Recently 60 Minutes featured a story about 12 year-old prodigy Jay Greenberg. Young master Greenberg, however, is not just another prepubescent violin virtuoso. Jay is musically proficient to the extent that he is taking and not simply auditing advanced music theory courses at Julliard, can play Beethoven scores upside-down and backwards -- literally -- and has completed five symphonies in the course of about two years (i.e., since he was 10). Jay is a compositional prodigy. This is uncommon indeed. Or, as his instructor Sam Zyman says with unflinching confidence, it means that Jay Greenberg is " a prodigy of the level of the greatest prodigies in history."
Of course, many great musicians start very young. But I have to admit that the 60 Minutes teaser for this story kept me parked in front of the television, and in spite of the fact that the broadcast had been delayed by more than half an hour by a Week 12 slopfest between the Patriots and the Ravens (NE, 24 B, 3). Despite what I know about the fast start gotten off to by Clifford Brown, Mozart, and so many others, I really did want an answer to CBS' ratings sweep question: "What's going on in Jay Greenberg's head?"
The question was not rhetorical, but it did end up being a dodge. No correspondent -- not Wallace, not Murrow, and certainly not Scott Pelley, seemingly cross and permanently brow-furrowed, not unlike The Daily Show's mock bureau chief Rob Corddry in one of his many brain-fart moments -- was going to penetrate the mysteries of the prodigious in any fifteen televised minutes. Instead, there was a good bit of talk about things, mostly "sounds", going in and out of Jay Greenberg's mind. You see, Jay does not sit at a piano with his hair pulled into stiff peaks, agonizing over bar after bar of music. He simply hears the music "playing like an orchestra in his head" and records it. "I just hear it as if it were a smooth performance of a work that is already written, when it isn't." Over footage of Jay slouched back at his PC, headphones donned, humming as he pounds out virtual notes on virtual staves with great rapidity, the home audience is told: "All the kids are downloading music these days. But Jay, with his composing program, is downloading it from his head." Later, the camera crew follows Jay on his commute to Julliard. In the subway station, Jay peers into the darkness of the not-yet-arrived but incoming train. It is not that he needs or wants to be especially punctual. "Jay has been told his hearing is many times more sensitive than an average person's. The sounds of the city need to be shut out manually." Jay presses his palms to his ears and grimaces when the train is still mostly a rush of wind and a glob of bright yellow light no bigger than, well, a child of 12. It is as if he is trying to keep the melodies, harmonies and rhythms that are so constituent of his consciousness from leaking out and becoming contaminated with noise. (Children are to be protected, after all, and they need to learn early these days how to protect themselves and their "gifts".) And, judging by Jay's coolly exasperated responses to his interviewer's queries, both the squeal of steel wheels on steels rails and conversations about what it's like to live with his condition count as "noise".
And just what is this condition? CBS' story, predictably enough, focused on the semi-supernatural -- flatly preternatural for the PBS viewers -- aspects of Jay's experience. Although the exact words were never uttered in the course of the broadcast, they could be heard as subliminal signals underneath the carefully edited footage: predestination; channeling; genius; purity; the ineffable. It makes for a better story, pretending by glossing over how he may have acquired the aptitude otherwise, that Jay possesses an innate ability to notate music. Jay's mother, Orna, a painter (his father Robert is a linguist): "I think, around 2, when he started writing, and actually drawing instruments, we knew that he was fascinated with it. He managed to draw a cello and ask for a cello, and wrote the word cello. And I was surprised, because neither of us has anything to do with stringed instruments... This child told me, he said, 'I'm gonna be dead if I am not composing. I have to compose. This is all I want to do.' And when a child that young tells you where their vision is, or where they're going, you don't have a choice." As if Jay Greenberg were born, perchance conceived, literate. Yet any recovering dyslexic will tell you that literacy is a social skill, a product of our being in the world of other people's lives. Nevertheless, the moving pictures of Jay are compelling, and, what's worse, inflame the viewer's awe (understanding that modicum of awe equals a load of dread) more than any producer's spin ever could. Gawky, with a slightly pinched face that is studded with a constellation of moles and fringed with the black down of a baby moustache, his dark eyes flashing with a kind of haughtiness, one could almost believe Jay Greenberg were a genetic anomaly. Or haunted, as prophets are. A transcriber guided by heavenly intelligence. A conduit. (Imposing musical talent typically stirs us to thoughts of the divine -- or the infernal.) An abstraction breathed into being, at least.
