Sure, the extra visualization for everything may seem like work now but at one time, it was more natural than language and my mind has been drilled and drilled to use language that is common to everyone so that everyone will roughly be the same and differences will diminish…even though these differences might be useful or even essential for some of us.

At any rate, I think “violin” vs. “trumpet” is a lot closer to “striped” vs. “paisley” than to “blue” vs. “green”.

People with AP can name notes as easily as most of us name colours. A person with AP can tell you if you play them a particular note, C-sharp for example, on the piano. Most people can’t do that – even most musicians can’t unless they’re looking at your fingers. Most people with AP can mame the pitch of other sounds also – like car horns, the hum of fluorescent lights, and knives clinking against dinner plates.

Colour is a psychosocial fiction. It doesn’t exist in the world, but our brains impose a colour, such as red or blue, on the one dimensional continuum of the frequency of light waves.

Pitch is also a pyschosocial fiction which does not exist in the world. It is caused by our brains imposing a structure on the one dimensional continuum of the frequency of sound waves. “We can instantly name a color just by looking at it. Why can’t we name sounds just by listening to them?”

“Well, most of us can identify sounds as effortlessly as we identify colors; it’s simply not the pitch we identify, but rather, the timbre […]. Still, it remains an unsolved problem why some people have AP and others don’t.”

In relation to autistic people and music, Daniel Levitin perpetuates stereotypes and ignorance. He contrasts people with Williams Syndrome [WS], who are highly social, gregarious and paricularly good at music, with autistics who are highly anti-social and not very musical.

Because we are unable to empathize with others, to understand emotions or emotional communication, particularly emotions in others; we are utterly unable “to appreciate the aesthetic qualities of art and music. Although some [autistic] people play music, and some of them have reached a high level of technical profiency, they do not report being emotionally moved by music. Rather the preliminary and largely anecdotal evidence is that they are attracted to the *structure* of music.”

“Temple Grandin […] has written that she finds music ‘pretty’, but that in general, she just ‘doesn’t get it’ or understand why people react to it in the way that they do.”

We are able to empathize with others, to understand emotions in others, and to appreciate art and music, and be emotionally moved by music. I am. Besides there is no relationship between sociability and emotional enjoyment of music. With all the means to listen to music when alone an anti-social person can easily enjoy music,and be moved by it emotionally.

Also I’ve read elsewhere people with WS being described as very social, in contrast to autistics who are described as being very anti-social.

The flipside to that is how new and interesting a song sounds in a different key.

Someone I know who tunes instruments told me the story of a young man who walked up to a piano and got very upset because one note was out of tune. He didn’t check any of the others, which is what one normally does to tell that a note is out of tune. My friend realized that the young man had perfect pitch. I am not sure if he was autistic or something, but was a teenager who had limitations of some sort and did not work. My friend taught him to tune pianos and his mom used to drive him around to tune. He said luckily the piano from which he memorized the pitches was at or near A440 so he did a fairly good tuning job. This is something that would have happened at least 30 years ago so I know nothing else about it.

C is not quite yellow for me. It’s an orangish yellow. When I am having trouble with a piece, I do write the colors in, and then I get the notes right almost immediately. If I wrote in yellow for C, I’d be in trouble. I have to dig through my colored pencils finding just the right sort of yellowish orange, since F and E also are shades of yellow and orange. I wish they’d change to something a bit more varied but they don’t. At least D is a bright blue with some green in it, whilst B is a violet blue. I don’t get those mixed up.

I think I look at mouths and lip read somewhat. I never thought about it at all until I started reading about auditory processing difficulties.

Well, one day, it appears that this little girl (who had not yet started learning to read on her own) was visiting a friend’s home and started going through the books there. Except, she kept saying, “oh this book is broken” then she’d look at another and declare that one broken also. (I forget if she was speaking this or signing this, but whatever, she was saying the books were all broken.) This kept going on for book after book until her father got there to ask what she meant. Turned out she thought all the books were “broken” because they had no Braille. So her father had to explain that sighted people read things by print instead of Braille!

We consider “natural” to be whatever we’re surrounded with. If we’re surrounded with sign, then of course sign will be natural. If we’re surrounded by books in Braille and a Mom who only reads Braille, than thats what will be natural. And if we have perfect pitch but can’t boil water, then that’d be natural too.

If a person doesn’t like chocolate, though, THAT can’t possibly be natural … ;-)

In ‘The Mask of Benevolence: Disabling the Deaf Community’, Harlan Lane tells how when a deaf friend with deaf parents was a young boy he made friends with a little girl next door, who was hearing. However he discovered that he could not communicate with her as he could with his family. She couldn’t understand even the simplest gestures. So he was reduced to pointing and bringing things to her, or her to things. He did not know what was wrong with her, but his conviction that she was strange was confirmed one day. The girl’s mother walked up to them while they were playing and moved her mouth furiously at her daughter. Suddenly she picked up her toys and left. He went to his mother and asked what the girl’s affliction was. His mother explained that the girl was hearing; she didn’t know how to sign, so she and her mother communicate with talk.

It is also tiresome to explain to people, as in your example about being able to not boil water, but do other tasks, that this does not mean you are like a little child. That’s like saying someone with “pitch-deficency” is infantile, because they fail at that one specific task.

This also brings to mind the idea that people will fail to teach us things, because they will assume we can’t comprehend it, without even trying to teach us.

I don’t mind explaining things to people, if they will understand. Not pat me on the head and act as if I explained to them I’m a child, and want to be treated as such. Like not being able to drive. For most people it seems not being able to drive, is akin to having the mindset of a 4 year old. What is up with that?!