I am writing about Derek Paravicini, a blind and severely autistic master pianist who was born three and a half months prematurely. He has the amazing ability to simply listen to any piano melody and then recreate it perfectly on the keyboard. His method comes from his enhanced sense of hearing due to his blindness, and his brain works like a highly complex musical computer. This allows him to play any melody in any key on the scale of the piano. This is truly amazing because any other pianist will have a heart attack on the idea of playing a complicated piano melody in a completely different key than it was meant to be played. Because Derek’s brain is wired in such a different way, he is able to do these things and I believe this kind of ability is a true gift.

This brings about the question of how normal people like you and me interpret music and play instruments. Most of us don’t have super computers in our heads like Derek so we must rely purely on our auditory senses to attempt to recreate melodies we previously heard if we were to do so. Also, because Derek is blind, his other senses are additionally improved including his auditory sense. This, including his uniquely wired brain, contributes to Derek’s mastery of the piano.

In the video, Derek’s long time friend and piano instructor Adam Ockelford gave a speech on Derek’s upbringing and early life, as well as how his brain worked when he processed music as I described above. Derek and Adam have spent nearly ten thousand hours together conducting musical lessons and in this time Derek learned the whole piano scale by heart. When Adam played a complicated set of keys or a chord on the piano, Derek would subsequently repeat the exact keys that Adam had played perfectly in the same spot. They call people like Derek savants and this means  a person who is learned or wise. This is the denotation. The idea that is invoked in us when we hear the word savant, or the connotation of the word, is that the said person is somehow mentally disabled and is in another aspect a genius of some sort. So it is more commonly believed that savants are more often than not wired different mentally thus leading us to think of autistic or disabled people. Before you finish reading my post you should watch this video for yourself as you will surely be amazed by the skill and dedication of Derek Paravicini, a truly masterful pianist. The video should motivate anyone to wants to play the piano but doesn’t know how complex and amazing it can sound. The following link will take you to the TED Talks webpage with the specific video of Derek and Adam.

http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_paravicini_and_adam_ockelford_in_the_key_of_genius.html