"Jay told Pelley he doesn’t know where the music comes from, but it comes fully written -- playing like a orchestra in his head." So does Jay Greenberg have no responsibility for what he produces? If the music "comes" unbidden, isn’t it only his in the same way a Buffalo nickel belongs to the kid who found it while digging a grave for his little green Army men? Because he is a kid, must Jay be answerable for this music? Because he is a kid, and an artist, I want to say: not to any debilitating extent. By the same token, were Jay not so young, he would not receive the attention he does. It seems to me that it is extremely hard, if not futile, to purge ideas of the pristine from music, and certainly a "graced" figure such as Young Master Greenberg is embedded in such associations -- as if, because of his (lack of) worldliness, he is that much closer to music's fundament, the universal chord, the Om / Aum. Any complexity in Jay's music is not evidence of a sophistication beyond a teen's, even a keenly bored teen's, years. Rather, it serves to confirm the wisdom in graciously receiving that which has been handed down to us since days long past reckoning. Its not as if Jay's work -- from the snippets I have heard -- is terminally glib, but it's also not as if he's producing meta-narrative's such as Tony Conrad's Slapping Pythagoras. (This may come as a great relief to some of you.)
To wit, Sam Zyman (again) expands on Jay's abilities with a more qualitatively claim: " Jay could finish a piano sonata before our eyes in probably 25 minutes. And it would be a great piece." Great how? This claim may be verifiable on a purely technical basis. The resulting piece of music is well-formed, is tonal, etc. But the forms are artificial. So I have to posit the idea that, if Jay truly is receiving brilliantly logical, complete sonatas from some source, it is a source much closer to humanity than to Deity. Just hypothetically, how might we deal with the presence of clichés in a Jay Greenberg fugue? Under the circumstances, one cannot rely on Nathalie Sarraute's definition of the cliché: "what people force themselves to think and feel in order to escape from the vertigo of reality." Perhaps such the longueurs and uninspired bits get included because they are nigh unavoidable given the forms in use. Maybe Jay simply plugs what he hears into those reputable old dramatic modes. Thus the clichés would be a consequence of mimicry. Which opens up possibility that all of what Jay is doing is mimicry. Subtly variegated and highly sensitive mimicry, but still just a regurgitation of noises previously heard. Or -- and we cannot ignore this possibility, living in the Digital Age as we do -- that Jay's composing software (application unknown as of this writing) offers the positive feedback, the subtle, as-you-work guidance via templates, pattern detection, auto correction, and simple visual stimulation, that allows Jay to continue to validate the Western canon of musical forms. Perhaps Jay does have to do some shoe-horning. If so, he does not know how to communicate any aspect of how it happens under his fingertips. "When the music enters Jay's head, he has a lot of confidence about what he puts down on paper. Does he ever revise one of his compositions? 'No, I don't really ever do that,' says Jay. 'It just usually comes right the first time.'" With so little separation between the instant of conception and the process of realization, is what Jay is describing and doing that much different from improvisation?
Here's one solution: forget that Jay is a child at all. Because, in many respects, he is not. Jay's brain is so big in one or two (or three) dimensions that that which is esoteric for so many of us, formulae difficult to grasp much less manipulate are for him mere Tinker-Toys. (Zyman again, getting almost into particle physics and Heisenbergian Uncertainty: "How do you notate this rhythm? What's the range of the oboe? Can this be played on the piano? How do you compose for the harp? There are hundreds of thousands of bits of information [read: variables] that you need to master to be able to write a piece of music.") Jay is a dexterous giant, and his condescension is pardonable. He is also his own beanstalk.
