awesome disability/divergent-embodiment things:

[shehasathree]

http://star-anise.tumblr.com/post/129610156974/c-is-for-circinate-so-hey-disabled-version-of
c_is_for_circinate 

So hey

Disabled version of Cinderella where the prince is entirely faceblind, and Cinderella has a musculoskeletal condition where her mobility could be seriously improved by custom orthotics.  Which of course she never had until the fairy godmother made them for her, which explains why her entire gait and posture changed at the ball and her stepmother/sisters never recognized her.

After that, well, the shoe-fitting is just efficient.

http://star-anise.tumblr.com/post/129609861769/dyspraxia-gothic

weird-mcgee

 

• You choke on water. You choke on air. Your friends ignore you choking. Things are always going down the wrong way. You’re not sure there was ever a right way.
• The bruises appear mysteriously. Sometimes you wake up to a constellation that wasn’t there yesterday (or maybe it was; there are always bruises somewhere).
• “If you keep practising, you’ll get better at it,” they say about football, about netball, about volleyball, about basketball, about baseball. You wonder how many people they’ve lied to before. You keep practising. 
• The words won’t come out, or they come out wrong. You have the sentence in your head but something else controls your mouth, something unknown. 
• You could do it yesterday. You might be able to do it tomorrow. You cannot do it today. 
• All you want is a routine. All you have is a fear of the things you’ve left undone. Nothing fits. 
• There are things you’ve left undone, aren’t there? You think you might have written them down somewhere. Someone saw you write them down. When the things are left undone, they will come for you.
• Your hands have betrayed you again. 
• Your muscles do not talk to each other about anything except for pain. 
• Do this, then that. Do this, then that. Clothes off, then shower. Shirt on, then coat. You know the rationale behind these things but the rationale is not enough. It is never enough. 
• The doctor asks, “What did you trip over?”. You do not know. You did not see. Maybe it was the eternal shadows that haunt the corners of your vision. Maybe it was your own feet. 
• Everything is too loud. Everything is too bright. Everything feels too rough. You scream until you can leave either this place or your body.
• The form asks what support you require. You do not know. You’ve never had it.

http://timetolisten.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/movement-teachers-i-am-your-dream.html

NeurodivergentK/kassiane:

Movement teachers: on the surface I am your dream student.

I'll walk in. You'll show me basics. Or have someone show me basics. They will do them at the same time I do, so I can exactly follow. I'm echopraxic, you see. If I have someone to exactly follow? I can do that. I can make my body do exactly what they do--or as close to exactly as different builds allow.

You will probably think that I am talented. I probably am not. I am echopraxic and I have a big library of movement to draw from. So as long as I have someone to follow I can look comfortable with the things.

You may be tempted to skip steps. You may forget there's things I haven't learned. I know how to do a lot of things with my body because of years of dance, gymnastics, & team sports. This is why I can give you the impression I have an aptitude: because if it is on the ground or in the air I have probably done something similar. I've done gymnastics. I've spun a flag & marched at the same time. I've done some ridiculous number of styles of dance. I've played basketball on feet and on wheels. Whatever you're showing me, I'm sure to have a bit of muscle memory that relates enough that I can copy you or more advanced people.

Here's where I'm your nightmare:

I can only copy for a substantial amount of time.

Comments

[vass]

That last one: I'd somehow forgotten that the autistic kid who climbs everywhere is a Thing. I mean, it was even in What's Eating Gilbert Grape.

I climbed up the sides of trams (on the inside) in Indonesia when I was two. In primary school I did all sorts of things on the monkeybars that I wasn't supposed to do. And my favourite cubbyhouse was the cupboard above my bedroom closet. It was a normal-height build-in closet with shelves on the inside wall and a cupboard above it up against the (high) ceiling, and I would open the closet door, climb up the shelves, open the cupboard, climb in, close the closet, then close the cupboard doors, and then no one would know I was in there. I had a sheepskin mat and some drawings on the walls and a torch, and I took my horse books and school stories up there.

And then I hit puberty, and my strength to weight ratio went away. :( I was too tall for the cubby anyway, but I tried to climb trees and read up there, and it just wasn't fun any more.

I'm starting to wonder, based on that post, if I'm echopraxic for singing. My coordination isn't bad, but my motor planning is crap, and I'm a horrible kinaesthetic learner. But (for vocal technique) I learn best by imitating the sound of someone doing it right, and it's really easy for me to start doing it wrong by listening to someone else. This is one of the reasons I hate large choirs, and shouting crowds. I can get hoarse in those environments even if I'm completely silent. My first singing teacher at uni hooked into that: she told me to listen to recordings of people who had good technique plus voices like mine.

