This is an interesting thread, personally I love noise and always have. I was fascinated at the age of 10 by a documentary on Stockhausen and had a favorite Disney record (yellow vinyl) where a female vocalist went crazy at the end of every verse.
Just yesterday the grounds crew had 6 gas powered leaf blowers going and I sat right in the middle, they thought I was nuts.
Just yesterday the grounds crew had 6 gas powered leaf blowers going and I sat right in the middle, they thought I was nuts.
I am the same way.
What some might find to be excessive, unbearably loud or fundamentally unmusical cacophony I find incredibly satisfying.
From Hijokaidan to Brotzmann to Stockhausen to Henry Flynt to Red Krayola and so on.
There is something meditative and cleansing, perhaps zen, about it. To me it’s more connected to primal/tribal human music than what is charting these days. It’s like 21st Century Gamelan I suppose.
I wonder if drone or noise music might be perhaps more attractive to those on the spectrum because of this cleansing / drowning out feature. In a world of constant noise / interference, it seems the only way sometimes to silence it is to completely drown it out and assault it on its own turf.
Leaf blowers.... just call it suburban raga and you can sell 500 private press LPs of it with handmade covers. Maybe even include a leaf or two in the sleeve.
That’s not to say I don’t enjoy soft, peaceful music or singer/songwriters or what have you. But, friends of mine are concerned when I become at the helm of music choice lets put it that way.
Someone once referred to my taste as liking lopsided music made by lopsided people. However, for me this is the truest vantage point and I would not have it any other way.
YouTube
An interesting piece from something I read here:
Auditory Processing in High-Functioning Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Consistent with previous literature [69]–[72] we found a high instance of absolute pitch processing in our population with ASD (11% compared to 0% in the control group). Unlike tests for absolute pitch used in previous studies, which required participants to have musical training because the tasks involved naming notes according to Western notational conventions, we used a task that did not require formal musical training. Thus, we show that the previous findings also extend to those without musical training. Although absolute pitch is sometimes considered to be a gift, the more complex, but very common, ability to process relative pitch (comparing the pitch distance between two tones) is more important for both music and speech processing because it enables recognition of melodies and prosodic patterns across high or low pitch registers. It is also interesting that relative pitch typically develops early, with evidence that infants at least as young as 6 months recognize melodies transposed to higher or lower pitch registers [63]–[66]. The prevalence of absolute pitch in ASD, then, is consistent with early abnormalities in brain development. It is also consistent with the general prevalence of savant syndromes in ASD, which is about 10% [110]. In the typical population, the presence of absolute pitch is associated with early experience on a fixed-pitch instrument, leading researchers to speculate that it develops when there is a genetic predisposition combined with a particular environment [111]. In our ASD population, there was no evidence of greater musical experience in those with absolute pitch, suggesting that ASD may involve a genetic propensity for absolute pitch.
Auditory Processing in High-Functioning Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Consistent with previous literature [69]–[72] we found a high instance of absolute pitch processing in our population with ASD (11% compared to 0% in the control group). Unlike tests for absolute pitch used in previous studies, which required participants to have musical training because the tasks involved naming notes according to Western notational conventions, we used a task that did not require formal musical training. Thus, we show that the previous findings also extend to those without musical training. Although absolute pitch is sometimes considered to be a gift, the more complex, but very common, ability to process relative pitch (comparing the pitch distance between two tones) is more important for both music and speech processing because it enables recognition of melodies and prosodic patterns across high or low pitch registers. It is also interesting that relative pitch typically develops early, with evidence that infants at least as young as 6 months recognize melodies transposed to higher or lower pitch registers [63]–[66]. The prevalence of absolute pitch in ASD, then, is consistent with early abnormalities in brain development. It is also consistent with the general prevalence of savant syndromes in ASD, which is about 10% [110]. In the typical population, the presence of absolute pitch is associated with early experience on a fixed-pitch instrument, leading researchers to speculate that it develops when there is a genetic predisposition combined with a particular environment [111]. In our ASD population, there was no evidence of greater musical experience in those with absolute pitch, suggesting that ASD may involve a genetic propensity for absolute pitch.
Someone I know from another internet forum is also an electronics engineer with Asperger's. He once had to have his head scanned in an MRI scanner. Normal people dislike having to lie still for 20 minutes or so in a cold tunnel while hearing loud banging noises, but he loved every minute of it. He had read up on MRI scanning in advance, knew exactly what each sound meant and was completely fascinated by the whole procedure.
I find the test a bit questionable because it's counting neurotic tendencies and social anxiety in the autistic category. To me, the most defining trait of high-functioning ASD is the inability to read others in social situations. For me, it's the dead giveaway along with uncharacteristic honesty.
The Dutch composer Jaap van Zweden (his son is autistic) started a foundation couple of years ago that primary uses musical therapy to ease the autism response. The musical therapy has positive effect in almost all cases.
