Is this OCD?

songsmith · Post by **songsmith** » Friday Oct 01, 2004

Okay, this is a dumb question, I admit it up front, but I wonder, do any of you drum near-constantly with your fingers, pens, feet, etc.? It's like I have a rhythm always going in the back of my mind, and most of the time I don't even consciously know I'm doing it. Now I could understand if I was a drummer, but I'm not, really. Sometimes I have a tune to go with the rhythm, but mostly not. It gets in the way occasionally, like if I'm waiting in line or something, and I start drumming...people think I'm in a hurry, or impatient (I assure you, I am patient to a fault).
So is this obsessive/compulsive, or just musical? I'd ask if I'm nuts, but even I know how loaded that question is, and how obvious the answer! Do any of you do this?---->JMS

ToonaRockGuy · Post by **ToonaRockGuy** » Friday Oct 01, 2004

CONSTANTLY.

Punkinhead · Post by **Punkinhead** » Friday Oct 01, 2004

Actually, I have ADHD/OCD and it's alot more than that...there are different varieties but, I'd chalk it up to having a love of music

lonewolf · Post by **lonewolf** » Friday Oct 01, 2004

Constantly....with my teeth.

molars & bicuspids=toms
bite=snare
tips of cuspids & lateral incisors=cymbals
slide with left cuspids=hihat
bottom of left cuspid=bass drum
right cuspids=cowbell

Of course, then there's the toes.....

esa · Post by **esa** » Friday Oct 01, 2004

constantly. and my legs are always going too. it's never quiet in my head. i always hear some sort of melody or rhythm.
i guess that's the noise sunshine makes...

Post by **Ron** » Friday Oct 01, 2004

lonewolf,
You are freakin' me out. I thought I was the only one who did that. Even though my setup is different... no cowbell, but I use the same hi-hats and snare.
I also always got in trouble as a kid for shaking the dinner table with my nervous legs.

byndrsn · Post by **byndrsn** » Friday Oct 01, 2004

Wow, this may be one subject that we all agree with!!!

ME TOO!!!!

Post by **Jim Price** » Friday Oct 01, 2004

Ditto!

There's always a tune or rhythm going on in my head. Sometimes I wake up in the morning with a melody that came together during a dream; I've got to learn to play my acoustic guitar good enough someday so that I can turn a few of those melodies into actual original tunes!

byndrsn · Post by **byndrsn** » Friday Oct 01, 2004

Jim Price wrote:Ditto!

There's always a tune or rhythm going on in my head. Sometimes I wake up in the morning with a melody that came together during a dream; I've got to learn to play my acoustic guitar good enough someday so that I can turn a few of those melodies into actual original tunes!

A really good friend of mine has been playing music for almost all of his life - literally!! He is a master on the trumpet (and any other brass instrument) not to mention many more "stage band" instruments!!

Anyway, he kept a tablet and pen along with a mini tape recorder on his nightstand. And, like Jim eluded to - he wrote several compositions in the middle of the night - things that he just woke with in his mind. Since then, he has sold many of his arrangements (one was on one of Maynard Fergusons albums!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Not a bad idea!!! To hell with the acoustic JP, just hum it into the mic and worry about it in the morning!!

Urbs

facingwest · Post by **facingwest** » Saturday Oct 02, 2004

Thank God I'm not alone!!!

Something else I can't quite figure out is why a song will pop into my head. The song could suck, yet it finds a way to surface and I'll start either singing or humming a few lines of it.

bassist_25 · Post by **bassist_25** » Saturday Oct 02, 2004

Jim Price wrote: Sometimes I wake up in the morning with a melody that came together during a dream;

I know that one of the guitar players from Lynyrd Skynyrd gets a lot of solo ideas from his dreams. I've had a few dreams in which I was performing an original idea that I've never heard in waking life. Afterwards, I would walk over to my bass/guitar/piano and find that the fingering from the dream was almost spot on. It drives me nuts; I'm a real "left brain" person, and I know that these cool melodies/riffs/chord progressions are resting over there in the right hemisphere. Maybe I should just learn how to use my corpus callsum better.