[shehasathree]

ooooh. yes.

'm starting to wonder, based on that post, if I'm echopraxic for singing. My coordination isn't bad, but my motor planning is crap, and I'm a horrible kinaesthetic learner. But (for vocal technique) I learn best by imitating the sound of someone doing it right, and it's really easy for me to start doing it wrong by listening to someone else. This is one of the reasons I hate large choirs, and shouting crowds. I can get hoarse in those environments even if I'm completely silent. My first singing teacher at uni hooked into that: she told me to listen to recordings of people who had good technique plus voices like mine.

*flapping with glee*

[see also: while my visuospatial stuff is kind of screwed up and i do things mirror-image a lot of the time, etc, i actually am quite good at visualising/feeling myself doing activities, and can mentally rehearse to good effect this way. Teachers and physios and whathaveyou are always wanting to show me ultrasounds or imagies of myself in the mirror or whatever, and i do very well without them and then immediately start doing *badly* with them. Apparently most people find this helpful. Hah.]

[vass]

(quoting myself) it's really easy for me to start doing it wrong by listening to someone else

The weird thing is that this doesn't seem to apply to intonation. Not that I never have intonation problems, but not because of that.

You know how if someone can sing a melodic line on their own and not get thrown by other people singing other notes near them, they are called "a strong singer"? Even though it's not about volume, it's a cognitive thing? And a "weak singer" in that context isn't one who'll get drowned out, it's one who'll start singing the notes the other people are singing? In that context I have always been "a strong singer".

I mean, loud too, but in that I could be relied to keep singing the alto line even if I was the only alto and there were two sopranos to my right and a tenor to my left, and not accidentally follow the sopranos. So that's a different cognitive task for me, apparently.

i actually am quite good at visualising/feeling myself doing activities, and can mentally rehearse to good effect this way.

Oh! I think I get it now. Your 'visualisation' in that context is not visual, it's kinaesthetic. And mine (in that context) is tonal and verbal but not kinaesthetic, and the reason that I'm influenced by other people's technique but not their pitch is that they're completely different functions in my head, and that's why I can memorise music way more easily than I can learn technique.

[shehasathree]

YES. I *can* visualise it if i try, but it's not 'natural' and not the main way I do it. (I can still remember some of the gymnastics routines i learnt between the ages of 12 and 14. I can also still lplay (or could, the last time I checked) ~relatively~ well some of the pieces I learnt for my Grade 6 piano exam in Year 10, because I overlearned them so much. Other pieces that I learned less thoroughly, even if they're technically much less difficult, I can't do the same with.)

Heh. I would be described as 'weak' at singing on both those axes (although I've managed to improve the cognitive/audiation side SIGNIFICANTLY in my twenties, largely through singing in choir and explicitly working on singing against other notes and audiation skills (although i didn't learn that word until a few years ago). When i sang in choir in high school, I was considered useful because my ability to sing in tune was quite good (is this what intonation means, or does it cover more than just the actual pitches you're singing?), *and* I could read music well (but not actually sight-sing (ooh, i taught myself/learnt to do that a bit over the past five years, too!). And i could hold the alto line, but only if I was sort-of (but not literally) blocking out the soprano line while I was doing it, otherwise I would get distracted and start wavering. I also pretty muchneed to be able to hear myself to be able to tell if i'm singing in tune or not.

I've always found it more difficult to sing the lower line of two-part harmonies, which is a shame, because i am not, and never will be, a soprano. I would kind of like to be a tenor, but can't actually reliably hit D3, let alone anything lower. All that time learning arbitrary rules of SATB writing, and alto parts almost never used the bottom part of the range. I am still resentful about that. >_

[shehasathree]

Apologies for the terrible mess that is the parentheses in the preceding comment. I am going to leave them, as a being-imperfect-practice, and because i am too tired atm to fix it. ;p

[vass]

(♥)

[vass]

I can still remember some of the gymnastics routines i learnt between the ages of 12 and 14. I can also still lplay (or could, the last time I checked) ~relatively~ well some of the pieces I learnt for my Grade 6 piano exam in Year 10, because I overlearned them so much. Other pieces that I learned less thoroughly, even if they're technically much less difficult, I can't do the same with.

