I had thought of Suzuki—Charlie wasn’t ready to start at 4, though. Is your son playing the songs on his sister’s violin?

@Melody, I kind of started studying Greek and Mandarin just by poring over books with letters and characters, and then was able (with study) to learn the languages. I studied some music theory and recall that it made little sense then, but I’ve occasion to draw on that (minimal) background. Am fascinated by chords and cadences.

@Paula, Ha! I’d like much to know more of your thoughts on that study’s findings—also occurs to me now that, when he was younger, Charlie tended to imitate machines (the microwave, garage door) much more readily than the human voice. Is an instrument a machine or does it have some aspects of a machine?……

For some reason, just seeing or doing something before, will make a big difference when it comes to recognizing symbols (it was because I had difficulty learning symbols that I had a hard time with math in elementary and junior high school, but then a few years later excelled at it after I’d gotten comfortable with the symbols).

Likewise, with music, when I was about 6 I started playing on a piano, then we got a keyboard so I could play at home. I got books to teach how to read music (which my parents didn’t know, though my dad plays guitar – he’d let me strum the guitar when I was a baby), and for the first few years I had a real hard time making sense of the notation, but about 8 or 9 years later, it clicked for me, and I had an almost intuitive knowledge. Now I’m pretty rusty, and mostly don’t use music notation, as it’s much more effective for me to remember spatial connections of playing, as with guitar and piano. I don’t remember much of my music theory from 4 years ago, but now I have an almost intuitive understanding of chords and music composition.

For things like learning a process, or to operate a machine, it really is practice that makes perfect – not just being told what to do all the time, which is both confusing and exhausting.

The ear interprets sound coming from computer chips in one way, and the richness of sound from live music being played by a human being in another way. In the recording, all the “mixing” of sounds is done by the device, so that the listener hears one composite sound, which is not as exciting or involving or satisfactory as doing one’s own mixing of sounds with the ear.

I read a treatise on this once and can’t find it right now to quote from but might be able to find it later this weekend.

<>

I don’t know about that, at least at my level of musicianship. How would I know exactly what emotional impact I am having on someone, and how would I know what to change about my playing to inculcate a *different* emotional response from someone? I think the most I can be aware of is whether or not my audience is paying attention or getting bored.

As to the content of each individual’s emotional response, let alone some sort of group response, let me quote my music teacher, who once gave a series of lectures on church music. On the effect of hearing a familiar hymn tune as part of another composition:

“Now when “Jim” listens to the prelude, he may remember the words of the hymn, and that will give meaning to his listening, and when “Mary” hears to the prelude, it may remind her of something she associates with the hymn, even if she doesn’t remember the words, and when “Sue” hears it, it might just give her a certain feeling based on having heard church music in the past, and,… [and here I had a strange premonition and almost said "Leave me out of it!]… when *Paula* hears the prelude, who *knows* what she is thinking?!”

I need to remind him that he said that, now that he knows I am on the autism spectrum.