Commenting on amazing technique: child prodigy

[shootingstar]

I don't play a musical instrument. So I learned abit about violin technique, etc.  via these 2 guys who are string musicians and also music  teachers...comment on various peformance techniques for this child prodigy.  She plays some familiar classical music pieces.  

Hopefully, the child has a good normal life as an adult...  Whatever  "normal" means.  

 

[maddmaxx ★]

Does anyone really have a "normal" life?

[shootingstar]

6 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

Does anyone really have a "normal" life?

I think so...I have 2 friends I can name who have. I've known them for the past 41 yrs.  They are both white, my age... they each try to  have a healthy lifestyle for past few decades. They keep informed about the world.  They are not anti-vaxxers. They are not in major debt --if any.   They don't participate in any fringe belief group that endangers people. No child prodigies.  

 

Friend #1- has been married for the past 35 yrs. with an adult daughter who will be married soon. Friend and her hubby (great guy) will move to the city where daughter and fiance live, but in a separate house.  Close friend  immigrated from England when she was an early teen.  Daughter (no drugs, career-oriented) is close to her parents, aka she likes visiting them. That's always a good sign.  My friend lives a great middle class income life.. Double incomes. She's had a great career --multiple jobs like me but she's moved higher into sr. management ranks. Will retire soon.  She gets along well with her siblings.

I am not aware of any marital indiscretions.  No one has any addictions, major mental health challenges (yet). 

 

Friend #2- has been single all her life. She was raised in a middle income family (her father was a popular school principal, etc.) with a sister that she gets along well. Friend is a doting aunt to nieces. Friend has been also a high school teacher...in addition to sr. management roles in multi-branch library systems. Friend did look after her widowed mom for 3 yrs. when mom had dementia before she died. From her descriptions, she had a good relationship with mom.  Friend has a wide circle of relatives in Ontario that she knows/visits.  She volunteers, etc. Friend is working on winterizing her cottage to retire full-time there.  

 

So maddmaxx unless these friends have hidden some major negative problem, I think their lives have regular life challenges, stresses and finding ways to deal with. Then it is dealt with eventually. I think they do sense they've lived a privileged life.  It doesn't make their personal life challenges less, it's just less drama, less family conflict overall in their lives.

[MickinMD ★]

Some guy wrote a book around the '90's called something like, "How to Raise a Genius."

It has a lot to do with starting early.

A lot of my Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins U's piano teacher's students were 12 or under.  Many were fantastic and when she held recitals, we adults played first because we'd sound awful if those amazing kids played first!

If you want to get a musical child into college at Peabody, Julliard, etc. for piano, I'm told he/she should begin piano by age 6 at the latest and practice 4-6 hours/day. Some parents home-school musical kids so they have enough time to practice.  When I was taking my nephew Ryan to the age 4-7 Early Childhood Music program at Peabody on Saturdays, I met musicians who were parents from Upstate New York who drove 6 hours to Peabody on Saturday then 6 hours back home, just so their kids could get Peabody-level instruction.

The first 2 years of early childhood lessons to which I took Ryan were taught by world-class harpist Michaela Trnkova, who had won the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Harp Competition - the Wimbledon of the harp world. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra flew her there to play with them when they wanted to make a recording to show they were a top orchestra.  Here's me, Ryan and Michaela in 2004-5 when Ryan was three or four: she'd have the kids banging sticks together, ringing triangles, beating drums, waving scarves, etc. - often with different kids doing different things - to get them to recognize different rhythms, harmonies, note durations.  When Ryan made First Sax in his middle school orchestra at age 12, the first thing he did, when I took him to Peabody for a Sax lesson with Woodwinds Pro Ian Sims, was run to Michaela's office to tell her he made First Sax!  He knew the stuff she did below to ingrain music in his head had something to do with it!

One day, she had the kids put 12 chairs, some red, some blue, in a circle.  She then played a recording of Louis Armstrong playing the Saint Louis Blues - which is played in tango style: a dotted quarter note (1.5 quarter note) + an eighth note, followed by two quarter notes.  As the music played she walked in a circle, tapping each chair.  Then she stopped and said, "Something's wrong with the chairs!"

The problem was the blue chairs represented 1/2 note durations (the dotted 1/4 + the 1/8) and the red chairs represented 1/4 notes but they were not arranged blue-red-red-blue-red-red-etc. to match the music.  So when Michaela tapped the chairs, they often were not in time with the music.

So, with no hints, the 6 year-old kids ran out onto the floor and moved the chairs so they matched: blue-red-red repeating.  THAT was part of the process to get the kids to feel the music and identify them with written note durations.  A number of other techniques were used to do similar things.

