument with a real direct relation to the instrument and the notes/chords which can be played. Not to mention that classical music would be easy on the ears for someone at a young age.

at least I didn't mean to insinuate if I did.

My autistic son likes Sparks and the Human League. Also Madonna, a bit.

Aspies included?

sure why not

I've been diagnosed with Asperger's a few times, which would explain the lists I have constantly made of my musical preferences - such as this one from a few years ago.

ABBA, A Tribe Called Quest, Air, Alan Lomax, AMM, Antibalas, Antony & The Johnsons, Aphex Twin, Archer Prewitt, The Auteurs, The Bad Plus, Bark Psychosis, The Beach Boys, Beastie Boys, The Beatles, Beck, The Bee Gees, Beirut, Belle and Sebastian, The Beta Band, Beulah, Bill Frisell, Bjork, Black Star, Blackalicious, Broken Social Scene, Bruce Springsteen, The Byrds, Can, Catherine Wheel, Charles Mingus, Chet Baker, The Clash, Clem Snide, Clor, Common, Company Flow, Constantines, The Coral, The Cure, Cut Chemist, Daft Punk, Danger Mouse, David Bowie, David Byrne, The dB's, De La Soul, The Delgados, The Dears, Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Dengue Fever, Devo, Dido, Dif Juz, Digable Planets, Dinosaur Jr., dios (malos), Dirty Three, The Dismemberment Plan, The Divine Comedy, DJ Faust, DJ Shadow, DJ Spooky, DJ Vadim, Dungen, Echo & the Bunnymen, Eels, Elliot Smith, El-P, Elton John, Elvis Costello, Explosions In The Sky, The Fall, Fatboy Slim, Fela Kuti, Femi Kuti, The Fiery Furnaces, Fiona Apple, The Flaming Lips, Foreign Born, Four Tet, The Frames, Frank Sinatra, Frank Zappa, Fugazi, The Futureheads, Galaxie 500, Gang of Four, Genesis (before they jumped the shark on the 1983 self-titled), George Harrison, The Go-Betweens, Gomez, Gram Parsons, Hal Willner, Happy Mondays, Herbie Hancock, Hieroglyphics, The High Speed Scene, His Name Is Alive, Hope of the States, The Housemartins, Husker Du, Iggy Pop, Jacob Golden, Jacques Brel, The Jam, Jamiroquai, Jane's Addiction (until the first break-up in '91), Japan, Jason Falkner, Jeff Buckley, Jellyfish, Jens Lekman, The Jesus and Mary Chain, John Cale, John Coltrane, John Lennon, John Zorn, Johnny Cash, Joseph Arthur, Journey, Joy Division, Jurassic 5 (except the last record), Kate Bush, Kid Koala, King Crimson, Kings of Convenience, The Kinks, Kraftwerk, The Kronos Quartet, The La's, Labradford, Lauryn Hill, Les Fleur de Lys, The Libertines, Loop, Lou Reed, Low, Lush, M83, Madness, Madonna, Martha Wainwright, Marvin Gaye, Massive Attack, Matmos, Matthew Sweet, MC5, Mclusky, MF Doom, Mike Patton, Miles Davis, Mind Science of the Mind, Mission of Burma, Moby, Mogwai, Mojave 3, Mono, Moose, Morrissey, Mouse on Mars, The Move, Mr. Bungle, The Music, My Bloody Valentine, My Morning Jacket, The Nation of Ulysses, Negativland, Nellie McKay, Neu!, Neutral Milk Hotel, New Order, The New Pornographers, The New York Dolls, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Nick Drake, Nico, Nomo, The Notwist, Oasis, Oranger, Paolo Conte, Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Pavement, Pearl Jam, The Pernice Brothers, Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth, Pete Seeger, Peter Gabriel, Piano Magic, Pink Floyd, The Pixies, Portishead, The Posies, The Presidents of the United States of America, Prince, Pulp, Q and Not U, Quasi, Queen, Q-Tip, R.E.M. (when Bill Berry was still around), Radiohead, The Ramones, Red House Painters, The Rentals, The Replacements, Richard Hawley, Ringo Starr, The Rolling Stones, The Roots, The Rosebuds, Roxy Music, Rufus Wainwright, Run DMC, Ryan Adams, Sam Prekop, Scott Walker, Scud Mountain Boys, The Sea and Cake, Serge Gainsbourg, The Sex Pistols, The Shaggs, Shudder to Think, Sigur Ros, Simian, Simon & Garfunkel, Sleater-Kinney, Slint, Sloan, Slowdive, The Small Faces, The Smashing Pumpkins, The Smiths, Soft Machine, Son Volt, Sonic Youth, Spacemen 3, Sparklehorse, Sparks, The Specials, Spiritualized, Spoon, Squarepusher, Stereolab, Stevie Wonder, The Stone Roses, The Stooges, Subtle, Suede, Sugar, Sun-Ra, Supergrass, Talk Talk, Talking Heads, Tears for Fears, Ted Leo & the Pharmacists, Teenage Fanclub, Television, Terry Callier, Thee More Shallows, Thelonious Monk, 13th Floor Elevators (with Rory Erickson), Tim Buckley, Tom Waits, Tony Allen, Tony Christie, Travis, Tricky, The Turtles, TV on the Radio, U2, Uncle Tupelo, Van Hunt, The Velvet Underground, The Verve, Violent Femmes, Wall of Voodoo (with Stan Ridgway), The Wallflowers, We All Together, Weezer, Whiskeytown, The Who, Wilco, Will Smith, World Leader Pretend, X, XTC, The Zombies

