Ask Lemmy

Music et al. I can recognise talent, I can recognise good music, bad music, and music I dislike.

But for the love of von Neumann, I can't make heads or tails of musical theory, let alone translate it to an instrument. I even suck at Guitar Hero.

I understand time signatures in theory, but not in practice. I comprehend what they are and what they mean, but they don't make sense to me. I don't understand what they do or why they're necessary.

Like I get it, the bottom number tells you how many beats are in a whole note. Most commonly 4, but sometimes 8 or something else.

The top number tells you how many beats are in a measure. In common time, that's again 4.

But mathematically, wouldn't that mean 3/4 time is the same as 6/8 time? They're equivalent as fractions. But when I ask a musician they don't explain it, they just tell me "No, they're different. That's 3/4, this is 6/8." And usually with this undertone like "Are you stupid? This is so obvious, what part are you not getting?"

From what I gather, 6/8 time is usually done in pairs of triplets. So it does sound rhythmically different than 3/4. But no one ever tells you that, not even when the concept is introduced in textbooks on music theory. They just tell you "and this is 6/8 time," as if you're just supposed to know how and why that's in any way different from 3/4 time...

I cannot, and I mean cannot, flip a map in my mind. North has to be pointing north or my brain just keeps messing up.

There was a test in the back of Scientific American magazine a long time ago with pairs of 3d models (the stick and ball things people use to show molecular structures) and they turned them in different directions and asked "are these identical or mirror images" how many can you answer in 5 minutes.

I stared at it for an hour and couldn't do even one. Like, I was crying by the end of the hour because I felt so stupid but my mind, it just couldn't tell.

I've never had trouble reading but learned to read very young (barely 3 year old) like a language, sort of before even knowing the alphabet that well - it's not a dyslexia situation. But I sure couldn't see those differences in the quiz. At all.

People who make plans and are able to commit to those plans.

I make plans all of the time, myself, but it takes an eternity for me to do one. I think my problem is that I cram so many ideas in such a short span of time, that it creates a paralysis of choice to where I end up just sitting and doing nothing except watch youtube.

Small talk. I'm just not interested.

Story comprehension. For example, I was trying to play Chrono Trigger, and at some point I just can't follow the story any more. Then I lose interest in the game.

Happens in books and movies as well.

Dream. Or picture anything from memory.

I have an idea in my mind, but it’s not a picture or video like most people have. It’s just very difficult to “see” something.

For me it is drawing. I think it is because I don’t really picture things. My mind is full of descriptions mostly, not visualization, but I don’t know.

I’ve put a ton of time over the years into trying to cultivate the skill, but 3 dimensions complete escapes me. I cannot picture a 3d object, then draw it. I can get away with some geometries with vanishing line references, but that’s it.

Those accursed Smurfs.

Learning a second language. Having a processing disorder and a shit short term memory makes it hard for me to comprehend. I'm accepting advice if anyone succeeded with a stubborn learning disability.

Math.

Numbers make my mind implode. Anything other than basic adding, subtracting, and multiplication just cause me to shut down. Even division is a struggle, unless it has no remainders.

Discipline/self control. I don't need to worry so much about the self control in that way, I'm a very chilled guy. I only really give into the intrusive thoughts when I'm cooking food, or saying something I think is funny but turns out to just be offensive.

The discipline I struggle with. I don't understand how people seem to have enough hours in the day to keep a tidy home, study a course in the evening, do a tiktok channel as an attempt at a side hustle, 40 hours a week at work, cook a full dinner every evening for family etc etc etc.

Sometimes, like once or twice a month, the stars will align and I will be on it, but I can't just be that guy on demand.

Directions. I'm just clueless to the point it's a problem.

That one took me a moment as well ... why is there a difference between 2/2 and 4/4, or 6/8 and 3/4 ...

It started to make sense once I saw it as an abstraction. It denotes a certain emphasis on certain notes that would look really awkward and hard to read if it was repetitively written out for every note (not that I can really read music anyway).

I have a much harder time with harmony theory ... like, I get that some successions have a "resolving" feel but other than that I never got why I shouldn't just jumble up pitches any way that sounds ok to me. Ultimately I decided that I'll spend my life composing music, deliberately ignoring harmony theory as material ...

Other things that elude me a mostly social nature ... like, some people are just amazing at striking up some or another deal or barter their way through life at a discount, simple because they connect well to people. I never got how they do that ... not sure whether it's something you can learn

Choreography. Not just dance moves, but any physical activity where I watch someone do a thing and have to repeat it using my own body. Had a hell of a time learning to tie a necktie.

Still not 100% on sarcasm, as an autistic person. Sometimes slips through the cracks for me when others use it. That's despite me being a somewhat sarcastic person.

How to read a cookbook, or a recipe. I can follow one and hope for the best, or use it it remind myself of details of a dish I've made before, but the way most recipes and cookbooks are written is crazy to me. I can't visualize the final result at all, even with pictures. This is just about the only arena where the video format seems to be better than text, and that's outrageous.

Why would the amount of something and the instructions for it he in different places? In recipes where you make a dry mix and a wet mix completely separately and then comine them, why aren't those different subsections? Why in all the hemispheres of the earth is the oven temperature, usually the first thing you have to attend to, not the first line of the recipe?

They're not written in chronological order or in logistical subsections. I keep having to flip back to the ingredient list to find out how much of something I'll need (when I'm reading it, I know how to assemble my mise en place, thank you). The best thing I've found is to rewrite the whole recipe myself in a way that makes sense to me:

Two columns, one with ingredients and their anounts grouped by subsection and chronologically within that subsection; the second with instructions for what to do with those ingredients. It's easy for me to tell at a glance, oh, here's the part I can do in advance, here's me preparing the Holy Trinity, here's the spice blend I add midway, here's the part where I can take a smoke break, here's the garnish at the end.

PS. Time signatures are all about which dance steps you can do to the music, in my experience.

Anything that requires moderate hand-to-eye coordination.

So I was always the worst amongst my buddies at sports, which I hadn't associated with my deficiency yet... then, when I joined the army and realized that, besides running (and swimming, because I lived in front of a pool for most of my childhood), anything that required technique and skill was gonna take me 5x the time to learn compared to my comrades (rope climbing even at my strongest and slimmest, rifle assembly and disassembly, for example) and even then I was just barely passing. Then I tried getting a driver's license whilst still in the army, which was basically a gift in all but name, and damn did I suck at driving. I still do, just less so. 🤣

Thankfully I married a somewhat handy woman. 🤷‍♂️

division. i can do basic fractions but anything more complicated feels completely unintuitive.

I struggle to write paragraphs covering most topics, even those I am familiar with. I can write a sentence 10 times over, before deleting it all together. My output is extremely jagged and frustrating. Finding the words to introduce ideas or to transition sentences is quite painful and slow.

My handwriting is also extremely laborious. I have to put a lot of time effort into making my writing “neat”, aka legible. Growing up, I was always the slowest kid copying down slides/notes in class.

Perhaps both of these are related to my ADHD, or perhaps I just need more practice lol. I have been making an effort these past few years and I’ve been seeing improvements.

Funnily enough I only understand the time signatures partly. 😅. Like, I understand 3/4 and 4/4 and the difference in playing or listening or dancing to it. But, wtf is 6/8? That's just 3/4 as far as I am concerned.