Published on 12, July, 2020
Is it an autistic thing to have a hugely varied taste in music, or do our tastes just diversify more as we get older? My own taste in music is very varied from heavy metal through 80's and 90's music to Trance music. For me it's not so much about the genre of the music but whether or not I like a particular song or the music to that song. Personally I like quite upbeat songs as opposed to the slower tracks, regardless of what type of music it is. What is other people's experience? What do you listen to? Do you tend to only listen to one category of music or do you prefer variety?
What I think seems like an interesting theme across all genres is that no-one is saying "I like this for the lyrics"...
I like the beat, I love the physicality of the bass, the melody etc. etc. it's all the non-verbal components of music that we seems to love - which are exactly the parts of communication that we struggle with... aren't they?
We don't get the 'rhythm' of a conversation, so don't know when it's our 'turn' to speak
We don't pick up that tone of voice may convey a different message to the words themselves
We take words at their literal meaning and are confused, so song lyrics are no different - "She was just 17, you know what I mean?" Yes, you mean she was 17 years old? Wait... that's NOT what you mean? Oh, in that case WTF are you trying to say!?
That being said, with the songs that 'punch me in the gut' and cause me to weep involuntarily, it IS the lyrics - it's somehow like the music acts like a 'carrier wave' for the words and means they pierce my NA shell and hit me square in the 'empathy centre' that I try so hard to protect 'cos it gets so easily overloaded...
Yes absolutely. As Roswell said ‘you need a bit of a hook in the music, something that grabs you’. I think there’s definitely something in the rhythm that draws us into a track. I also think that a lot of autistic people use certain tracks to stimulate their thoughts.
Yeah, thinking about it, I would also take the lyrics to a song literally. It honestly hadn’t even occurred to me that there might be some other meaning
I think sometimes the most random things can cause us to cry whether it be lyrics or words or something that we see. Most of the time I don’t really feel but then suddenly something can really move me and make me feel so intensely! I ended up crying earlier because my daughter and her best friend (they’re 5) were singing the song from frozen together on a microphone at a birthday party!