Also, they were taught about, "Home! Whoa!, and Back! chords."  Musically, this would be the typical Key tone, Major Fourth, and Fifth progression like C, F, and G (or G7).  The Home chord is the key where you start, the Whoa chord tells you we're a changed pattern in the music, the Back chord tells you the music is heading back to Home: like in The Ballad of the Green Berets:

(C-Home)Fighting soldiers from the sky
Fearless men(G-we're going Back: heading to C) who jump and die(C-we're back Home)
Men who mean(F-whoa: change in music pattern) just what they say(C-we're back Home)
The brave men(G-heading Back to home) of the Green Beret(C-Home)

Even before they knew how chords were constructed, the 4-5 year-old kids instinctively knew which ones were appropriate!

Ryan didn't take music real seriously, but by the time he was in 8th grade, he could pick up Alto Sax sheet music he had never seen before and play it.  In 8th Grade, he was Lead Saxophone in the school orchestra at Maryland's top 5-rated middle school.

When I was in Shanghai in 2001, we went to a place called The Children's Palace where kids from ages about 7-12, played instruments.  We heard an assortment of traditional Chinese instruments and then Western Classical Stuff - Bach, Beethoven, Mozart - on piano, violin, flute, etc.  They were great!  A few years later, I heard they had a similar kids program at Peabody and got Ryan in it.  In 2005, I met, auditioned, and was accepted by my virtuosa piano teacher at Peabody.  Frances Cheng-Koors had been a child prodigy from Shanghai.

[Wilbur ★]

I hope children have a good normal life as children.  Sometimes we push so hard, they push back harder. 

[shootingstar]

3 hours ago, Wilbur said:

I hope children have a good normal life as children.  Sometimes we push so hard, they push back harder. 

So very true....the thing about child prodigies, is how they will handle future as adults if the focus is not on their child talent.  

I don't agree with having a 6-8 yr. child so young practice 4-6 hrs. per day, on 1 thing...unless they really love 80% of time what they are doing.  No one will love what they're doing 100% for practicing so many hrs. per day.

I will say this:  my father did pressure us quite young to do academically well in school. So we were to be indoors reading books, dealing with math for 4-5 hr..../day on weekends. I don't recall spending much time playing after school.  By supper time, it was watching TV or reading a bk. I enjoyed.  That was at a time, my English language fluency needed to be ramped up.  As a child I actually never went through picture book stage.  I was reading novels meant for 9-13 yr. old when I was only 6-7 yrs. old..my father (wrongly) felt I should advance sooner.  I didn't understand all the words I read..it was  through constant exposure to words in stories, that I eventually figured out certain things over the months, years.   The first time, I read "Little Women", I only understood 50% of time. I was around 7 yrs. old and I stuck to the thick novel because it was a novel about several sisters, which I related to and a heroine who was bookish and independent oriented teen.  After that I read the book twice later, getting different meanings, depending on my age when I read it 2nd, 3rd time ...because then I started to appreciate the story better.

So my childhood was playing outdoors with other neighbourhood children, riding a shared bike   Thankfully my father relaxed when he realized we became self-motivated, and I read whatever I wanted from the library. I read a ton of bks. I started going into adult section in library when I was around 13 yrs. up.  

My nephew who was in competitive swimming in his teens was practicing 2-3 hrs. per day..getting up early in morning. On weekends, was longer.   This went on for nearly 5 yrs.

My niece from a different family who was in competitive gymnastics was practicing 2-3 hrs. day.  They were both expected to keep up with their school..which they did. She started on the competitive track around 11 yrs.old..   

[shootingstar]

2 hours ago, MickinMD said:

Some guy wrote a book around the '90's called something like, "How to Raise a Genius."

It has a lot to do with starting early.

A lot of my Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins U's piano teacher's students were 12 or under.  Many were fantastic and when she held recitals, we adults played first because we'd sound awful if those amazing kids played first!

If you want to get a musical child into college at Peabody, Julliard, etc. for piano, I'm told he/she should begin piano by age 6 at the latest and practice 4-6 hours/day. Some parents home-school musical kids so they have enough time to practice.  When I was taking my nephew Ryan to the age 4-7 Early Childhood Music program at Peabody on Saturdays, I met musicians who were parents from Upstate New York who drove 6 hours to Peabody on Saturday then 6 hours back home, just so their kids could get Peabody-level instruction.

