Learning complicated new pieces takes effort, “but the challenge drives me,” he says. It’s something I look forward to,” he says. and heads to the piano, where he practices for hours at a time-until he accomplishes his musical goals. “He devoured whatever you put in front of him.” Gavin, who is homeschooled by Mary, gets up around 6 a.m. “You couldn’t feed him enough music,” says Eric. The concept of “rage to master” resonates with the Georges. “If you’re really good at something,” says Winner, “you’re motivated to keep trying.” Often, parents must pull their children away from their sketchpads to sleep, eat, or go to school. “It has to be something they are born with.” Winner believes that this innate ability is fuelled by a “rage to master,” propelling art prodigies to work diligently at their craft. The two-year-olds they’ve studied “couldn't have possibly acquired their ability through practice alone,” says Drake. Winner and Drake believe both are critical. The quest to understand prodigies inevitably raises the question of whether their aptitude is innate or cultivated through intensive practice. Read about Picasso’s journey from prodigy to icon. Are they more open to new experiences, an inherent component of creativity? Do they have heightened visual-spatial skills? “We’re starting to discover what may be contributing to their abilities,” she says. Drake is now studying a group of 25 art prodigies from around the world-from Malaysia to the United States-to see if she can pinpoint perceptual, behavioural, and personality traits that set them apart from typical children.
Ellen Winner, director of the Arts and Mind Lab at Boston College, and Jennifer Drake, a developmental psychologist at Brooklyn College, have found that precocious artists excel at tasks that require detailed focus and are able to draw realistically and incorporate foreshortening and perspective years before their peers. Still, a small number of scientists have identified key characteristics. Little is known about the origins of such early mastery, because prodigies are rare and because research dollars tend to be designated for the study of illness rather than exceptional aptitude.
#Child piano prodigy ellen professional
Gavin George is a prodigy, an individual whose superlative skill in a particular area-math, chess, visual arts, music-soars to a professional level before adolescence. “These small hands, how can they be reaching the keys? And his feet, how are they reaching the pedals?” Kenah remembers thinking. “I was expecting ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,’ ” she says. Kate Kenah, a family friend, recalls seeing him play for the first time. When he was just six, Gavin made his musical debut at Carnegie Hall.
By four, he had learned to read music fluently. His parents enrolled him at three in Suzuki piano lessons. When he was about a year old, he heard Handel’s Messiah on a Christmas CD and began greeting visitors with “Hallelujah!” As a toddler, Gavin was captivated by a DVD featuring Dutch violinist André Rieu-a gift from Eric to his wife, Mary-and insisted on viewing it repeatedly. Gavin’s journey as a pianist started early and decidedly. “He was born for music,” says his father, Eric. Gavin’s playing seems both effortless and all-consuming, as if the instrument is an extension of himself. 2 and 5, and Paderewski’s Nocturne in B major, opus 16, No. One bright Sunday afternoon, 14-year-old Gavin George sits down at a grand piano in his home in Granville, Ohio, filling the space with the luminous melodies of Rachmaninoff’s Études-Tableaux Opus 39, Nos.
0 kommentar(er)