*nodnodnod* When I really do have a kinaesthetic skill down, it's like that for me too. There are some recorder pieces I have in my my fingers more than in my brain.

is this what intonation means, or does it cover more than just the actual pitches you're singing?

Singing the right pitches, yeah. Covering both "singing the correct note, not some other note" and also "not being sharp or flat".

(but not actually sight-sing (ooh, i taught myself/learnt to do that a bit over the past five years, too!)

Yay sight-singing! I self-taught that too. It's such a satisfying skill.

Actually... hmm, hypothesis approaching. Have you found, in choirs etc, that you're more of an aural learner rather than learning by reading the music? (And since you're a pianist, is that different or the same for playing piano?)

I'm way more a "reading the music" learner myself, and can't always reliably memorise music and/or words just by hearing them, without seeing them written down. I think that's connected to my auditory processing issues. I'm curious now about whether 'stronger singers' are less likely to be strong aural learners.

I also pretty muchneed to be able to hear myself to be able to tell if i'm singing in tune or not.

Did you ever block one or both of your ears? I did that, but because of the technique thing rather than the pitch thing. Got in trouble for it, too.

I've always found it more difficult to sing the lower line of two-part harmonies, which is a shame, because i am not, and never will be, a soprano.

I was taught that was an acoustics thing, that the top part carries more and is therefore easier to hear, and that's why they put the less experienced singers on soprano/treble (that and because in the church tradition the trebles are young boys and therefore get the less complicated melodies.) (It's also why, all other things being equal, Turandot will beat Calaf at the high C contest in act 1 of Turandot. ("Gli enigmi SOOOOno tre, la morte/la vita é una." Which Puccini probably didn't mean to be a contest... but then, he did know opera singers, so.)

All that time learning arbitrary rules of SATB writing, and alto parts almost never used the bottom part of the range.

Fucking AMEB and their prescriptivist bullshit about choral writing. Not to mention their rules of harmony that are technically correct but never explain why, either in terms of how those 'rules' came about or what makes them work. (My favourite music teacher in high school, describing how not to write four-part harmony: "chord, chord, chord, chord, oh god, here's another chord...")

Do you like singing popular stuff? You'd have the right range for that.

[shehasathree]

Proper reply later; quick reply to say that i typed up a comment and it was 650 words and not coherent and still didn't say everything i wanted to on this topic: i think you're onto something with the aural/kinaesthetic learner vs. reader thing, BUT i have no way of telling where my 'natural' skills lie because i was raised in a musical culture deeply afraid of letting students learn through aural means and so most of my current audiation and other aural skills (need to sort out in my head what i mean when i say 'aural skills', too) are what i cobbled together from obsessively listening to my favourite music and trying to work out how to play it on the piano/flute or write it down.

Oh, and also that it makes me mad that audiation is not a thing that is generally talked about.

It absolutely makes sense to me that there would be likely be great individual differences as to which particular pattern recognition system is strongest for different people - visual/aural/kinaesthetic - but also that they really need to be strongly linked to audiation to be useful to a high-level musician. I think it would be entirely possible to be an excellent sight-reader without it necessarily being linked strongly to audiation, but obviously it would not be possible to be a strong learner-by-ear without audiation skills, because they are almost the same thing. It is obviously also very possible to be strong at learning aurally without having strong reading skills, because fear of same is the reason we were supposed to avoid much listening and learning-by-ear in the music lessons culture i grew up in. I don't think that it is necessarily as common as legend has it, or that the reasons this happens are to do with the factors it is assumed.

[And also that even though you wouldn't think it would make that much difference, apparently trying to think of myself as someone who is not best-at-reading-over-other-things, even outside of the context of words, is screwing with my head slightly. ahahaha. /o\
IF I AM NOT ~A READER~, THEN WHO AM I?! *pats self on head* - it's okay tiny hyperverbal/hyperlexic!nika, you're allowed to be complex. we contain multitudes and all that.*

[vass]

BUT i have no way of telling where my 'natural' skills lie because i was raised in a musical culture deeply afraid of letting students learn through aural means

*nod* and maybe even without that cultural interference and channelling, it might be less where your "natural" skills lie, in one area, but something that could fluctuate over your life, which particular skills are easier or more comfortable. Particularly since you're autistic. :D

Oh, and also that it makes me mad that audiation is not a thing that is generally talked about.

