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Very true !!

Then there's this one. Nicely played but doesn't seem like the same pianist.



Also - I don't understand why he's wearing his pajamas in so many of his videos.

Very true. Then there's this one. Nicely played but doesn't seem like the same pianist.

Also - I don't understand why he's wearing his pajamas in so many of his videos .

These are amateur videos made by family members at home. We're in the middle of a pandemic with people spending more time at home. Performers don't dress like they're in a concert hall with dark suits. Recently came across a video featuring Christian Li, the young violin virtuoso playing movements of the the Vivaldi 4 Seasons with other musicians wearing shorts & barefoot on stage. It's a virtual concert prerecorded without an audience. Nobody thinks musicians who dress casually is an issue.

Sure, I get all that. And I'm certainly not expecting concert attire. However, some of the amateur videos on the kid's site are over four years old (i.e., pre-pandemic). All of his videos combined have had over 4 million views. The family recently created a facebook page for the young artist as well. Seems they are getting serious about promoting him. I'll be interested to see what the videos look like in another couple of years.

Depends on your definition of casual - as well as the setting involved.

I think in a home setting, it makes more sense to dress casually while uploading videos. It'll probably reduce the view count if he's in formal attire. However, if there's a nice costume, that might work. That said, the title of the video will obviously get eyeballs regardless.

If you look at most amateur piano videos online, they aren't dressed fancy at all, so it's not expected in the first place.

%90 skill %10 talent

Just to clarify - dressing casually in informal or formal settings is not a big deal these days. What strikes me as "odd" is a 10 year old playing extremely difficult classical music in his pajamas in videos that are being viewed by thousands of people throughout the world. Of course, the playing is so good the kid could be dressed as Spiderman and it wouldn't matter.

his parents are the matter.
I have seen many very young children with strong music skills, one of them has even a Steinway B at age of 5. They practice 4 hours minimum per day since age of 5. They may go to Juilliard or Curtis and play once in the Carnegie hall, but they don't interact enough with the real world, so their personality and their style failed. They missed the artist's basic mentality:do every thing to challenge themself, do every thing to challenge their destiny, do every thing to challenge the past, do every thing to challenge the authority.....

Well, the kind of talent this kid had is extremely unusual, unless you've been seeing a very different cross-section of society. Also, I don't think it's fair to assume that prodigies gave up their life for this. 4 hours is not a lot of time, unless you're spending ("wasting") your whole day at school.

this kind of talent for the majority of cases is composed by:
-imitation skill
-obedient
-parents support
-doesn't have themself
-maybe absolute pitch
-can sit on a chair for very long time

a special case:
Lang Lang has find what he want and put it in action under some special conditions. For sure he will not be what he is today if he had his own Steinway B at that time. Even I don't like too much his music but he has all my respects.
----------------------------------

this is a local primary school child's daily schedule:
1day = 24h

10h sleep
7h in the school (including round trip home-school)
3h breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack
1h clean teeth, take shower, go [censored], [censored], etc.
------
21 h

3h remaining:
do school homework
play something
sport activities
watch tv, movie, read a book etc

4h piano means a special case of "The Truman Show" which is probably the case of this boy.

Lang Lang survived as a child under very abusive home conditions; you have to give him a ton of credit for that. With other child prodigies, only time will tell how they became prodigies and whether they are a happy, well-adjusted adults.

Actually there are no guarantees that average kids (non-prodigies) will grow up to become happy, well-adjusted adults either.

No, there are no guarantees for anyone’s adulthood— but if I am an unhappy, or maladjusted adult, it’s not because my parents pushed me at a very early age. We know some of these prodigies have not chosen at the age of five to practice the piano five hours per day.

Didn’t most of us ‘waste’ our time at school? Actually I don’t consider any of it a waste for me at
All: not only the learning but social skills snd groups. How else could I have played in the school orchestra or the debate team ?

I’m sure this doesn’t apply to you as you don’t believe teachers are useful.

Since you said you've seen it personally, I'll agree with you. However, it's not possible usually without some interest from the kid's part, and extremely good hearing/observation skills.

This wasn't my schedule, so I know it doesn't have to be this way. I used to sleep for about 9 hours, 1 hour max for eating etc., around 9 hours at school. That still left evenings wide open. I would read for 2-3 hours, do math, or whatever, simply because I liked doing it. I can very well imagine someone (heck, even myself) taking out a few hours to learn to play the piano of their own volition at that age. You just need a kid who is innately interested in music, and they will find the time. I used to find the time for stuff I liked. And weekends are completely empty as a child, so they can spend some 8 hours on Saturdays and Sundays.


