Re: [F_MINOR] Sorta OT: Child Prodigies

[lstanwyk <lstanwyk@RYERSON.CA>]

No didn't see this piece, but the presence of gifted children is not
such an anomaly today like it was 300 years ago.  Not end up like
Mozart?   They should have instead said, 'we're worried that we'll turn
into Leopold'!!  Mozart had a prolific court life and career,
considering the temperature of the times, i.e., most artists starved
unless they were hired by the royal wealthy, etc... however his father
did indeed exploit his talent horribly as a child, 'stage-parenting' him
so bad that it could be interpreted as serious psychological abuse.
Where the problem lies with prodigies is how parents choose to deal with
their gifted child - they can either help nurture and cultivate it
unselfishly, ignore and discourage it altogether, or exploit it to death
subconsciously motivated by their own damaged egos.  Both my sister and
I were prodigies - playing concerts at age 4, 1st concerto performance
at age 6, etc.  We were lucky - both my parents were musicians and kept
us protected from 'the business' at such a young age.  As for sensitive
ears... yep got 'em.  I'm always covering my ears when outside.. sirens,
street noise, cars, construction pits, etc. - would rather only have the
beautiful sounds meet my ears and not the ugly ones!

Cheers!

"Anne M. Marble" wrote:
>
> Did anyone in the U.S. or Canada see "60 Minutes" today? They did a piece
> on a 12-yeaar-old boy who is already composing sonatas and even symphonies
> and studying music theory. His name is Jay Greenberg, but he prefers to be
> known as Bluejay. He hears the music in his head, and then writes it down.
> Comparisons have been made to Mozart, Mendelssohn, etc.
>
> A couple of things I found pertinent to the GG discussion...
> -- They showed a scene of Bluejay walking along and humming as he heard a
> composition form in his mind.
> -- According to the show, Bluejay has very sensitive hearing. They showed a
> scene of him covering his ears while in the subway. This reminded me of the
> photograph of Glenn Gould walking down a street in Toronto and covering his
> ears. (This ran in the People magazine article.)
>
> Unlike GG, however, he did not come from a musical family, and he has at
> least one sibling. Also, I don't think GG gave any interviews when he was
> 12. ;-) IIRC at that age, while he was already taking advanced music
> lessons, he was still protected because his parents were worried that he
> might end up like Mozart.
>
> ------
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