my violin playing makes DS2 scream!

[backtolingle]

DS2 (4.4) came into the room where I was practising yesterday and screamed loudly, then yelled "stop shrieking! put it in its case!" He was so loud I screamed myself. He used to scream a lot but hardly ever does any more now that he's more articulate. But he always screams when I play the violin.

He also objects to me playing the piano, but in a more articulate, less frenzied, way, and then insists on playing it himself (rather well too, if I may say so).

He is freaked out by the fire alarm at school.

Is this reaction to my violin a sign of:

(a) good taste?
(b)that I should switch to the viola?
(c) that my teacher was right when she said that my violin was "a bit shrill" and perhaps should get some attention from a violin doctor?
(d) that any good-PTA-mummy attempts of mine to show kids at his nursery the violin will be doomed to shrieking failure?
(e) that I should pratice more?
(f) that I should give up altogether?
(g) that he still has hypersensitivity to certain timbres, especially at certain pitches?
(h) that he is bloody jealous cos the violin is like another child getting cuddles from me?
(i) that I am totally kidding myself to think I will ever produce a half-decent sound on the instrument.

Answer on a postcard please.....

How long have you been learning?

DS1 often stops me playing instruments, which I can understand. But he also will turn off classical music which at other times he absolutely adores. I think he finds classical stuff very overwhelming as when he does like it he tends to get transfixed, go rigid and start shaking. I have found he likes canons!

DD2 used to cover her ears and silently scream (loud screaming takes more energy then she has ) when ds played his cornet. Brass can be VERY loud.

We persisted, so now she just tolerates it if she's in a good mood, and we take her out of the room if she cn't cope.

We have even managed to take her to a brass concert (a lot of distraction techniques when it gets loud).

She will tolerate dd1's flute more, and she loves our piano.

BacktoLingle: I would practise when he's not there - until you can make a more pleasing sound!

Mrs Turnip: Pachabels' canons or brass cannons?

That's very interesting about your DS1. I have come to believe there may be a profound connection between one of the kinds of "autistic-ness" and a certain kind of musicality. Where there is a high level of imbalance between the functionality level of the bit of your brain you use for music (DS2's would surely be on the 99+th percentile as teaching yourself to play Jingle Bells with two hands at 4.0 is not normal I think), and the bit you use for social communication (an 18-month receptive language delay for DS2), then dramatic reactions are perhaps to be expected......

Sadly my own "autistic-y" musicality (ability to memorise and be engrossed in music) doesn't translate into technique!!!!! So I don't talk about it much in RL - I just occasionally astonish fellow musicians who've forgetten to bring their music by hastily scribbing out their part for them from memory (they can't understand how I can do this yet only be an average player).

We need a tame ABA piano teacher on this board! I am totally fascinated by this topic. I wonder how many music therapy people can understand what it is to be overwhelmed by music......some of their least responsive students might paradoxically be the most musical, but be pained by wrong notes/harmonies/irregular rhythms/changes in arrangement and so unable to participate.......

Is it to do with the mathematic-ness of music?

That's really interesting. DS is musical and he can not bear dissonance or any type of altered music. There's a bit in a Teletubbies episode where they bend all the notes to "Baa baa black sheep" and he always bursts into tears and gets really distressed. He's 2.7.

I suppose with the violin it's easy to not get a note spot on - unlike the piano where they are all there IYKWIM.

Toddler music groups freak DS right out as well but that's quite understandable

is this an auditory processing thing? Is it the difference in making a loud noise yourself being more tolerable than hearing someone else make a loud noise?

Dd1 cannot STAND me singing - I'm not exactly Catherine Jenkins but certainly not tone deaf either. ( have a Grade 8 in clarinet & an O Level in music!!) But in general she has always responded well to music,sings very tunefully herself for a 4 year old, seems to have a good memory for melody - much better than her memory for spoken sounds

Agree it is very bizarre

lingle- there is some research on autism and music. Some stuff published in Autism in erm 2007 (off the top of my head, so give or take a year). DS1 could sing twinkle twinkle in tune aged 15 months. In fact he started to sing as he regressed so he stopped saying 'dar' for star and would sing twinkle twinkle instead. We thought we had a genius on our hands

Pachabel's melted mars, although he particularly loves Britten's this little babe

That sounds familiar, saintly. DS doesn't put words together except in songs and he's pitch perfect although his pronunciation is off.

He also has an unusual sing-song voice. He can get four notes out of "na-na" for example. Is that common in children with ASD?

Don't give up!! Just get a practice mute - makes a huge difference to the sound

Mine couldn't tolerate music in an eerie minor key. He'd shudder and retch if he heard it, and as I'm a folkie that meant a lot of tunes I couldn't listen to or play. Liked harpsichord and clarsach, disliked flute as it was 'shrieky'
His tolerance has increased over the years, it's not a problem now. If something bothers him, he'll just shut the door and that's enough of a block.

Ds did the same with my violin playing too (scream), so I haven't played since he was small. I suspect it was the high pitch screachy ( Ok off pitch) sound rather than my admittedly awful playing. He tolerates the mandolin on occasion. Dh ( bless him) bought me an electric violin(!) which is almost silent but played through headphones or speakers. Sadly I never took to it - it has a different soul! Ds screams if I sing too especially if I sing loudly - are there no joys left?
Like Mrs Ts ds1- ds can be totally absorbed by music and adores a friends pipe organ (DF has small organ in his house - you can feel the sound as much as hear it). We discovered ds likes opera when he accidently flicked channels on the tv and watched transfixed. ( Tv is quieter than the real thing though.) We took him (at 8 expecting to have to leave sharpish) to a childrens showing of Tosca (!)at the ROH - and he sat through almost all of it. (Ok we were at the back so it was not too loud).
Fascinating subject!

Thinking about it - I think ds likes energy in his music!

I'm wondering whether autistic kids learning music are bombarded with too many stimuli at once that the trainers are failing to notice. Sadly the children might then seem unresponsive or hostile to music when in fact it could be a big part of their inner life.

You know how with language, you have to train yourself to do the whole "say less..." thing? And strip everything down in an ABA-type way?

Well, people who don't have the experience themselves of having a brain that's far more receptive to music than language - I wonder if they are going to realise how many competing stimuli they are throwing at the child? Because if you only have average musical skills, you're not even perceiving and measuring half the stimuli.

The sort of person who could listen to a favourite piece of music whilst driving a car/working - is that sort of person going to have any idea what a musical autistic/borderline musical child is perceiving? The child may be hearing, in a very foregrounded way, subtleties that the trainer doesn't even notice - hence some of our kids really struggling with coping with the odd wrong note, a shrill timbre, a different version, etc,etc.

It's like Amber's NAS video of the man going on the bus and being overwhelmed by all the stimuli that others aren't noticing.

DS2 is a borderline boy so I can already show him how to play the piano - hand over hand - no talking. There's no way he could learn from DS1's verbose teacher, or certainly not yet. He now watches DS1 then picks out new tunes himself, occasionally asking me to help him find the notes.