Lang Lang mentioned in interviews that he did know that he wanted to become a pianist; it was as much his father's dream as it was his. However, yes, his home conditions were rather abusive. Maybe not the most abusive though -- it does sound a bit weird in the current Western political climate, but if you have a stable family and know that they care for you, much is forgiven and kids usually don't grow up resentful.

Yes, we did. It doesn't make it right just because everyone faced the same thing. In this discussion, you look at the fact that the kid is spending 4 hours practicing piano, something he may very well love, as odd and the cause of future social misery, whereas the fact that he's spending 8 hours in school learning nothing is just taken for granted, because it's normal. I find the latter to be more troublesome than the former. If only the school day was cut short to 2-3 hours with good teachers and taught properly, he could still learn the syllabus comfortably (assuming he is a bit above average in smarts, which is very reasonable to expect), and have more than enough time for plenty of other things.

Honestly, once you have one skill at a high level, you could definitely choose to focus on that skill more. Would you want to participate in some ridiculous school debate where no one knows what they are doing, or participate in national piano competitions? I know, for one, that I'd be much more excited at the prospect of the latter. I contend that you're simply unable to grasp the psychology of a talented, intrinsically motivated student.

And you should think about whether you are the right person to doubt the reality of my experience. I used to sleep through classes (or read novels under my desk) and get As by reading the textbook just before exams. If I could do that (and I'm not really exceptional by any means) I'm sure prodigies could do much more. There are documented anecdotes of prodigies reading at an 11th grade level at age 5! It's fair to assume that piano prodigies have a similar level of exceptionality, so what makes you assume that they would thrive in an ordinary school environment? I'd be willing to bet they don't care about school. A majority of decently smart students (who were in just the top say 1%) I grew up with in school felt mad at school for doing them a disservice. Now scale that up to genuine prodigy-level talent.

Anyway, there are books in the psychology literature about how prodigies and highly talented kids develop, and I'd suggest you read those before making judgements. I have read them, and I *know* that you're plain misinformed about the topic.

And, by the way, I've changed my stance on teachers. But I still think that the majority of piano teachers are really poor.

Lang Lang is brought up by a father who wanted to be a musician but was sent to work in a factory by the hardline Chinese dictatorship. The father GR Lang pushed his son to fulfill his dream. Back in those days it was difficult to find a good music teacher in China and LL nearly quit.

The Chinese-American Yale professor & author of the book "Battle Hymns of the Tiger Mother" was also criticized for abusing her 2 daughters. She got the older Sophie into piano and the younger Lulu into violin. Ms. Chua assumed that kids don't know what they want in life so it's up to the parents to decide what is good for them. The daily routine was no music practice, no dinner. She made sure they both perfected their assigned pieces with 0 mistakes. And Ms. Chua wanted their Suzuki music teachers to speed up their learning and finish 9 Suzuki Books in a year than 1 per year as recommended. In the end Sophie became the youngest (at age 16) to have a piano recital at NY Carnegie Hall.

This parental abuse of musical prodigies is not limited to any particular race, ethnicity or culture.

True story of a musician on another instrument who was considered a prodigy:

When she competed or performed, her mother measured the audience response with sn applause meter. If the reading was lower than the last time, physical abuse happened at home.

Sometime ago I came across a set of videos posted by the music school Musipire in the New York area. All the students look Asian (Chinese to be specific). Not sure if this is the case. The videos looked professional and the young music students who were featured in the performances played like young prodigies.





There is a lot of hard work that goes into each piece featured in a performance. Is hard work the only factor? Kids starting at a young age may work for some but not others. I've seen parents who got a child enrolled in music lessons for a year or 2. They didn't get very far and quit. Their parents have no issue with the kids getting glued to a screen playing video games for hours. If a person can spend 3 hours a day to get good a specific video games, can the same amount of time be spent on learning and perfecting songs on piano? A lot of what we do in a video game involve nonstop repetition. Put the idea of "talent" aside for a minute and think about being taught the right notes of a song and to repeat them on piano many times. Can someone learn to play even at an intermediate level by hours of repetition alone?

Nobody have to teach kids how to play video games. They just spend hours at it and discover how to get from 1 level to the next. When it comes to learning piano, there is proper techniques, learning to read, music theory, etc. Each takes time to master. So far I haven't seen many kids who would quit in the middle of a video game like the time they spend is irrelevant. When it comes to music practice, a student would set aside an hour a day, at most 2. And many would be keeping an eye on the time to end the session as if they have more important things to do during the day.

Can we assume part of the reason why a piano student is not reaching his/her full potential is because of the lack of inclination and practice? But instead we assume that person lacked talent?

There's a special place in "you know where" for parents like that.

Absolutely. As an adult, the musician was completely estranged from her mother. I believe there are untold stories such as this one, because you don’t hear them until you know someone fairly well.