Yes, this. Although if they had, when I was in primary/secondary schooling, I would have taken it as a reason I shouldn't be a musician/am not good at music -- the way people who don't have strong reading skills do now. There REALLY REALLY needs to be more awareness in the classical music (education especially) world that there are multiple valid paths for musicianship, and that musicians can work on their weaker skills rather than how easily they come being a sign of whether one is a "true musician" or not (blech). The Romantics had a lot to answer for (I keep saying that, and I keep digging down to new layers of bullshit in my psyche or in Western culture in general. I read a Mary Oliver poem just last night about suicide and Romanticism, in which she said much the same thing, and yeah, FUCK the Romantics. I love them, but fuck them, fuck that entire movement in all its branches of artistic/musical/literary history.) Fuck the idea of having to be a Chosen, Destined, True Artist who is Naturally Talented and A Genius to get to have a career in or even enjoy one's art, SO FUCKING MUCH. It's so destructive.

btw, two successful musicians I can name off the top of my head who did not have good reading skills, but did have excellent audiation: Noel Coward, Luciano Pavarotti. Coward could play on piano and sing what came into his head, but had help writing down his compositions. And he was super prolific even if most of his stuff didn't age well.

And Pavarotti... every source I've read that mentions his music-reading ability (namely that he couldn't, at all) lists it as a personal failing, along with being fat and a womaniser. Like it was proof he was lazy and stupid. But no one could say he was a bad singer, and I do not believe the narrative that he simply had a naturally beautiful voice and didn't have to work. Apart from anything else, he memorised hundreds of roles in multiple languages. And the having a beautiful voice and retaining it for a full lifetime as a world class opera singer argues that (as well as being lucky with his anatomy and his later health) he also had excellent technique and was a very good kinaesthetic learner.

There is so much class stuff bound up here, too, in which learning systems are valued. Cartesian mind/body duality, too. Lots of great singers have Pav's story -- working class background, often trauma background too, not academically gifted, worked their arses off singing, fat in adulthood, written about like The Voice was something that just happened to them, a rescue fantasy, a "gift", not a talent that they invested in and worked at and protected and took risks to pursue. Like footballers and soccer players, but with way more magical/religious language and stars on foreheads.

Or like Onassis said to Maria Callas -- I'm quoting from memory, but something like "all you've got is a whistle that won't work," when she was having vocal problems in her mid-career. Rudolf Bing said something similar too, about how singers were like mutants -- not his word, but I can't remember what he did say -- freaks, maybe -- like opera singers have "a voice" and that's the only remarkable thing about them, this one very local anatomical variation.

And it's very untrue: having a beautiful singing voice is really not as unusual a trait as all that. It's having a beautiful voice plus the right confluence of skills (memory, performance, social, aural, linguistic) and teaching and environment and opportunity and interest/enthusiasm and business acumen (or a manager who they can trust) and health, that's unusual.

And people say similar things about instrumentalists too, but it's way intensified with singers, to the extent that when I was at uni, the instrumentalists said it of the singers but not of themselves. The idea that it's just a freak gift, not something you work at. A thing you have, not a thing you do, and why do you need to practise? God, that sounded awful, why are you wasting your time trying to be a singer?

I don't think that it is necessarily as common as legend has it, or that the reasons this happens are to do with the factors it is assumed.

Emphatically agreed. Also, improvisatory ability as a form of musicianship that doesn't get assessed in classical music exams, doesn't necessarily require reading skill, but does require a very high level of understanding of harmony and voice leading. Like Baroque church organists realising a through-bass on the fly, or 20th-century blues and jazz bassists improvising a walking bass. And some electronic musicians now, too. Just because it is not happening on paper does not mean it is not complex or learned as fuck.

And also that even though you wouldn't think it would make that much difference, apparently trying to think of myself as someone who is not best-at-reading-over-other-things, even outside of the context of words, is screwing with my head slightly. ahahaha. /o\

No, I can totally see how that would screw with your head. Fucking tapes. And being verbal can get so tangled up with perception of intelligence, of personhood, ime.

IF I AM NOT ~A READER~, THEN WHO AM I?! *pats self on head* - it's okay tiny hyperverbal/hyperlexic!nika, you're allowed to be complex. we contain multitudes and all that.*

♥ ♥ ♥

btw, thank you for this discussion. Singing and opera were my special interest for so long, and I haven't pursued it in years and years, so it's weird and wonderful how it all comes back and how I still have things to say about it, but they're different from what I'd have said back then. There's so much joy still there to feel. And I really value hearing your thoughts and opinions as someone who's worked and studied in a different area of the same thing and had such different experiences.

[shehasathree]

Too tired for proper reply, but: yesssss, and thank-*you*. :D