Still, no matter the level of genius at issue, why should I concern myself with the inner workings of someone else's brain? I mean, I should understand my own dementia so well. But one of the alternate meanings of "prodigy" is abnormal, even monstrous. Too much humanity, I'm tempted to say. I'm always curious about claims of greatness in our midst, and I understand now that this is very probably a morbid curiosity. I could flatter myself and say my fascination stems from my skepticism. Sure; we're living in the 21st Century, our scientific acumen should be such as to allow us to probe Jay Greenberg, to study the prodigy with suitable dispassion, not get waylaid by aesthetic superstition. How is Jay Greenberg can hear sounds that have no acoustical reality? Maybe those vibrations are really rippling around in his cranium on a freak frequency, but more like seismic waves propagate through the Earth's mantle than a distant flute melody, caught by the wind and striking a note of reverie in a distant auditor. Call in the neurologists and cognitive psychologists, Elefix-up the electrodes on the EEG and administer the Brown-Peterson test. Right? The curious individual in me is perhaps also the hanger-on in me. Or that persona is an eruption of pure envy? Hmmmm. Can the prodigious be treated prodigally? My own musical experiences began very early. One of the first birthday presents I ever received was when my mother exchanged some of her Green Stamps for a toy piano. I played on it for hours every day, but my sister was no fan of my early experiments. When I was four years old, she put her Dr. Denton-ed foot right through my poor little Schoenhut. That was a discouraging day. I also used to love to sit on our back porch (enclosed), perched actually atop the washing machine, conducting with a drinking straw along with arias from Madame Butterfly or the "1812 Overture". But I may have only been imitating my father, who truly could have led an orchestra. I know I used to sing to myself when I was very small, but I was shamed into stopping when a good friend of my grandmother's (her best friend, in fact, whom she still mourns) hinted to me in the way that older people will to young children -- with a wide, terrifying, "we're friends, aren't we!" smile -- that she knew my habits. When I was 11, I took up harmonica, but dental work that summer made it impossible for me to master tonguing and so I gave it up. My consolation was that I never had to wear a retainer, those things which always looked to me as if they would taste like a giant watermelon Jolly Rancher. My gifts were more than simply not nurtured; they were exterminated.
Yeah, what if I was meant for a career in music, a great career. Yeah, maybe... It is not that I wasn't indulged, I was just indulged in other, less rewarding ways. I also suffered the kinds of thwartings that taught me valuable lessons about avoiding the temptation to understand myself too much through other people's experiences ("vicariously" does not quite cover it). Lessons that are often hard to heed. Because talents, even modest talents, cry out for indulgence. Watching Jay Greenberg in his guise as "kid" on Sunday night, standing awkwardly in some park in Manhattan, being introduced to all the subtle declivities and acclivities of his baseball mitt, I thought to myself that here was Charlemagne Palestine in reverse. Jay Greenberg signs his works "BlueJay": "I learned that a blue jay is a rather small bird which makes a lot of noise. I felt that characterized me quite well." Jay does not perform at all, actually, much less perform surrounded by stuffed animals, his own covey of friendly woodland creatures. The Disney-fied bird is his very avatar. And it seems odd as well as fitting that we should encounter a musician proficient beyond his years during a cultural moment in which so much contemporary popular music -- popular music that is both successful and enjoyable-- is fixated on a return to the childlike: Joanna Newsom; Animal Collective; a widely scattered and not-at-all affiliated group of popsters hacking obsolete home video game consoles (Cory Arcangel, Tree Wave) for new sounds; Brian Wilson, now that Smile's long, long gestation is over. While BlueJay appears to be blessed / cursed with nigh-precognitive faculties, the rest of us are prosaically suffering from what Thomas Pynchon diagnosed in V. as a "great temporal homesickness for the decade we were born in." (148)
As an adult, I have dreamed -- not dreamed of -- music that otherwise never existed. I have made music in my dreams, or my dreams have made sweet music. Two definite occasions, the first when I was 19, a slumbering, fluorescent vision of a musical that was part Bewitched (Astroturf lawns, big cars, Googie architecture), part Love's Forever Changes, the big number being a song about a magic broom that would sweep away one side of a love triangle. Then, one night several years ago, I dreamt that I was a modern jazzman, beret and all, a trumpeter. Or I dreamt so deeply I completely identified with a fictional trumpet player of acute inspiration, Van Dyke-d, poised, impossibly, improbably unperturbed by the nastier vicissitudes exhibited by his Muse, such as sweat, doubt, addictive tendencies, or "sincerity". But I can only recall the perfect outline of the solo I played, and the elation of plunging into rhapsody, but not any real musical detail. I remember the waterfall, but could not tell you what streams fed it. In fact, I can only really remember that what I felt was a form of compensation: my imagined inspiration was so melodically powerful, it seemed to subsist outside of harmony and pulse well beyond tempo. Sounds like a wish, doesn't it? Regardless, without Jay Greenberg's ability to transcribe, I only have the vague sense that what I dreamed was truly original music. And because I'm pretty Freudian in attitudes towards dream interpretation, I am more inclined to believe that what I heard and amazed myself with was a pastiche -- not quite a medley -- of much of what I had heard that day, or in the previous days. (This was back when I was processing a lot more new music, one platter at a time, rather than lingering over favorites for days or even weeks at a time.)
