Autistic People Are . . . Musical!

 A guest blog post from our friend, Sparrow Rose Jones, at unstrangemind.wordpress.com

 

On Saturday, March 2nd, the online Autistic/autism community participated in a Flash Blog.
Participants were asked to complete the sentence, “Autistic people are . . . ”

Autistic people are many things, but one very important thing is that Autistic people are musical! We sing, we play with sound, we lilt, we chirp. We are born with drum rhythms in our heart beats, sending music rushing through our veins and flowing through our lungs with each moment of our life. 

This is because Autistic people are part of the great and diverse human family and music is a universal language we all understand. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said, “music is the universal language of mankind,” and so many others have echoed that thought. 

Victor Hugo said that “music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.” And even hard-hearted Nietzsche said that “without music life would be a mistake.” Music is so potent and so important to human beings that there are even Deaf musicians. You didn’t expect that? Well, it’s true. There are some really, really *good* Deaf musicians!

So it should be no surprise when I say that Autistic people are musical. We may march to the beat of a different drummer, but we sure do hear the rhythm. We rock with it, we flap with it, we sing with it.

Listen to this young Autistic, our friend Christopher Duffley, singing Lean on Me. (and remember his name!)

Or this beautiful Autistic singing: “Fireflies” by, Owl City, in this wonderfully stimmy video.

Yes, Adam Young of Owl City is Autistic! Many wonderful musicians are Autistic, including: our friend Chou Chou Scantlin, Ladyhawke, Caiseal Mór, James Durbin, Craig Nicholls (The Vines), Hikari Oe, Marty Balin (Jefferson Airplane), Tony DeBlois, Leslie Lemke, Derek Paravicini, Matt Savage, 50 Tyson . . . 

And those are just some of the musicians you may have heard of before. Landon Bryce introduces us to many Autitic musicians who aren’t famous . . . yet: 

50 Inspiring Autistic People of 2011: Musicians

Music soothes and heals. Music energizes and emotes. Music has everything the human spirit needs for survival and so it is only to be expected that Autistic people are musical. 

We rejoice through music, we mourn through music, we play through music and some of us pray through music. It is a deep-seated human need that we Autistic people both partake in and serve. 

Autistic people are musical. Listen!