Home - Stichting Papageno
Home - Stichting Papageno
I've known two recently, what upset me was that they were very controlling and abusive to their parents both physically and emotionally who basically lived in fear of them.
The responses to auditory stimuli are bound to be quite different to your average music listener. I refer to the tone dialling I mentioned earlier, most of us would hear it's musical content because that is what we empathise with, not so for the autistic listener, the same goes for music, how would they connect with it emotionally?
My first comment would be that in this discussion, as in many others, we need to make a clear distinction between the production of art and the reproduction of art. The two fields involve very different groups of practitioners. I am firmly in the reproduction business and understand what things affect our perceptions of those reproductions.
I have no doubt that being on the autistic spectrum has a strong influence on what one perceives and appreciates in the art of music, I also feel that it will have very little to do with the reproduction of that music. The same things that annoy or delight an autistic person, or anyone for that matter, should be the exact same things that annoy or delight them in the reproduction - there should be no difference.
Could one sound system be preferred over another because it "distorts" the sound making it less annoying or more pleasing, I have no doubt, but this is personally not my goal. My goal is accuracy of reproduction and as such annoying sounds should be annoying. In general I believe that accurate reproduction is essential to yield the best possible perception of those sounds that we find pleasing and that we just have to accept that unpleasant sounds will always be unpleasant.
So in general I don;t see this discussion having much impact on what I do, even while it is fascinating in the realm of musical production.
I have the opposite problem, I know sometimes within less than a minute of meeting a stranger that they are in an abusive relationship be it personal or professional. I've made it through to retirement even though I have chosen to ignore several managers after 5 min conversations, they all ended up sacked in the end.
Thanks Earl.
I do not see the same lines between production / reproduction as you, but if it is your work I can understand and appreciate the strictness.
I was mostly interested in your interpretation of the study data.
I’m speaking more to filters. I’m not suggesting everyone just descend into poor design practices. The art / reproduction thing has been addressed ad nauseum elsewhere and frankly I feel it’s a pretty tired argument by the old guard.
If you saw red as blue and vice versa, would it be wrong to view a painting with glasses that switched these two colors? Would it be not “true” to the artist’s intent?
My feeling is that it would be the “most true” solution.
Or, for those here getting a bit older and have vision issues, would you want to attend the Louvre or Guggenheim without your glasses?
I do not see the same lines between production / reproduction as you, but if it is your work I can understand and appreciate the strictness.
I was mostly interested in your interpretation of the study data.
I’m speaking more to filters. I’m not suggesting everyone just descend into poor design practices. The art / reproduction thing has been addressed ad nauseum elsewhere and frankly I feel it’s a pretty tired argument by the old guard.
If you saw red as blue and vice versa, would it be wrong to view a painting with glasses that switched these two colors? Would it be not “true” to the artist’s intent?
My feeling is that it would be the “most true” solution.
Or, for those here getting a bit older and have vision issues, would you want to attend the Louvre or Guggenheim without your glasses?
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By what you are saying no one has any idea what the artists intent was if what we all perceive is relative to ourselves. Which of coarse has always been the case for eveyone alive.
"Most true" has no meaning beyond what we can objectively measure.
Yes correct.
The first part of your reply is loaded and yes one can descend into madness in a never ending critique of that idea.
I am in favor of objective measurement and have never wanted to suggest otherwise.
To use the previous example: if I incorrectly blue, you see correctly red, and I wear glasses which swap blue for red is that not an independently measurable correction?
I believe it to be incomplete reasoning to attempt an objective, singular solution for a subjective, diverse and variable experience.
I also believe these variations can be attempted to be accounted for objectively, with real-world measurable data. These objective findings should then inform solutions tailored to those variations.
The first part of your reply is loaded and yes one can descend into madness in a never ending critique of that idea.
I am in favor of objective measurement and have never wanted to suggest otherwise.
To use the previous example: if I incorrectly blue, you see correctly red, and I wear glasses which swap blue for red is that not an independently measurable correction?
I believe it to be incomplete reasoning to attempt an objective, singular solution for a subjective, diverse and variable experience.
I also believe these variations can be attempted to be accounted for objectively, with real-world measurable data. These objective findings should then inform solutions tailored to those variations.
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The one thing I have found consistent across the many autistic children I have met is they are all pretty unique. Some may present typical common traits but these can be widely differing in severity. However such characteristics give very little insight on an individual level into how they may perceive and process the auditory and visually world around them. Other than it can be significantly different from individual to individual and considerably different and seem totally irrational to the majority of us.
I don't understand the reasoning here. Reproduced music is always reproduced imperfectly, why couldn't autism or a lack of it have an impact on what imperfections do and don't annoy someone? For example, someone who doesn't subconsciously filter out background sounds as much as most people do, might be more bothered by background noise than most people.
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