Electric guitar prodigy JayBird Byrne can not only pull off some incredible riffs, she is wise beyond her years.
"People are a bit like guitar amps. Each one is wired differently," the 12-year-old from Narangba, north of Brisbane, says.
"A giant Marshall half-stack might not be good at jazz, but it's really good at rock and metal.
"A little jazz amp Roland Chorus might not be great at rock and metal, but it's perfect for jazz.
"Every amp is wired differently, and it does different things, it has a different purpose. I feel like autistic people are a bit like that."
JayBird lives with ADHD and autism, and said she first gave strumming a go after picking up one of her father's acoustic guitars that was lying around the house.
She started receiving "official" guitar lessons when she was eight, and saved up money to buy herself a Gibson Les Paul electric guitar when the acoustic was not cutting it.
"I don't want to play this guitar, I want to play an actual electric guitar," JayBird remembers thinking.
"I didn't get my own electric guitar until about six months into playing where I had birthday money saved up, and I was really showing commitment."
School was hard
JayBird said living with autism could make navigating social situations challenging.
"A lot of people can be quick to judge when you say that you're autistic. They might think that it's some illness or something," JayBird said.
"I think people need to understand that it's not something that you have, it's something that you are."
JayBird initially enrolled in mainstream education, where she spent three years, before switching to distance education until last year.
This year she started studying year 8 via homeschooling, with her mum Samantha Byrne taking on a teaching role.
"JayBird has extra-sensitive hearing, which made school hard, and going out in general," Ms Byrne said.
"But it is this extra-sensitive hearing that makes playing music so easy."
Music helps recognise emotions
While many people find strong smells and out-of-pitch singing annoying, they can be particularly frustrating for JayBird.
Yet her fine-tuned hearing means she can easily recognise notes and songs, and play by ear.
"Music is actually what gets me to recognise my own emotions, because I'm trying to express it in a different way," she says.
JayBird practises three hours a day according to a stringent routine that involves a mix of achieving set goals and just having fun.
"I try to keep them [the goals] very loose. I don't go, 'these have to be achieved' but I try really hard to achieve them."
Sometimes she just jams to a backing track.
A bright future ahead
JayBird said she hoped to release her first original EP Dog Tales by the end of the year, which features several tracks inspired by the fluffy pals in her life.
"I've got a dog Eddie who is an assistance dog in training. He's just a beautiful ball of fluff, basically, but dogs have always been there — longer than guitar," she said.
"Since I was two, I've had dogs in my life and they feel like such a big part because they're on my mind constantly, and they're really great friends."
She has also written, recorded and co-produced her own song Convergence, and has entered the track in triple j's Unearthed High 2023 competition.
"I want to make a name for myself. I want to make music, because playing covers are quite fleeting.
"You can play a song in front of a crowd, and it will be fun, and you will be really excited, but it's not really your own expression. It's someone else's expression.
"It's like Chinese whispers, it can turn into a completely different meaning the way you play it."
World Autism Awareness Day was on Sunday.
