Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum What's up with those child prodigies?!

You summed it up pretty good, TE.

If anyone wants to hear prodigies, go to a recital at the New England Conservatory Preparatory Department. These children, ages 5 to 17, play not just technically very well, but musically as well. I was really impressed with the kids that played at the last recital I went to. The older students of course played with more emotion than the younger ones, but still they all played extremely well.

John

I don't know. I think it's probably John Cage or Stockhausen.

this one is my all time favorite. I love to see his face when he goes into his zone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKQmoZURbLY

Yes, and Steinway hasn't snapped him up yet, I see. That was on a Yamaha!

It's not enough that we have to put up with those dang little ankle biters playing NOW we have CATS!!!

Thanks, Mr Citron im only 15 my self but during maturity you do start to understand things alot better, and this helps my music alot IMO however when i'm older it will get alot better musically i'm sure not just because of practise.

The Entertainer

As for prodigy infatuation. Anyone can learn to
read a book. Not everyone can write a book.
We remember the composers, not the posers.

You're welcome, The Entertainer. You've summed it up very nicely. This is how I see things.

As musicians, we have two lives. We have our human life that trudges along year by year, and we have a musician's lifetime.

Well a musicisn's lifetime runs on a different scale. When we first start lessons, we move along at a break-neck speed until the music becomes a battle. There are those that quit, and others that will continue on uphill.

We eventually reach our middle period where we're like many teenagers. We make musical assumptions about styles, and periods, and think that we can conquer everything in the musical world. This period can last upwards of 10-15 years, perhaps more - sometimes until the human life is in the 30th year.

If we've been lucky not to have stopped studying and playing, we will begin to understand, and I mean just grab a glimpse of, what the composer must be saying about the music. This period can go on for more than a decade or three as we begin to mature.

Well finally, when we've reached our senior human years, we finally get the big musical picture, but by now it's perhaps too late to be able to play at our full potential. You see, we're now too old to do the technical mastery that we could do when we were younger, but need those skills to be able to play the music that we understand so well!

Anyway that's my view of a musician's life. The prodigies are the ones that are lucky enough to have a headstart at some of the technical skills that are needed later on. Hopefully they can receive the training to bring them up to their full potential before they're too old.

John

yes, the prodigies have great technical understanding, which comes to them alot more naturally than others,and because they are young their constant practise of these skills enhances at a great rate also. (because they're young the brain takes things in quicker...) I think (from what i've heard) that most of the music they play wether simple or very hard is only based around these skills, nothing musical at all... so I think all in all its not all that fab to be a "prodigie", in most cases I just think prodigie = robot.... Talented youngster (but nothing compared to a "prodigie") with ambitions = musician.

Thanks The Entertainer

That's a very good perception.

John

Alot of these kids do lose interest when they grow older... but it is scary when you watch what they can do. My piano teacher's daughter who is 9 is already a Grade 8 Piano&Violin student and another student who is only 12 and doing her ARCT Performer's dip

and to add in, both of them are not even going to make music careers, they are just finishing it off and they are stopping after that

It does actually make sense to me to look at child prodigies and think of reincarnation.

Because if you can reincarnate, then they would have reincarnated from another life where they played piano as well. And it probably took them two lives just to get where they're at.

They should be nurtured and loved like any other child and seen as a beautiful piece of creation in this world.

So if you are beginning piano as an adult, it's interesting to look at it like this and see that those prodigies may be just extremely hard workers that have continued working through this life as well.

Either way, piano is a wonderful benefit not only to your emotional enjoyment, but also your mental state and it feeds your spirit.

So do not be angry when a child can play level 8+ pieces, enjoy the spirit that they are summoning...

~Cara