Not all fools are fortunate, and not all of the lucky ones are blissful ignoramuses, but Jay Greenberg has been shown favor. He is obviously more than bright (astute?), and, actually, he is forging his own favored status every time he writes / types a measure of music. See, Jay Greenberg is living in a place most children are tricked into wanting to reside in, only to find that they can only infrequently visit, and then only via the help of a mediator, such as story. That place is a dream world. A place where you can write symphonies about things that grown-ups take for granted but which are daily marvels for children, like thunderstorms and what you saw on television the night before. Where you can be a rock star who can still snuggle up with a cup of warm cocoa. Walking, humming, conducting as he trundles his schoolbag caddy behind him, Jay Greenberg's genius is contingent upon a sublime preoccupation. But Jay will be jostled. CBS has given him a preliminary shake, but still an extraordinary one. What happens when Jay begins to undergo all the humdrum and necessary miseries you and I have had to call our own? Will he be able to escape them? Delay them? Caution: to put off those experiences will not prevent them from occurring. A childhood prolonged is a childhood spoiled. It is also a childhood lost. Then there's nothing left to reclaim but the knowledge that you failed to grow when you had the chance.
~ Joe Milazzo
Posted by joe on December 9, 2004 8:38 AMJoe, another piece where responsive words fail me. How in the hell do you do it? Lots to mull and chew, but one question up front- do you know if any of BlueJay’s symphonies/sonatas are available yet in recorded form?
Posted by: derek at December 9, 2004 10:17 AMDerek -- after I posted this, I did some web searching. In so doing, I came across this page, which links to a sound clip from Greenberg's "9/11 Overture":
http://www.fromthetop.org/Radio/performers.cfm?pid=1586
And here is more by Sam Zyman on his star pupil:
http://www.juilliard.edu/update/journal/1102journal_story_0305.asp
Google will no doubt turn up even more... Looks like there has been a lot of blogging on Jay Greenberg since that story on 60 MINUTES aired.
The overture is quite well-orchestrated, for sure! For an eleven year old it's impressive work, but I suspect that the stuff written by Korngold (the last bona fide child prodigy composer I know of) was more musically coherent. I'd be curious to see what Jay's writing at age 18. AND to find out what Mom and Dad are up to behind the scenes. Let's hope the poor bugger doesn't end up like McCauley Culkin, or whatever the obnoxious brat's name is. (Korngold, by the way, ended up writing for Hollywood.)
Posted by: Dan Warburton at December 9, 2004 11:45 AMWow. Beautifully written Joe and a fascinating topic. I hope we can follow him (but from afar and that he is treated gently as befits a child) and see what happens with him. I'd hate to see him burn out like many prodigies (not necessarily musical) seem to. I hope he never loses the innocence that the rest of us spend chunks of our lives trying to reclaim. I expect he will, but if he can keep enough to let the music keep flowing out of him, that will be a huge step.
Rob
Unless I'm missing something, he's not actually writing/composing at all: he's improvising. The computer program is doing the writing. Kids doing impressive noodling at 12 is nothing that special, IMHO.
For good or ill, it used to be harder to write music than it is today.
Posted by: walto at December 10, 2004 6:15 AMActually, reading again, I can't really tell WHAT he's doing. I understand he's sitting at his pc with headphones on (rather than at a piano), but I don't know whether the keyboad plays notes for him, which he hears through the headphones or not. If that's what's happening, then, again, it's just a matter of improvising on a keyboard, with the pc recording the result onto staves. Mozart didn't have that sort of tech, I understand.
Posted by: walto at December 10, 2004 6:23 AMThe program he was working on was a notation program that i have used called finale. This program does not aid in composing a work of music it only speeds up the notation process. Jay could write his music down on paper but just as it is faster to write a paper on a computer it is faster to write down music on the computer. I think everyone should slow down in making any conclusions about this kid when all we have seen is a 15 minute segment about him. One thing that does seem clear is he is a good kid.
