# Child Prodigy



## Ivan Limanjaya

Recently I've come across a video in youtube of a young Korean child, aged 7 y.o. belting out Chopin Fantaisie Impromptu on a Steinway grand piano. The performance was flawless, and she showed a convincing understanding of the music, which was breathtaking. Now, this makes me think, as there are many of these kind of wunderkind nowadays, how can it be possible? What kind of method of teaching does the teacher apply? Is it the musical understanding of the child that is so developed, or the mechanical playing of the piano that is emphasized during the training? Does she really cognitively understand what she is playing or she's just executing key after key? It's somehow hard to imagine for a mediocre like me that a 7 y.o. kid is actually capable of understanding the polyrhythmic movement, harmony, etc of the piece. Maybe someone could suggest me a good book / article about the neurocognitive basic behind musical learning?

Thanks.


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## Larkenfield

Old post, but I do not consider it just a matter of training; the potential for development must be there starting with the child’s interest. If you can appreciate outstanding ability in others, perhaps you are not a mediocrity, certainly as a listener, even if not as a performer, and there might be latent ability within yourself worth exploring with the right teacher.


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## Bigbang

I see this first post is from 2015. Here is my take, yes, you see all these prodigies come up from nowhere but where do they land? What comes of the "next Mozart"? When I look into the background of current pianists who have had very strong careers I do not see this "prodigy" in many of them. Then you look at composers who could write a masterpiece seemly out of thin air and not a one prodigy can take some aspect of music and create some new music. Obviously the path has been created by the Masters and many of the lesser masters also contributed to this so I guess it would take some really extraordinary being to take it up a notch. 

I look at it like this: Beethoven was in a certain time and place and the mind/genius/ and as well as the inner being of Beethoven allowed him to do what he did. So genius is not some isolated entity but part of time and place. So it goes for Bach/Mozart/Haydn...well the list could go on. But now the prodigies seem also to have other abilities such as being good in math "(Beethoven, how many coffee beans subtracted from 20=10?)" Well, you get the idea. How many of the whiz kids can even muster just a fraction of this mind. So the mystery is why someone (ok, Murray Perahia) can somehow come into being and do pretty good considering he was not some prodigy. Mathematicians would say the laws of randomness has much to do with it but I think, yes though we cannot know if randomness means really chance or it appears as chance since we cannot see all the details in all things. 

I guess my point is no matter how seemly a genius a child is, the odds they can knock off the past masters is going to be difficult. I remember watching a video of Jasha Heifetz and when a child/young adults, thousands would come and see him as if he were some amazing person. And yet, time and place...and now you hear of violinists who pay homage to him as if he did something for them.


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