Only a small proportion of people have perfect pitch, and the majority of people who have perfect pitch are autistic. Still, most musicians who don’t have it, want to get perfect pitch. After all, Mozart had it. This study led by Anna Lambrechts at the Autism Research Group in City University London recruited 18 adults who had Asperger’s and 18 adults who were neurotypical. In…read more
It’s been ten years of Artiden! This year, I realized how uniquely I perceive the world because of Asperger’s. Now I see why I’ve struggled with certain daily life activities. Thank goodness I have the discipline to keep writing. In fact, someone figured out that I had Asperger’s from my writing. Here are some personal articles about Asperger’s and more. Why I suspected that I…read more
1. “It looks like you can make eye contact and smile at the correct times.” “I look at eyebrows and I memorize social cues,” I say quickly, shrugging one shoulder. Ok. now she is going to think I memorized when to smile. We look at each other. Well, I look at her eyebrows and she looks at my eyeballs. I am wearing makeup and I…read more
There’s a social rule that says you should copy the way the other person likes to communicate. Well, it’s more of a social phenomenon, where humans like to be around others who behave similarly to themselves, such as when someone sitting across from you crosses their legs when you do. Maybe I’ve broken a social rule. If I can’t figure out a way to learn…read more
There’s a group I’m part of called Frustrated piano teachers and it’s a place where piano teachers can talk about their problems. I glance at it once in a while and most posts are written by women. There’s probably someone who will tell me that women like to talk about their problems more often, but it looks like these women also have to juggle kids…read more
I cut off my clothes and underwear tags. I have accidentally cut holes in my DKNY underwear. The University of Haifa in Israel scanned the brains of 53 people with Asperger’s and found that when reacting to unknown touch, the section of their brains light up similar to when reacting to a phobia. Sometimes, in a lesson, my piano teacher would randomly tap the beat…read more
I played this piano solo a while ago. Beauty and the Beast is one of my favourite Disney movies of all time! There’s a bit of improv in this video. The piece, written by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken, was featured in the movie Beauty and the Beast in 1991. More recently, it has also been sung by Emma Watson in the live action film.…read more
There are a lot of mental gymnastics involved in music. Once you believe that you’ve made too many mistakes or that you are a horrible musician, you could start becoming horrible onstage. Once you believe that you’ve had no practice time or your playing has gotten worst, your playing could go downhill. Sometimes, my older students start the piano lesson describing how little time they’ve…read more
When my dad was in the hospital, he had told me about the cloud. He said, “I’m waiting for a light bulb.” “A light bulb?” “There is a cloud in my mind, over everything. I’m waiting for it to lift.” We walked around the hospital wing. There was something different about him. He smiled more, seemed to have fewer worries than I remembered. He was…read more
In elementary school, when I had started piano for a few years and sometimes learned songs from the screen of the digital piano showing me which keys to hit, I wanted to be someone who could sit down and whip off a song to impress my friends. I wanted to impress a few specific people and I wanted them to tell me that I’m good.…read more