Posts Tagged ‘commercialism’

Smart Kids Play the Banjo

I caught a show this past weekend on the National Geographic channel that was documenting the ‘long tail’ kids, quasi-genius children on the far north side of the bell curve who display incredible abilities to perform at adult levels despite a very young age. The example in this particular episode was that of a young, eight-year old pianist who’s abilities to tickle the ivories seemed only limited by the small size of his hands. (At the time of filming, he was just at the point of playing a full octave, his hands stretching across — at their limit — eight keys of the piano. I can appreciate, despite being quite amateur on the piano myself, that an octave is a trivial task for an adult with average-sized paws, but a limiting factor smaller hands.) Admittedly, the parental pressure to perform seemed to be at times a little overbearing, but even a nagging mom can’t push an average kid to practice a musical instrument for four to six hours per day, as this young boy was inclined to do.

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Full text from December 3, 2007 by Brad
Filed as: Encounters of the Mind

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