One book that I would really like to read is Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner. It deals with the "zen" aspect of playing music and really gets into developing yourself as a musician.

Hawk · Post by **Hawk** » Saturday Oct 02, 2004

It's nice to know I'm not the only one with this blessing/( curse? )

esa · Post by **esa** » Saturday Oct 02, 2004

facingwest wrote:Thank God I'm not alone!!!

Something else I can't quite figure out is why a song will pop into my head. The song could suck, yet it finds a way to surface and I'll start either singing or humming a few lines of it.

Jamie's been threatoning my life all week because I can't get flippin' Mmmmbob out of my head....

April · Post by **April** » Saturday Oct 02, 2004

This has absolutely nothing to do with this thread...but talking about OCD makes me think about Autism. I work with autistic kids and it's amazing the things that their minds can (and on the flip side, can't) do. We have one who can tell you what day of the week it will be on any date in any given year, or what will be on tv this week any channel, any day any time. Another taught himself to read, write and speak Japanese in one week on the internet and memorizes entire episodes of TV shows line for line. but the same kid will flip from english to japanese mid sentence because he doesn't understand that the average person won't be able to follow him.
But one thing I've noticed with most of our kids is how much music affects them. a common thing about Autism is how big of a role the senses play, and how their senses are heightened to levels that become overwhelming to them. one way to describe it might be as if you were tripping on acid 24/7. their senses are alot different than ours are. I guess my point is that I would like to be inside an autistic kids mind for a day and see what music looks and sounds like to them.

redawg · Post by **redawg** » Saturday Oct 02, 2004

LOL at Lonewolf.

I've had that all my life. I'm surprised

all of my teeth haven't fallen out. I tap my fingers, pace the floor, all kinds of stuff like that. People always tell me I'm really high strung. I can never really set still or relax. I think it's a blessing some days and a curse some days. I had a girlfriend complain that I'd always wake her up at night constantly because I was playing her like a slap bass. The music in my head never stops. Neither do the voices.

bassist_25 · Post by **bassist_25** » Sunday Oct 03, 2004

April wrote: I work with autistic kids and it's amazing the things that their minds can (and on the flip side, can't) do.

April, that's awesome!!! Do you work exclusively with autistic children, or do you also work with kids suffering from Asperger's Syndrome?

April wrote: I guess my point is that I would like to be inside an autistic kids mind for a day and see what music looks and sounds like to them.

Do you seem to notice any correlation between Autism and synesthesia?

April · Post by **April** » Sunday Oct 03, 2004

Yeah, we work with the aspergers kids too. and yes, I believe the autistic kids experience synesthesia, though it's hard to to say how much because most of the ones I have worked with are nonverbal or very limited in what they can tell you. most of what I have seen revolves more around visual relationships rather than cross sensory stuff...like associating objects with people or colors with numbers, but I've also seen some of them sink inside themselves when music is playing and look around as if they are seeing things moving around them. they are really amazing.

GUITARII · Post by **GUITARII** » Sunday Oct 03, 2004

redawg wrote:I had a girlfriend complain that I'd always wake her up at night constantly because I was playing her like a slap bass.

That is hilarious! My wife often tells me that I was "doing it again" while asleep the night before. What she is refering to is my fingers on my right hand tapping in a constant rythm on whatever part of her body my hand is resting on..... sometimes it annoys her but most times I'm sure she repositions to get the best use of my "melody"

Anyhow... I play wipeout at work, on the edge of my desk, when I'm deep in thought... but not with pens or pencils. I place the edge of the desk between my index and middle finger on my right hand and bring a spastic rythm and provide the off beats with the index finger of my left hand..... Whoa, I just had a thought... Maybe I should really be playing drums!!

DMFJ03 · Post by **DMFJ03** » Monday Oct 04, 2004

Every damn day.

I'm not a drummer, like songsmith said, but I am always tapping my fingers, or my feet, clicking my tongue, etc. Hell, I have had the same drum beat in my head since I was in 6th grade!