Posted by: tim at December 18, 2004 10:38 AMI'd just like to point out a couple of things here, and this is coming from a composition student. First off, I don't really care where he gets his inspiration, or how these songs come to him; it is extremely rare to have something like this. Talent, gift, paranormal activity, whatever you want to call it, how many composers can you list that can write out a composition the first time and it is not in need of correction. Mozart was one of the very, very few, and as we all know, he is a prodigy that I don't see you all deliberating about. The boy is 12 and he has written 5 symphonies. Again, he doesn't need to be 12 for this to be amazing. He wrote 5 symphonies without correcting them, some within hours of sitting down. Unless you can match such a feat, don't talk; and most certainly do not dismiss it. It is actually amazing. I use this "mysterious" program Finale all the time and thank God someone has written it (Actually most schools use it as well). All it does, as the previous person said, is a notation program. It's the same thing as writing a note on a piece of paper, except you use a mouse. He also probably wears the headphones to block out external noise just like he stated he has to do. It's extremely distressing when you're trying to write a piece and there are external distractions. You can easily lose your train of thought. On the angle of who is responsible for the music, since apparently it's coming from "an external source", this is how all composition is. Your emotions are stirred by something, and you explain your emotions with music. Are you saying that because Beethoven heard the melody to "Ode to Joy" in his head, he is not to take credit for it or be responsible? I just think that people need to stop poking their noses around in other people's business so much. As I see it, there really is no need for an article like this at all. Just let the boy be. Why do people always have to raise a big fuss everytime something out of the ordinary happens? Just because you might not be able to do it, doesn't mean you need to complain about it. People need to start with themselves and just be satisfied with their own abilities and leave others alone. So like the previous reader said, let's just wait and see what happens. Hopefully he'll expand on his gift and not fizzle out; and if he should exceed, I'm sure there will be more and more articles like the one you have written because people always need something to complain about. So just let it be.
Adam
Posted by: Adam at December 21, 2004 3:04 PMRelax, I don't want to criticize the kid. (I was a composition major myself, btw. Started writing at 13.) I just wanted to point out that I've used programs that can write out what one plays into a synth and can also play this stuff back in various keys, with various instrumentation, at various speeds, etc. If he's not using such a program, great.
I haven't heard any of his stuff, but it's definitely hard to write symphonic music without any instrumental aids. FWIW, I didn't (and couldn't) write even chamber music without using the piano until I was in my 20s.
I will say, however, that, at least in IMHO the fact that one is not "making any corrections" isn't really such a great criteria for genius. The music has to be good for that. Mozart wrote very good music. If this kid's music is that good, he's a genius, however old he happens to be. Otherwise, he's an interesting character, like thousands of other such savants.
But again, I'm not trying to attack this kid, just his beatifiers. Also, I like Joe's article very much and think it's just fine that he wrote it.
Posted by: walto at December 21, 2004 4:20 PMI just think that people need to stop poking their noses around in other people's business so much. As I see it, there really is no need for an article like this at all. Just let the boy be. Why do people always have to raise a big fuss everytime something out of the ordinary happens?
You seem to have missed the point of what journalism is.
Posted by: Nirav at December 21, 2004 5:42 PMI wanted to write about Jay reenberg becuase his case -- or at least his case as represented on television -- caused me to think long and hard about consciousness, what it is, where it "comes from", and how it works. Nothing personal per se, or personal beyond what has already been OK'ed for public consumption.
Posted by: Joe Milazzo at December 22, 2004 8:27 AM"You can easily lose your train of thought."
a mature genius won't lose his "train" of thought. what is immature is that his work is comparable to mozart and we are all immature to have not evolved from that point onwards. a genius will grope for the beyond of the staves--and the artificial limitations of tonal music and the western scale system--another sign of immaturity and imititation. mozart is on NPR ever day of the week. these things seep into everyone's head. gullibility. "Just let the boy be" exactly. being capable of reproducing unconscious mental objects & structures is no sign of anything important whatsoever. many autistic people are capable of this but not of the emotional resonance we associate with art. it is a mechanical capacity. when he begins being able to forecast his ideas and plot courses of actions, when he can point outside the box of recognizable concepts, he will be born as an artist and new soul. and he will likely be ignored largely.
Well said, Clinton.
Posted by: walto at December 23, 2004 6:05 PM"Joe" is an imbecile, plain and simple.
