Latest / Beautifully Complex / 370: When Silence is Louder than Sound, with Luke Williams

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370: When Silence is Louder than Sound, with Luke Williams · Beautifully Complex

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Heavy metal calms my son down. I've known that for
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: years and it still doesn't make intuitive sense to my
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: own nervous system. Today, my kiddo is back on Beautifully
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Complex to break down exactly how music works as a
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: full nervous system tool for his ADHD and his autistic brain.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: He uses it for focus, connection, sleep, and for feeling
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: what he can't always say out loud. I'm Penny Williams
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and this is Beautifully Complex. Welcome back to Beautifully Complex, everybody.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: I am very crazy excited to have my kiddo here
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: with me again finally for another episode, because people are
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: constantly asking me when you're going to come back on
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: the podcast, and now we're making it happened, and I'm
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: so excited, and we're going to talk about music, right
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the role that music has had in your life and
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: in neurodivergence maybe, and how it might have helped you
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and all of those wonderfully good things. Do you want
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: to tell you everybody a little bit about yourself? To start?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: No?
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Come on now, no, how old are you?
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Twenty three?
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: That is true? Yeah, so you've been out of high
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: school for like five years or five years? Five years already?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Can you believe it? Yeah crazy, yeah, yes, So talk
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: to us a little bit about how you feel about music.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Start there. How do you feel about music and having
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: music in your life?
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: It's one of my many passions. Honestly, it's been a
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: very major part of my life since quite young, like
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: i'd say twelve, started being a very integral component to
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: my function because it is very stimulating for me to
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: have that music and really congeals my brain.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Congeals your brain? What does that mean?
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: It kind of it's like it's like glue kind of
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: in a situation where i can't really think of something
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: to say. If I'm like fresh off of listening to something,
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: I might have something to say because I'm reinvigorated by
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: listening to the music.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Would you say it settles your brain like your thoughts
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: maybe clarifies.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: It depends on the music very heavily depends on the muh.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: The faster stuff is more of like a stimulant. But
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: a good example of something that would call me is
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: like a Hawaii Part two by Miracle Music. Really good album,
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: really soft, really uh kind of like those almost lullaby
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: kind of songs in that album. It's one of my favorites,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: but whenever I listen to that, I either get really
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: sad or I just get very calm.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so the slower, soft stuff is soothing. But I've
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: also seen at times where heavy metal is actually regulating
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: for you. Can you explain that to us? Do you
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: have any ideas of why, Well, it's all regulating.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: All kinds of music regulate me. Depending on the amount
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: of energy that I want is what I would listen
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: to differently. I understand how people can find something like
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know, Laurena Shore or something else of that
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: caliber to be very overwhelming. But for a brain that's
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: always moving super fast, like what's typical with AHD and autism,
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: it's very easy to keep up with that kind of
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: thing if you have the year for it. So it's
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: very very stimulating and very intensive on your mind and
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: gives you something to focus on and focusing on, like
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: all the different instruments and layers in it.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: What does it do to mom's brain when you play
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: something super fast and heavy.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: Blows it up?
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: It does kind of blow it up. It overwhelms me.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: It's just overwhelming to my system. But for you, it's helpful.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Talk to us a little bit about when you were
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: creating music. It seemed to help you at times. What
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: was it helpful with? Why would you gravitate to that?
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: How are you doing it well?
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: There was this app on the iPad called Launchpad that
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: was essentially just like a loop kind of thing. You
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: assemble loops into a song. So that was very useful
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: for making music very quickly and easily without you know,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: just kind of like it sounding bad. And that was
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: a good creative outlet for me because I could envision
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: what I wanted a thing to sound like and kind
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: of make it from that app.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: And could you like make different types of music for
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: the different ways that you were feeling. Did you find
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: yourself doing that, like sometimes slower sometimes heavier beats?
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Can we talk a little bit about music and feelings
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  Speaker 1: because we had this experience together recently where you played
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: a song for me that you wanted to share and
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: it ended up making you emotional, and you said you
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: didn't know why it made you emotional, but obviously music
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: can create emotion and can bring emotion to the forefront, right.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: I think music is like a language in itself because
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: you can convey emotions with music. A little bit better
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: than you can with just speaking. So if somebody wants
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: to convey like sadness, they really can. And that song
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: was from that album Hawaii Part two. That was introduction
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: to the Snow first track on the album, and it
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: was a sample of a different song from the album,
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Uh Dreams, Sweet and c Major, which is very the
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: beginning of that song has become kind of part of
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: internet culture now, but it is a very emotionally powered
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: sounding kind of introduction.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Does it ever help you, like to process your feelings
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  Speaker 1: to work through some things? Do you use it intentionally
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that way?
