On Helping Neurodivergent Music Students

You just took on a new client or student. He likes to write about excrement, becomes physically ill when he hears certain noises, exhibits numerous uncontrollable repetitive body movements, and on occasion, meows like a cat.?

Spend some time thinking about how you would interact with him and what kinds of opportunities he would receive to develop his strengths within your classroom, studio, or other institution. Do you think you could easily customize your services or curriculum to meet his needs? What would you expect him to accomplish during his time with you? Did you envision yourself perpetually attempting to correct his behavior or perhaps even throwing him out of your program altogether at some point? What might you do if you witnessed a peer of his or a colleague of yours bullying him??

Do you think that any of your answers to the above questions might make him want to do something else entirely with his life than what he felt most passionate about? This new person you just took on also exhibits a nearly all-consuming devotion to music, already has hundreds of compositions in his catalog, can play multiple instruments at a professional level, and is eager for his music career to flourish. Think about all of the above once more.

I just invited you to imagine helping a modern day Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart achieve his dreams. Certainly, Mozart demonstrated many neurodivergent traits during his life. So do many other musicians you may be familiar with. These include, but are certainly not limited to, Susan Boyle, David Byrne, and Erik Satie. You may have danced to one of our recordings at a party, listened to one of our jingles during a commercial break, hired one of us to perform Pachelbel's Canon at your sister's wedding, or even performed alongside us. It is because of the sheer pervasiveness of music within our lives that you must? really ask yourself and the neurodivergent musicians you serve whether you are making an active effort to understand and tailor your resources and expertise toward us.

Why even concern yourself with the neuro-inclusivity of music education and the music industry as a whole? Why not simply steer aspiring neurodivergent musicians toward traditional paths or applying for disability benefits? If a career in music is inaccessible to some who are inclined toward it, every one of us misses out on performances and compositions that could have been. Furthermore, we end up only with the output of those who can make it through their training and into the industry either through sheer luck or via possessing traits which allowed them to proceed with no accommodations or additional support, which all lends itself to a more homogenous, less exciting, and more narrowly relatable ecosystem of creative output.?

ABOVE: At 22 years old, American blues guitarist Christone "Kingfish" Ingram was awarded with 'BEST CONTEMPORARY BLUES ALBUM' at the 2022 Grammy Awards. Ingram is autistic. (Photo Credit: Jim Fraher / Alligator Records)

I think we can all agree that this is not a world we want to keep on listening in. Consider how you might feel without the song that got you through your most arduous breakup, the tune you sing to your baby every night, or the concert you bought tickets for months in advance.

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ABOVE: David Byrne performs "Everybody's Coming to My House" on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert'. Byrne is autistic.

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It takes an enormous amount of resilience, perseverance, and luck on the part of any person, but even more for a neurodivergent person, to rise through the ranks of music education and transition into a professional music career. I know this from personal experience.

ABOVE: Illustration by Orri Olson .

My Own Experience as a Neurodivergent Music Student

I've personally traversed the entire path of music education. I have gone from beginner in a public school program, to conservatory-level music studies, to professional orchestral auditions, teaching, and freelance gigs spanning multiple genres. I also received formal diagnoses of autism, ADHD, and anxiety post college. When I began my own studies, I swiftly presented a conundrum to the powers that be which they often only knew how to handle by doing what they considered the most safe, both for my development and their reputation – simply saying ‘no’ or ‘not yet’ and simply hoping time, maturation, and a pinch of benevolent and oftentimes passive admonishment would either relinquish or help me come to terms with what they deemed deficient.?

The barriers I experienced weren’t for a lack of trying. For years, I practiced four to five hours per day, took my private teacher up on every additional opportunity for a lesson, and spent countless hours holed up in my bedroom translating my musical ideas from thought to notation software. I went through the motions of prescreening tapes, application fees, preparing scores, trial lessons, spending seven consecutive summers away from home, and college auditions. I also did as much as I could to brush off any instance of bullying, complaints about my legs “bouncing too much”, grooming habits, gaze, “not adequately supporting colleagues”, failing to “read the room”, “not retaining things or paying attention”, and/or disorganized, sloppily marked sheet music. I tried not to wonder why those in charge did not seem to like me enough, and sometimes viewed me as arrogant, lazy, and/or entitled.?

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ABOVE: Audra McDonald performs "Make Someone Happy" at The Kennedy Center. McDonald, who has ADHD, has won more Tony Awards than any other actor and is the only performer to win all four of the Tony acting categories.

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Eventually, I sought out the assistance of multiple professionals who specialized in helping with professional development, which included my university's alumni career services, my local branch of the Department of Rehabilitation, the California regional center system, and private coaching. Every single time, though those assisting me certainly meant well, I always found that my musical background and interests caused them to chart entirely new territory, and that they completely lacked resources and expertise pertaining to the music industry.?

ABOVE: Contemporary neurodivergent musicians include:

1. [FIRST ROW] Ladyhawke (Autism), Questlove (Autism), Courtney Love (Autism), Owl City (Autism), and Susan Boyle (Autism).
2. [SECOND ROW] Will.I.Am (ADHD), Britney Spears (ADHD), Stephen Tyler (ADHD), Solange (ADHD), and Justin Timberlake (ADHD).
3. [THIRD ROW] Tony Bennett (Dyslexia), Gwen Stefani (Dyslexia), Jewel (Dyslexia), Cher (Dyslexia and Dyscalculia), and Carly Simon (Dyslexia).
4. [FOURTH ROW] Billie Eilish (Tourette), Basshunter (Tourette), Demi Lovato (Bipolar), Mariah Carey (Bipolar), and Selena Gomez (Bipolar and ADHD).

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What You Can Do To Help Neurodivergent Musicians

At this point, you may be wondering what you, as a music educator or career services provider, could do to improve the situation. Let me share three tips:

• First, closely observe and investigate the needs, interests, motivations, and goals of those you are assisting. Dig a little deeper by looking into the nature of every component that makes up a musical project, both on and off stage. This will inform the guidance you are providing, and what additional resources you require.?
• Second, constantly ask yourself if the underlying cause of the behavior you are seeing is different from what you were taught. Challenge your assumptions. Is a consistently missing instrument at school laziness or could it be executive dysfunction? Did you think that there were no disabled people at your top 10 music school, or that there could be no aspiring audio engineers on your DOR caseload? If you get stuck, look up different behaviors and what they can mean for neurodivergent people. Brainstorm ways to provide accommodations or extra scaffolding around a particular opportunity, rather than maintaining a fixed mindset. You also need to bring up topics related to neurodiversity in music whenever it is relevant to colleagues, parents, and supervisors.?
• Third, really engage in some self-reflection about how you conceptualize what work is and what it means to have a job or a career. Even though most of us engage with music every single day, it is, for some reason, quite easy to forget that working and professional development do not have to entail offices, postings on job boards, resumes, cover letters, salaries, and/or hourly wages, and can instead involve, stages, rehearsals, royalties, social media, and/or audition tapes.

Think about Mozart again. What kind of place do you think the world would have become if those around him only viewed him as a societal liability who required imprisonment within tradition and the musical ideas he had to offer had instead been silenced for the world to never know?

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Quargs Greene is a freelance musician and teaching assistant and was a participant in the Spring 2022 cohort of the Career Launch program at Neurodiversity Pathways. They have been diagnosed with autism, inattentive ADHD, and anxiety.