I toss my guitar away after listening to Li-Sa X and the young girls play guitar...

But this video is really helpful, psychologically. It explain what a child prodigy really is, and what it’s not. It does also states that these girls may newer learn to write great song. And that the numbers are against them. When their youth fade, that will only be decent guitarist if they even continue playing when they reach 20. And they don’t have the experience like a 30-50 years old dude to write good songs.
 
But it is fascinating to see them. And think of what I did when I was 12 years ols.
 

bitflipper
I spent a Saturday afternoon going down a YouTube rabbit-hole of child prodigy musicians, including a video of that same kid even younger, smiling while effortlessly shredding away. 
 
It brought to mind a favorite science fiction novel by Arthur C. Clarke from the 50's called Childhood's End. In it, a generation of humans takes an abrupt evolutionary leap, leaving the previous generation feeling like soon-to-be-extinct Neanderthals. 
 
When I see kids like this, I wonder if they might in fact be a new species...

It is really fascinating. He is good. And great there is boys doing this too.

Don't forget Alexey when we talk about drums!
 

What type of guitar are you tossing away, I may be able to find it a good home.

You really want to toss it go listen to Tina S. Youtube. Videos when she was 13 and 14 will blow your mind. She is now 19 I think. She's french. Classically trained plays all the Vai and Satriani stuff. Does a great job on Gary Moore and David Gilmour also. really plays anything.............Amazing!IMHO and I have been playing for over 30 years.
 
I am no shredder, more blues, R&B and R&R....But I always enjoy talent!

There is no effing guitar player alive today that makes me want to quit ...
 
I don't care who you are talking about
 
The Music Bizznezz and what you have to do to even make a living ...well, that's another story
 
Kenny

stratman70
You really want to toss it go listen to Tina S. Youtube. Videos when she was 13 and 14 will blow your mind. She is now 19 I think. She's french. Classically trained plays all the Vai and Satriani stuff. Does a great job on Gary Moore and David Gilmour also. really plays anything.............Amazing!IMHO and I have been playing for over 30 years.
 
I am no shredder, more blues, R&B and R&R....But I always enjoy talent!

I dont like Tina S. She hasn't uploaded a video in ages.

Jarsve,
 
Great thread, and hits some important points as we get our egos ground into the dirt listening to some kid who is way technically beyond where we will ever be.
 
Hard NOT to compare ourselves with other guitarists, something we seem to get dragged into once we commit to the axe. Some artists like Steve Miller say they never listen to any other guitarist to keep them on track of what they are doing.
 
Pianist Horowitz did live concerts and young pianists actually went out and committed suicide over the depression that for all their work and sacrifice, they would never be as good.
 
There is as you say a certain amount of experience or something that comes with the ages. You can’t really sing the blues until you have lived the blues. The young lady is fantastic enough to get me depressed as well with the flawless gymnastics, but there are some motifs that lack a sense of maturity or reality. There because they can be played but something missing for awhile.
 
I came from a blood line of accomplished classical pianists. My training started late at 7 years old, but was harsh, brutal to catch up with lost time. Hours of daily practice. Could knock off anything Chopin or Rachmaninov could play. Trained monkey for the delight of guests. Always ready to dazzle.
 
Something however broke the connection and gets to the question of where are they now. We have long known that too many of the Julliard child prodigies end up forked up soon in life and lose their savant abilities from the artificial overkill.
 
Me, I can barely drool on a keyboard now. Big fall from grace and don’t have any idea how it happened.
 
Thanks Jarsve for opening this dialog.
 
John
 

eph221

Voda La Void
Fascinating info in that video.  How many musical child prodigies have continued on into adulthood with their craft? I mean, it does seem like they just disappear into obscurity.  I never see some 30 year old that was a child prodigy that has continued to improve to super human levels.  Where are those people?
 
It's like there's a wall, and you can get to it fast as a child prodigy, or you can take your time and get there as an adult...but there doesn't seem to be a trajectory where they just get better, faster, better, faster, better, faster, without limit.  
 
Or does the illuminati snatch them?  

 
Parroting what your teacher tells you to do does not make one an artist.  There's no amount of creativity in doing that.

I completely agree.  But I'm talking more about the technical abilities in performance and complexity.  One might think if a 10 year old can play like a 30 year experienced guitarist, then that same 10 year old must perform at super human levels when they have 30 years under their belt.  You might expect that technical trajectory to take them to places the rest of us can't really access.  Why don't they play these intricate pieces twice or three times as fast, or perform melodic runs that are too complicated for most of us to grasp, requiring us to slow down their music just to try to understand it?
 
But none of that exists, apparently.  In anyone, no matter how slow or fast they have learned their craft.  Just seems to compliment the observations and points made in the video.  

Speaking of the big C mentioned in the video. How long are we going to get hung up primarily on the rock band as the main accepted unit in popular music? I see this as restrictive. One drummer, a rhythm guitarist, a lead player, a bass player,keyboardist, a vocalist and there it is.
 