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 3: If I feel like I need to cry, sometimes I'll
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: just play sad music until I do, and that is
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: kind of the only way that I can now, But it, yeah.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: And crying is good for us because it's our nervous
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: system's way of shedding the emotion and the struggle. That's
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: part of the process of feeling better. So that's really interesting.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: There were times where teachers didn't let you listen to
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: music in class, right, What would you say about that?
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Do you have advice about music in school and in
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: learning in general?
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Teachers out there, as long as it's not disrupting other people,
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: just let the kid listen to music if they got
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: headphones in, unless you're like talking and like teaching. But
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: if you're just doing like an assignment, everyone's just like
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: writing down. As long as they're not being like distracting
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: other people, just let them listen to music because because
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: it's helpful, probably to most of them. In my experience,
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: it helps me focus, and I imagine that's a lot
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: of other people's and sometimes people want to block everything
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: else going on around them out with music to zone
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: in on what they're doing.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: That brings up something interesting because you have played videos
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: to be able to fall asleep for a long time,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: and like when you were in school, we don't want
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: you to watch videos. It's not going to sleep. We
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: would turn it so you weren't watching it, but you
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: could hear it. And I learned so much from you
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: through that about being able to sometimes quiet the noise.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: And it's actually caused me to listen to podcasts to
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: fall asleep because I've been having trouble asleep for a
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: few years and when I finally started listening to something
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: that I was interested in, not just background noise, it
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: was actually helping me fall asleep, which made no sense
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to me until you explained how watching videos and something
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: you could focus on them talking helped you to fall asleep.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because if you think about going to sleep, you're
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: not going to go to sleep. If you're thinking about
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: what someone else is saying instead, you're probably going to
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: go to sleep. When the hurricane hit US, I didn't
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: have videos like you lent me use your phone for podcasts.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: You had some podcasts about an oil rig disaster thing
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: and it was like twelve episodes long, and I listened
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: to that. I couldn't sleep before then, but I listened
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: to that, and then like within thirty minutes, it was asleep.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about the fact that the hurricane and
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: not having power and not having internet was kind of
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: an experiment to prove or disprove being able to watch
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: videos to fall asleep. And it obviously proved it, right,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: It proved that it worked for you, or at least
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: having something to focus your mind on and follow was
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: helping you fall asleep.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty crazy. It's really I feel like counterintuitive
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: to it's counter to common sense, but it actually really
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: works for me. Common senses. If you want to fall asleep,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: you got to turn the lights off, you gotta turn
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the sound off.
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's the same thing with a white
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: noise machine. It's a sound for your brain to focus
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: on so that you can go to sleep. The only
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: difference is that it's someone loudly talking.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a little more of a folk point. I would say, yeah, yeah.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: It's it's so some people it might be distracting, which
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: is why you would rather do a white noise machine.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: But uh, to me, I don't really focus on a
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: video anyway.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: What's it like to be in your brain when you're
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: trying to fall asleep if you don't have anything to
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  Speaker 1: focus on?
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Silence, it's silent, and your brain quite silent.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Your brain stops.
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  Speaker 3: If I am trying to go to sleep, it is
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: very focused on trying to go to sleep if there's
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: nothing else playing.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Huh. I thought you would say it's going to million
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: miles an hour and thinking about eight hundred thousand things.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: No, it's thinking about going to sleep, which is why
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: it's not going to sleep.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Interesting. See, I'm still learning from you even today. And
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: the more we do try to focus on going to sleep,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: the more upset we get about not sleeping, and the
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: harder it is to go to sleep like this has
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: been my experience for a long time, and I have
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: to just acquiesce to the fact that I will go
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: to sleep when I go to sleep, right.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, it's what I've been doing.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: We have also used music in the past, and I
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: think I've talked about it here in other episodes, but
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: we have used music as a way to connect when
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: you don't feel like talking. Yeah, you want to share
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: your perspective on that.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: There's some things that you were into music wise that
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: I would have never expected you to have been into.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: You're gonna help me on some of that. You can't.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: I can't remember any examples. Eminem. No, everybody's into eminem.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, everybody's not, but eminem is great. There was something
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: old like cake or not cake.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: Not cake.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: It was something like that that I had in my
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: music and you were surprised.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, nights ago we had a conversation about cold Play.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: M m Yeah, getting back into listening to some cold Play. Yeah,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: we had both gravitated toward that at the same time,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: having not spoken at all about it and not knowing
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: the other one was also doing.
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: It, which, yeah, interesting. Russia Blood to the Head is
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: their best album.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, so even just puttering around in the kitchen,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: we started chatting about music.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's that's how I'm connecting with my girlfriend
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: as well, just talking about music.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's something that you're super interested in, right, and
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: so by you being super interested in it, it's easy
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: for you to.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Talk about it.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's easy. So like when you were in school
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and I would come pick you up and you would
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: get in the car and be like, Hey, how's your day?