Posted by: Josh at February 9, 2005 4:47 PM"He" certainly is. Still, I would argue that Peter Boyle's portrayal is a marvel of film acting.
Posted by: Joe Milazzo at February 10, 2005 7:07 AMCould this be the greatest comeback in Bags history?
Josh posts:
"Joe" is an imbecile, plain and simple."
To which Mr. Milazzo replies:
"He" certainly is. Still, I would argue that Peter Boyle's portrayal is a marvel of film acting."
Methinks we have a new champion.
Good stuff, Joe. I’m sorry I missed it the first time around. I really wish I'd seen the "60 Minutes" piece.
How much of what he does is mimicking, indeed? A lot, probably, but that doesn't dim the magnitude of his...what? (Gift? Curse? Cognitive abnormality?)
Speaking strictly to his musical development as it’s manifested itself thus far, it seems probable that it stems in large part from a hypersensitivity to music/sound, coupled with an extraordinary ability to retain and synthesize musical information. Of course, that’s probably true of most above average musicians.
Three ingredients combine in a single person to produce greatness: desire, ability, and imagination. All three don’t necessarily need to be present in equal measure, but if there’s a deficit in one area, it has to be made-up in another. If one is totally absent, greatness is impossible.
To use an athletic analogy, take a tall kid who loves basketball. Physically, this guy’s the total package. He’s got physical strength, speed, agility, and hand/eye coordination. He lacks only one thing: imagination. Court awareness, a self-invented repertoire of moves, an ability to put yourself in your opponent’s shoes—this kid’s got none of it. A guy like that might have success at some level, but he’s never going to be a star in the NBA.
Give a kid with those physical gifts an imagination, he might be an All Star. Give him genius, he’s Michael Jordan. Take away some of the physical ability but ratchet up the level of desire and give him the same level of creativity, and you’ve got Larry Bird. Leave the talent and imagination but take away the desire and you’ve got…oh, I don’t know. ..Michael Ray Richardson?
A lot of prodigies seem to lack in one area or the other, frequently in terms of imagination. Maybe that’s the case with this Jay Greenberg, although it’s probably too soon to tell. The surfeit of positive reinforcement might prove to be an inhibiting factor. Put yourself in a 12 year-old’s shoes. If everyone’s telling you that what you’re doing is great, why change? (The temptation to cite at least one jazz artist in particular is strong, but I’ll resist.;-))
Thanks for that, Joe.
This kid is just ok. I have university-trained ears and listened to his 911 piece. A lot of styles mishmashed in there--Debussy,Berlioz and even Dvorak. A direct quote from Symphonie Fantastique, and a near rip from the New World Symphony.
Does the kid have talent? Oh yes, absolutely. However is this the future of music or the past? Do we have to wait until he's 18 for his serial phase?
Posted by: Chanell at August 13, 2005 7:56 PMThis kid is pale and frail and seems very unhealthy: it's a trade off for his strange gift.
Having a strong social confidence and rich personality helps provide an understanding of the art that is music. Jay is at Julliard. Yeah, it's an amazing thing, but Jay is a very awkward boy, evidently with no real idea of the passions of life. And he's young, yes, but still... Besides, Julliard is a place where they think classical is the apex of musical quality.
I'm a classically trained musician, majoring in both classical and computer composition. Sure it's nice to sit and relax to some Mozart, but sometimes you just got to blast some James Brown and get out of that seat and shake it.
This boy needs to NOT grow up in this sheltered, strange way. He needs to find himself so he can add his own little spice to his music. And he needs to expand his influences.
Of course, now I’m telling him what he needs to do, and it’s all subjective. But my point of view is a healthy one.
Bluejay's talent aside, John noticed something important - this kid does look strange, pale and sick. Did anybody consider his talent to be a possible product of a mental illness or cognitive screw-up? I remember the 60-minute piece, and I cannot recall they said anything about his playing with friends, having some other hobbies, computer games or such - you know, what 12 year olds do.
Posted by: Dennis at March 29, 2006 8:19 AMhmmph, it just erased everything I said by accident...
"John noticed something important - this kid does look strange, pale and sick. Did anybody consider his talent to be a possible product of a mental illness or cognitive screw-up? I remember the 60-minute piece, and I cannot recall they said anything about his playing with friends, having some other hobbies, computer games or such - you know, what 12 year olds do."