The first 2 years of early childhood lessons to which I took Ryan were taught by world-class harpist Michaela Trnkova, who had won the Queen Elizabeth of Belgium Harp Competition - the Wimbledon of the harp world. The Singapore Symphony Orchestra flew her there to play with them when they wanted to make a recording to show they were a top orchestra.  Here's me, Ryan and Michaela in 2004-5 when Ryan was three or four: she'd have the kids banging sticks together, ringing triangles, beating drums, waving scarves, etc. - often with different kids doing different things - to get them to recognize different rhythms, harmonies, note durations.  When Ryan made First Sax in his middle school orchestra at age 12, the first thing he did, when I took him to Peabody for a Sax lesson with Woodwinds Pro Ian Sms, was run to Michaela's office to tell her he made First Sax!  He knew the stuff she did below to ingrain music in his head had something to do with it!

One day, she had the kids put 12 chairs, some red, some blue, in a circle.  She then played a recording of Louis Armstrong playing the Saint Louis Blues - which is played in tango style: a dotted quarter note (1.5 quarter note) + an eighth note, followed by two quarter notes.  As the music played she walked in a circle, tapping each chair.  Then she stopped and said, "Something's wrong with the chairs!"

The problem was the blue chairs represented 1/2 note durations (the dotted 1/4 + the 1/8) and the red chairs represented 1/4 notes but they were not arranged blue-red-red-blue-red-red-etc. to match the music.  So when Michaela tapped the chairs, they often were not in time with the music.

So, with no hints, the 6 year-old kids ran out onto the floor and moved the chairs so they matched: blue-red-red repeating.  THAT was part of the process to get the kids to feel the music and identify them with written note durations.  A number of other techniques were used to do similar things.

Also, they were taught about, "Home! Whoa!, and Back! chords."  Musically, this would be the typical Key tone, Major Fourth, and Fifth progression like C, F, and G (or G7).  The Home chord is the key where you start, the Whoa chord tells you we're a changed pattern in the music, the Back chord tells you the music is heading back to Home: like in The Ballad of the Green Berets:

(C-Home)Fighting soldiers from the sky
Fearless men(G-we're going Back: heading to C) who jump and die(C-we're back Home)
Men who mean(F-whoa: change in music pattern) just what they say(C-we're back Home)
The brave men(G-heading Back to home) of the Green Beret(C-Home)

Even before they knew how chords were constructed, the 4-5 year-old kids instinctively knew which ones were appropriate!

Ryan didn't take music real seriously, but by the time he was in 8th grade, he could pick up Alto Sax sheet music he had never seen before and play it.  In 8th Grade, he was Lead Saxophone in the school orchestra at Maryland's top 5-rated middle school.

When I was in Shanghai in 2001, we went to a place called The Children's Palace where kids from ages about 7-12, played instruments.  We heard an assortment of traditional Chinese instruments and then Western Classical Stuff - Bach, Beethoven, Mozart - on piano, violin, flute, etc.  They were great!  A few years later, I heard they had a similar kids program at Peabody and got Ryan in it.  In 2005, I met, auditioned, and was accepted by my virtuosa piano teacher at Peabody.  Frances Cheng-Koors had been a child prodigy from Shanghai.

So does Ryan play any instrument at this time?  Has he attended any recent symphonic or chamber concerts recently?  Of course, I've gone to classical music concerts and chorales over the past decades..dearie and I attended our favourite baroque music group for which we had subscription for about a decade.  I occasionally saw children attending and most likely those children, were formally trained on an  instrument to even begin to appreciate what they heard live.  

Interesting how to teach music to very young children.  Since I can't read music or imagine it to compose something, I see music truly as another "language".  My strength is more on the visualization side.

[shootingstar]

I will say after my personal experiences of growing up and reading sometimes, bks. far beyond my capability...it wasn't a terrible thing. There IS truth that frequent exposure to words, you begin to figure out the meaning of the sentence on your own....for any average child. So professionally as a librarian, I would not limit a child just to prescribed list of books for their reading level.  I would also encourage them to select additonal books whatever they wanted..on their own and if too "hard"/"difficult", so what?  If the child even reads 1/4 of a book beyond their reading level, that's great.

I know my English vocabulary advanced very fast when I enjoyed selecting and reading novels and non-fiction 2-3 levels beyond normal gr. level.

[Razors Edge ★]

11 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

Does anyone really have a "normal" life?

Exactly. Awful in some respects, great in others, memorable in many, a blur in other ways.  We tend to think we are surrounded by normal people, but scratch a little below the surface, and that concept goes right out the window.

[maddmaxx ★]

3 hours ago, Wilbur said:

I hope children have a good normal life as children.  Sometimes we push so hard, they push back harder. 

I know I did.