Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Is there such a thing as a senior prodigy?

Yes, he was a very serious pianist before 22; he just didn't get the idea to beome a professional until he was in his mid-teens. He had been playing for a long time, although the only formal training he had as a child was someone who taught him to read notes. From there, he took off and studied with himself, and became an amazing sight-reader (at 14, he performed for some friends of the family the Schumann concerto--except there was only one piano and one pianist, so he sight-read the orchestral part along with the piano part). He definitely was a genius of geniuses in the piano world, but not one exposed to Music late in life. Just exposed to formal training late. (He did, after all, get in to the Moscow conservatory without any prior training, and Neuhaus was so impressed that he didn't require Richter to take any preliminary exams after hearing him play.)

Nina - Some of my adult, um, friends also try to learn everything from classical to jazz to blues all at once, and don't slow down to get the basics right first. This may slow down my friends skill level at anything.

Do we have any evidence that adult brains don't also develop neurally, maybe different from children, but still develop. Also, are there any studies comparing learning music with learning a language? Are they related skills?

Jeffrey-- it depends on what you mean by "develop." The number of neurons you get don't change, but the way they are linked is more plastic. Children (from infancy through puberty, more or less) develop primarily by building their neural connections. A crude analogy would say that kids brains are being wired up at this time. The more cognitive stimulation (enrichment), the more complex the wiring. This is why it's so critical to provide developing kids with an interesting environment, and may be why kids who were raised in extreme deprivation (like locked in a closet for their entire childhood) can never be "normal."

When you're a grownup, you start losing brain cells, but you can still make new connections and reinforce your existing ones...thank heavens!

I'm not aware of any studies that specifically link music learning with language, but they may be out there. I do know that the "Mozart effect" is more myth and marketing than scientific reality, but that was linking classical music to math and spatial reasoning, not language. I'll ask around.

Nina

I'm inclined to believe that some people's brains calcify early, and others don't have that problem.

When I was 30, I went back to college, figuring I'd graduate and go on to study law. I had always been a horrible math student. Strangely, however, I ended up majoring in physics.

At the beginning of my studies, I could go about thirty minutes at a whack before my brain started refusing to process math. I would become genuinely unable to concentrate on it. Four years later, when I was in graduate school in physics, I was able to keep going until three or four in the morning. To this day, I remain convinced that my mental abilities--notably stamina--actually increased, in a way plain old discipline does not explain.

I see no reason why an adult can't have a similar experience with music.

Kids practice technique and boring stuff a lot because their parents and teachers tell them to. So they improve really quickly. Older people starting out are impatient and stubborn, they want to play songs and famous piano pieces and screw the scales and exercises. They practice for 15 minutes a day and get on with their life. That's why most of them suck, it's not because they're bad, it's because they're not doing it right.

It has little to do with brain cells or fingers or whatever. Older people are more mature anyway, they should be able to understand music quicker and better than kids.

Take a person who is 50 years old by ordinary reckoning -- OK, which part of her has been there the past 50 years?

Answer: the body completely regenerates its atoms, cells, molecules, etc. every seven years, according to the wisdom teachers I listen to (some say 12 years, but this doesn't change the argument). Cells are dying continuously and are replaced all the time from our food, and so forth. This continuous regeneration or resurrection of the body specifically includes the brain, despite what standard physiology may say.

If this is so, then any limitations would seem to lie in the mind, not the normal healthy body (of whatever age). As the wonderful poet William Blake put it, the problem is "... mind-forged manacles."

The Bible tells us (as do other Scriptures) that if you truly believe, the mountain *will* move into the sea. This may be taken literally, or simply as a metaphor for improving at anything.

Many persons known to history have performed 'miracles' through the power of their minds. The great teachers clearly state again and again and again: your only limitations are those that you think you have. Of course, as always the devil lies in the details ... how to actualize such theory in one's own life, such as playing a hard piece on the piano.

The body regenerates every atoms and molecules in its body? Amazing.
The brain was observed to grow a small number of new cells well into adulthood but a total "regeneration or resurrection" of the brain is absurd.

Oh really? Who is to judge whether certain preposterous passages in the bible can or cannot be taken literally? Since you left a possibility that this particular passage can be taken literally, please perform this miracle. If you can't, you must have questionable faith.


The former post is clear evidence that religious people should stay far away from science.

ya I think I read someone post that we "grow new brain cells all the time." Reality check ... we *never* grow new brain cells, when they're gone they're gone.

Lighten up, yh. You're the one who sounds absurd.

:rolleyes:

Well, (with the exception of the cells responsible for the olfactory nerves) that was the dogma until relatively recently. Now we do find that we can develop new cells in the central nervous system, but still, older people don't grow into new things as well as young people. It does vary from person to person, and some people in their 60s can learn a new language better than others in their 20s. Nobody in his sixties can learn a new language as well as a five year old.

The point I was making was that very very few of us have even the *slightest* idea what we potentially can achieve ... and that the obstacle to success is mostly our self-limiting beliefs.

My reference to that Biblical passage was only illustrative. One can find the identical sentiment in non-religious tomes -- i.e., that very strong belief or faith has on innumerable verified occasions allowed men and women to do incredible things.

Further, one can easily read a multiplicity of accounts of socalled 'miracles' (astounding accomplishments) performed by some of the most exceptional humans. These folks tell us to believe in ourselves.

Palindrome -- yes, agreed: we come into this world with a special ability to learn languages, which gradually diminishes. That is what I've been taught, and certainly it agrees with my personal observations.

I know it used to be standard scientific doctrine that our bodies don't make new brain cells (neurons). Recent accounts have it that science is changing its position on this.

I don't know about the rest of you old geezers but if I found myself being referred to as a "prodigy", I think would feel kind of silly. I am used to hearing that term in connection with 10 year old girls who can play blindfolded. Now "prodigious" would be a different matter entirely.

Apparently the famed jazz pianist Roger Kellaway (I don't know at what age he started playing) has grown musically and energetically so much in the past couple of years that he is wearing out bass players and guitar players in his new band with a vengeance and seems to have levitated to another level with his music at approx. age 60+.
What an inspiration!

JBryan:

I somehow think you and I would get on, Jim. We both have common sense.

The word "prodigy" in the usually accepted sense implies youth. That is a fact of the English language.

The pragmatic truth is that we really don't know how age affects the musical, or any other creative faculty. The purely physical aspects presumably deteriorate, but the creative properties may not. Take Paul Erdos in mathematics, for example - world class in his seventies. Take Elgar, Delius or Havergal Brian in music. Take Laurie Lowry in painting. Take Hal Isbitz in ragtime - started at around sixty !

The question is couched in an incorrect form. Couched in the form "Do we ever reach an age when we should recognise and be fearful of impossibilities and barriers ?" The answer must be "No" in the strongest terms.

Rob, thanks for mentioning Kellaway.

Ted2, thanks for all those examples.

I might add Picasso, who lived into his 90s. He married a young woman, also an artist, when he was in his sixties. In her autobiography she states that Picasso would work 12 or 14 hours straight, barely stopping for food, when an idea possessed him.

Vassily Smyslov qualified for the final four in one of the world chess championships during the 1980s at the age of 60. And during the past 10 years Viktor Korchnoi, now 71 or 72, has (and still is) competing successfully with the best players in the world.