Gavrill is 1.5 years old

[Steve Nathan]

 

[nursers]

I am just gob-smacked!

[Paul Woodward]

Bit of AI in play perchance?

[niacin]

Ok, it's great to see the kid exploring the piano so intently.

 

But ...

 

I teach preschool in a long daycare setting and have a digital piano set up for children to explore.  Sometimes the preschoolers' younger siblings come into our room, and sometimes they sit down for a time at the piano.  And they do what little Gavrill is doing.  They start out pressing the white keys.  They're the ones closest to them.  And it sounds musical to us because they're playing only the white keys.  And we go 'wow'.  And then they get to the black keys.  Notice as soon as Gavrill starts on the black keys the video stops.  Cause it sounds to most people like he's playing 'wrong' notes.  (Hans Groiner is funny to musicians but totally lost on most people).  Except to him.  He's just exploring the different sounds he can make with the piano.  Gavrill might just be the next Yuja Wang, but there's nothing in the video to suggest that.

[MathOfInsects]

23 minutes ago, niacin said:

Ok, it's great to see the kid exploring the piano so intently.

 

But ...

 

I teach preschool in a long daycare setting and have a digital piano set up for children to explore.  Sometimes the preschoolers' younger siblings come into our room, and sometimes they sit down for a time at the piano.  And they do what little Gavrill is doing.  They start out pressing the white keys.  They're the ones closest to them.  And it sounds musical to us because they're playing only the white keys.  And we go 'wow'.  And then they get to the black keys.  Notice as soon as Gavrill starts on the black keys the video stops.  Cause it sounds to most people like he's playing 'wrong' notes.  (Hans Groiner is funny to musicians but totally lost on most people).  Except to him.  He's just exploring the different sounds he can make with the piano.  Gavrill might just be the next Yuja Wang, but there's nothing in the video to suggest that.

Completely agree, with a similar experience. He's been shown the "thirds" position, otherwise he'd be hitting a handful of notes all at once or a chromatic parade of white notes one after the next. It actually made me nervous to watch him stretch his still-baking fingers like that!

Kids that age haven't learned to prefer our 12-half-steps yet, it's just sound to them, and it all sounds awesome. In this case, the pedal makes it sound composed.

That F# at the end is why we can't have nice things. It doesn't sound bad to the kid at all--it's just another pressy-down thingie that makes cool sounds. But the grown-up filming it stops there as the kid leaves diatonic world for some avant garde composition. Boom, a genius is born. 

He's cute AF though and echoing @niacin, props to the grown-ups for exposing that kid to all those sounds and opportunities so young. 

[Floyd Tatum]

43 minutes ago, niacin said:

I teach preschool in a long daycare setting and have a digital piano set up for children to explore.  Sometimes the preschoolers' younger siblings come into our room, and sometimes they sit down for a time at the piano.  And they do what little Gavrill is doing.  They start out pressing the white keys.  They're the ones closest to them.  And it sounds musical to us because they're playing only the white keys.  And we go 'wow'.  And then they get to the black keys.  Notice as soon as Gavrill starts on the black keys the video stops.  Cause it sounds to most people like he's playing 'wrong' notes.  (Hans Groiner is funny to musicians but totally lost on most people).  Except to him.  He's just exploring the different sounds he can make with the piano.  Gavrill might just be the next Yuja Wang, but there's nothing in the video to suggest that.

What about the fact that he plays triads in different registers.   Also, at about 0:33 - 0:40,  he plays a minor lick, then repeats it an octave above.   That made me think that perhaps there's some kind of unusual budding musical intelligence there.   But yeah, maybe you're right, and it's just random.

 

[niacin]

as MOI said he’s obviously watched someone playing thirds and probably chords and possibly the lick you mention.  At this age his brain is pretty much a sponge and his modus operandi is imitation.

 

Toddlers love pushing their physical limits, their bodies are pretty flexible at this ago so I wouldn’t be concerned about him stretching his little fingers to reach the notes he’s watched mum (I think it’s mum filming) play.

 

Yes there’s budding intelligence, but suggest it’s not that it’s unusual but rather than we tend to grossly underestimate what kids are capable of.

[Steve Nathan]

I don't know.  I had 3 kids who all banged on the piano.  At 18 months, none of them played a G with their left hand and followed it by spreading their little chubby fingers into a perfect G triad with their right.  Even after he bangs on that F# that people say stops the video, his left hand moves to a B minor triad.