K S K K S K K S K K K S K K S K K K S K K Repeat!

Someday, when I'm all famous (riiiight) I'll make that beat reknown!

the herald · Post by **the herald** » Monday Oct 04, 2004

Wow! this is what is so cool about rockpage, you find out that your not alone when it comes to weird musician habits, I too Always have a rythm going, whether it be in my mouth or fingers, its unbeleivable the rythms you can come up with in your teeeth, i can play along with any drumbeat with my teeth , like lonewolf said you have different places for different tones, while your keeping the beat try taking your bottom teeth and moving them back and forth to create a double bass. Your right most people right nnow think were insane but they dont know what there missing! when people think im just humming, little do they know i have and entire five peice band going in my head, now heres an invention that will make millions!!, a microphone that can capture the sound in your head that you here!!!!

esa · Post by **esa** » Monday Oct 04, 2004

GUITARII wrote:That is hilarious! My wife often tells me that I was "doing it again" while asleep the night before. What she is refering to is my fingers on my right hand tapping in a constant rythm on whatever part of her body my hand is resting on..... sometimes it annoys her but most times I'm sure she repositions to get the best use of my "melody"

Ahhh.. so that's why musicians make that best lovers.... "Once you go Slap (bass) you never go back!" tee hee.

April... I know what you mean. I work with a deaf kid (i'm an interpreter) and there is an autistic child in our room as well. (along with a whole gaggle of other special needs urchins <said lovingly>). We use music alot to teach math times tables. And she had all the songs down with in 10 minutes. Up to 9. Dayyyuuuummmmnnn! She is a great mimicker...

songsmith · Post by **songsmith** » Monday Oct 04, 2004

Asperger's is one of the most interesting psych syndromes to me... I have a friend, yes a musician, who displayed nearly every symptom as a child, but nobody knew what it was then. In the course of my day job, I did production for a Penn State Psychologists symposium on Asperger's, and as they touched on the indications, I sat with my mouth wide open. He was of normal intelligence, could easily work with numbers but literally could not read until jr. high, had "pet" words for objects and would not call those objects by any other name, would attach to video games for interminable amounts of time, obsessive about some things and notoriously lackadaisical about others, and very dependent... he still needs "parenting." It goes much deeper than I've described, but space prohibits all the signs being listed. I sat there in front of hundreds of people fighting tears, because I love this guy like a younger brother, known him since early childhood, and he lived all these years not fitting in, thinking he was just stupid. I'm a pretty emotional guy... it was tough knowing that. He grew out of a lot of it, but vestiges still remain. The obsessiveness helps him be an unusually hard worker, unlike myself!

BTW, I do the "tooth drumkit' thing myself, since I was a child. I never expected to find out that's apparently common. I just figured it was another of my weird things.----->JMS

dayzichick · Post by **dayzichick** » Monday Oct 04, 2004

Every morning I wake up with a different song in my head and then all day it switches like a radio station. And like many of you have said above, there is no apparent rhyme or reason to it and I don't necessarily have to hear the song the day before or dream about it or even like it. I keep wanting to write them down in the morning, it always happens while I'm drinking my first cup of coffee and trying to wake up. One of these days I'll start writing them down and see if a pattern develops. Like if I wake up in a good mood, do I hear a certain song, or what? I have to say the strangest song that has popped into my mind recently is the Cookaburra song (not sure how it's spelled but I used to sing it as a kid) You know . . .
"Cookaburra sits by the old gum tree
Merry Merry King of the bush is he
Laugh Cookaburra, Laugh Cookaburra
Gay your life must be."

Writing those lyrics down makes it even worse. Gay my life must be. Damn, I hope that isn't in my head all night now.

Oh yeah, and by the way this is Terri from Ribbon Grass. I didn't want my username to be my real name anymore because it was too boring. Dayzichick it is from now on.

Possessed · Post by **Possessed** » Tuesday Oct 05, 2004

I'm surprised I haven't ground my teeth down to stubs. If I could play real drums as good as I play them with my teeth I would be the next Mike Portnoy.