After checking out some biographical info/articles on this kid, I'm pretty sure I can explain your observations. I think this kid has something called hyperlexia, a pretty rare syndrome that may or may not show up along with mild autism. This would certainly explain his apparent social awkwardness, his musical genius (Mozart was also thought to be hyperlexic) and someone else's offhand comment that he was "born literate" (where the syndrome got its name)...and as for your observation that he looks "pale and sick" this could be caused by some food allergies common in hyperlexics that he might not even know he has. if he lays off the dairy and/or wheat, he might feel a lot better and not look so wiped out.
if you want to check out another hyperlexic, check out this outstanding young jazz pianist named Matt Savage: www.savagerecords.com
Posted by: Andrea at May 22, 2006 8:56 PMVery VERY interesting. The most wondrous child prodigy since Mozart!
Posted by: Drizzt at November 26, 2006 4:58 PMThought-provoking article Joe. Well done.
Bluejay was on 60 MINUTES again, last night, Nov. 26, 2006. I look forward to following Bluejay’s development and hope he matures into an immortal composer; the next Mozart or Ravel. The odds of that? Pretty low probably. I’d say we’ll have to wait until he’s in his mid-20’s to see that coming.
All the elements are there. He has the support and encouragement. It is startling to contemplate, that from the first segment on 60 minutes, he has more fame now than Mozart had during his lifetime, and a great deal more opportunity and support.
It is reassuring to know that Bluejay works rapidly, since it appears that, like Da Vinci, he has many other interests. So, even if he picks up other serious interests, physics for example, he’ll still have time to compose.
I thought he came off as super intelligent, yet grounded, with parents who are supportive and have his best interests at heart. That is, be all he can be, without joining the Army.
I watched the interview - they show a segment of an earlier interview they had done with him two or three years ago, prior to the more recent one. One of the teachers, Adler I believe, said that Greenberg should question his talent, and said "Look at Beethoven's scores, you could hardly read them for the corrections". Well, I disagree - as a counter, I could just as easily produce a Mozart score, with no edits, written without any corrections directly as Mozart heard it in his head. I don't know where Adler is coming from, envy, or what, but I feel his criticism is not necessarily valid - we are dealing with a subject for which we have little understanding, the mechanism of genius. Unless he also has a degree in psychology, his criticisms have no weight here.
Posted by: JKS at November 28, 2006 8:52 AMToo many people are attributing too much to young Jay. That he is some sort of "savant" who can hear and instantly and accurately notate what he hears is without question. As to his compositional skills, that is another matter that will be better solved with time, maturity, and a cessation of all the "marketing" currently surrounding the boy. People have all sorts of things, be it music, poetry, prose, whatever, running through their minds all day long. That any of it is worthy of being written down is something else, and whether or not the written results are worthy of the ages is yet another matter! Sam Adler is a great and long time teacher, and author of probably the most definitive book on orchestration written in the past century. He's not prone to jealousy, and his assesments were right on the mark. Sure, Mozart produced scores with no corrections- he made those already in his head, as opposed to so many other composers who wrote down as they went, then went back and repeatedly edited, corrected and improved what they had composed. Young Jay is just notating what he hears and calling it finished. I've heard some of his music, and in general, it's far from finished. The problem Adler was trying to point out is that young Jay has yet to discover the other end of the pencil, and until he does discover the eraser [ok, delete button] there's little hope for actual progress in the young composer. Sure, if he keeps writing enough music, at some point, he'll produce a great 21st century masterpiece, but more by accident than skill. There are currently a number of other composition students at Juilliard, not all that much older than Jay, who show much more promise as future composers, but because they lack Jay's "PR" machine, and lack the gimmick of being 4-5 years younger, they are overlooked. I'd like to see 60 minutes do a story on the teachers there, Corigliano, Adams, and Adler, and the students they are currently nurturing. Listen to some of the music they've written [I have!] and suddenly Jay's music sounds immitative, immature, and definitely unfinished. Is young Jay a future compositional genius? That would be nice, and I certainly hope so, but until we get more information and he matures a bit more, let's stop the PR on this one person, and give a fair and open shake to all the composers working out there... young AND old!
Posted by: RW at December 26, 2006 1:47 PM.................................................. © 2003 - 2006 bagatellen ..................................................