i know an autistic 19 year old who ... does this cool thing where he'll sing the lyrics from one song over the melody of another and make it work, like, perfectly.

― samosa gibreel, Saturday, May 16, 2009 3:22 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

need to get this kid on youtube w/his live mashups

At my going away party a few months ago an autistic kid showed up with his own stereo and played early electronic music (Model 500ish stuff?) over whatever we were already playing. That was when I thought, this party's gonna bet bigger and weirder than I anticipated.

The whole reason I made this thread was to get music recommendations for myself actually. I was thinking about how many people with autism have a real keen ear for music.

Well, the one autistic adult I know is really into Maiden, so I'd get started on Number of the Beast asap.

I dunno how to cite evidence for this, but it seems like the actual things autistics/asperger's fixate on are completely arbitrary and more of a fluke of circumstance. i.e. there isn't a class or caliber of music that especially draws in autistics, and if there was, it probably wouldn't be for any conventional markers of excellence that would matter to us mere mortals.

I mean, if someone autistic was really into eating at Denny's, I'd have a hard time thinking I'm missing out on some amazing culinary experience.

I do think there's probably a bit of politics in play in how few savants are considered great musicians, but I also don't see many full-blown savants at spelling bees either (so probably public performing is a deterrent) It would be rad to see a public school autistic completely lay waste to the homeschoolers, though.

A few years ago, I worked at a jazz club & got to know the regulars quite well. One guy brought his autistic son in every Friday to see one of the regular bands & the kid (a teenager at the time) REALLY got into it, to the point where it was obvious that the music (20s-era swing & dixieland) provided a sort of total cathartic release for him. His dad once mentioned that the music "quieted the noise in his head & provided a rhythm for his everyday chaos."

http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/NewAnswersControllerServlet?boardid=41

it took this many posts b4 someone posted this

cowzn - since your link didn't work for me I counted 41 posts down to find out what you meant

Aspies included?
― litcofsky, Sunday, May 17, 2009 1:50 AM (22 hours ago) Bookmark

xxp - Spelling Bees rock you guys. 8 Days 12 hours 58 minutes

Will you be there or will you be square?

what about schizophrenic music geeks?

― zinguist (cozwn), Sunday, 17 May 2009 19:05 (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

cowzn - since your link didn't work for me I counted 41 posts down to find out what you meant

Aspies included?
― litcofsky, Sunday, May 17, 2009 1:50 AM (22 hours ago) Bookmark

I think this^ is what you were referring to

― CaptainLorax, Monday, 18 May 2009 01:01 (1 minute ago) Bookmark

absolutely astonishing if sincere

xp
Schizophrenic music geeks, geez guys, I bet they listen to the best music!

Weird Al

I thought that schizo's listened to Metal Machine Music. I don't know much about Autism, though.

Zeppelin, a little Floyd. Maybe some Dead, CSN...