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: What happened in this class?
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: In that class?
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Did you turn this in? Who did you hang out with?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: All the things?
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Because I care and so I wanted to know how
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: your day was. But for you, you you really couldn't
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: manage that at that moment, right, it was not like
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: what did you usually say, I don't want to talk yep,
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: Or it was fine, it was fine, everything's fine.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I wasn't wrong.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Or I would get this and nothing. But if I
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: asked about music, when you couldn't talk about school or
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: your day would totally shut down. If I asked about music,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: you instantly would start talking. You'd be into it and
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: we would talk all the way home.
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because I care about music and I don't care
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: about school.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, that's part of it, I think. But I
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: think the lesson in that for parents is like, if
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: you can't talk about the hard stuff, talk about something
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: of interest, because the connection still matters, right, Being able
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: to connect with each other still matters. Yes, And if
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: we hadn't been talking, if we'd been totally silent after
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: you had said I talk about it, you would have
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: still felt kind of prickly and not good. But because
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: we talked about music, something you like and we're playing music,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: didn't you feel better by the time we got home?
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, someone, Yes, Yeah, Okay.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: If I had a real crummy day, music might not
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: have I'm using conversation might not have fixed me, but
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: it would have made me less crummy.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: And we're not talking about fixing, I know. I'm just saying,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: we're just talking about improvement, right, Yes, which it did.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: What else do you want people to know about music
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: and your experience with music and maybe the neurodivergent experience
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: with music for some people.
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: There's this world in this vard game that I play,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: which is just a big record store and it's got
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: a bunch of records sectioned off in the genres on
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: the shelves, and you can take one of the records
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: and put it on a record player now will just
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: start playing it. And I've been spending most of my
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: time in there because I'm rediscovering old fixations on old music,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: like rediscovering Cake, rediscovering Arctic Monkeys, rediscovering the Prodigy, and
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: like Porter Robinson.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Do you find that some of it's nostalgic, Like when
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: you listen to music from when you were a kid
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: that maybe we all listened to in the car in
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: the way to the beach or something like that.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's one specific album which is a beautiful live
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: by thirty Seconds to Mars. You would to play that
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: all the time in the car on road trips that
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: and let's see how far we've come by Matchbox twenty.
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: Well, that's a nostalgic thing for me, But that's.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Also become a nostalgic thing for me because.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Everyone in the family when that particular album of thirty
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Seconds to Mars comes on, we all like are instantly
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: transported to that car ride to the beach.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: That was the zoo for me.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: You remember the zoo, I remember that trip to the beach.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I think it was Atlantic Beach in North Carolina, and
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: so it was like a seven or eight hour drive
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: and you're dead And I probably played that for half
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: of it and then some other stuff.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: I'll never complain about listening to old seconds to Mars. Yeah,
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: and also unfortunately A Beautiful Day by You two is in.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: There as well.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, come on, you two is the best thing ever.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: I do not care for you too.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: You're not my child I am. I love you, yes,
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: but I don't understand how anybody doesn't like you too,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: because it's just well, you don't have to go into it.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: That's what it sounds like to me.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: So you use music to invigorate sometimes.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Yes, to mast boost.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Your mood sometimes, yeah, calm sometimes, process emotion and feel
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: emotion sometimes yes. Connect with others, yeah, chill out almost
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: all the time.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: Chill out.
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: If I'm just like hanging out, even if it's with
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: other people, even if I've got the goofy head set
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: on my head, there's probably music playing in it.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: So you even play it at work, right, Yeah, And
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: your dad's the same thing.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: Dad listens to videos, and sometimes I also do that.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: I listen to videos at work most of the time.
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: Sometimes I'll put on music, but most of the time
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: it's videos because I find that videos march time faster
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: than music does because it's a narrative.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's something playing in the background. It's like,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: you guys need something playing in the background to be
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: able to focus and get things done.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, well assist in focusing.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: If I don't have music, I can get work done,
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: but it's easier for me if I knew.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Very cool. Thank you, yes for sharing on the podcast
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: with all the people. You thought that this wouldn't really
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: be like the most helpful episode in the world or
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: anything this topic, Like even I had an a on
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I learned something. Yeah, people are gonna learn something or
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: maybe have a good feeling from listening to you sharing
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: your experience. That's good, Thanks kiddo.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Send them off.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Well, that leaves me to close then by myself. So
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. I
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed this little glimpse into our family and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: learn something from it. And I will see you next time.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being here. Take good care. Visit beautifully hyphencomplex
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: dot com for more resources, coaching and parent training, and
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: help another kid by sharing this with someone who could
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: benefit from listening.