Others have built bands with two drummers multiple guitars etc. A variation of the same old recipe which really isn't very old if you look at it in a historical context. I don't see the DJ craze as jumping outside of the box. I see it as almost a more restrictive box or a different box.
 
It's like an over simplified orchestra, everyone has their part and the music is all along the same basic recipe.
 
When you say the word band to anyone who is 30 or older, the image is the one I mentioned above. It isn't bad. Neither does it break any molds. It's all been done and we're just re doing it. I personally get tired of hearing basic pop/rock music all the time, but that's me. I still have a variax hanging on my wall I seldom pick up because everything I do on it sounds the same. Probably the player which I'm willing to accept.

We put these young people under out wing in a daddy complex way too. We see them as the children we newer got. And if we don’t have kids, its even a stronger sensation.
 
The Japanese even have a industry built on this. The “Idol” stars. Where teens became stars and “daddys” (men in their 30-50) are big fans. It is dangerous to judge too, because it happens to us when we se this kids on YouTube. And to confess my part, I was a big fan of Babymetal. I have no kids of my own and it is a good feeling to have this kids and care for them. It is also really creepy! But mind you, ITS NOT ABOUT SEX! It's just about not being a dad and wish you were, or being a dad, but find it frustrating that you cant see you own kids often enough.
 
So, the sad story is that as a grown man, you can’t compete with a teen girl on YouTube. That is just how it is. But the teen girl in the video, might look up to you as a roll model. And how you act as a roll model is up to you. But it is dangerous to compare ourselves to these kids. Because we are not the same.
 

 

Another perspective that is very important is that these kids are our feature of live music. So we should not bring them down at any cost. Many people say that music is dead and only programed, rap, techno synth-based music is to survive. But tis kids prove them wrong. These kids don’t bring up playing through Katy Perry’s California Girl as their biggest moment. They bring up some great music that is hard to play.

Jarsve
Another perspective that is very important is that these kids are our feature of live music. So we should not bring them down at any cost. Many people say that music is dead and only programed, rap, techno synth-based music is to survive. But tis kids prove them wrong. These kids don’t bring up playing through Katy Perry’s California Girl as their biggest moment. They bring up some great music that is hard to play.

 Yep.
People generally tend to generalize entire groups of people. Sorry I took this subject slightly off base in talking about the creative direction. The big C is one thing these kids don't have ( yes this is also a generalization). There may be a few. For the most part though they are very skilled and good at copying. Any one of them would have probably excelled at violin or piano if that had been their instrument as copycats.
 
It's the one Jimi Henrdix that shows up very occasionally and does something totally different. If these genre were boring to everyone they would have died long ago. The masses like it. 
 
I dunno, my general lack of interest in the most common music formats might have something to do with hearing it all thousands of times. To those kids it's still new and exciting. Being a musician means we know what makes it tick even if it's only on a superficial level. Like eating your favorite food every day of the week. Pretty soon you get tired of it. Some music seems to be more representative of other things and brings out emotions for the listener. The dopamine effect. I was into metal big time. I just gradually went away from it. I believe I'm the type that doesn't like too much of the same thing for too long or maybe it wasn't in me deep enough. I still respect it as a genre.  I think we can say it  has a lot of predictability in it. What doesn't right?
 
Maybe we're all creatures of habit and we pass it on to our little ones. No one has the same DNA. No two musicians are exactly the same, so even though we pass it on it gets changed over time.
 
 

Starise

Jarsve
Another perspective that is very important is that these kids are our feature of live music. So we should not bring them down at any cost. Many people say that music is dead and only programed, rap, techno synth-based music is to survive. But tis kids prove them wrong. These kids don’t bring up playing through Katy Perry’s California Girl as their biggest moment. They bring up some great music that is hard to play.

Yep.
People generally tend to generalize entire groups of people. Sorry I took this subject slightly off base in talking about the creative direction. The big C is one thing these kids don't have ( yes this is also a generalization). There may be a few. For the most part though they are very skilled and good at copying. Any one of them would have probably excelled at violin or piano if that had been their instrument as copycats.
 
It's the one Jimi Henrdix that shows up very occasionally and does something totally different. If these genre were boring to everyone they would have died long ago. The masses like it. 
 
I dunno, my general lack of interest in the most common music formats might have something to do with hearing it all thousands of times. To those kids it's still new and exciting. Being a musician means we know what makes it tick even if it's only on a superficial level. Like eating your favorite food every day of the week. Pretty soon you get tired of it. Some music seems to be more representative of other things and brings out emotions for the listener. The dopamine effect. I was into metal big time. I just gradually went away from it. I believe I'm the type that doesn't like too much of the same thing for too long or maybe it wasn't in me deep enough. I still respect it as a genre.  I think we can say it  has a lot of predictability in it. What doesn't right?
 
Maybe we're all creatures of habit and we pass it on to our little ones. No one has the same DNA. No two musicians are exactly the same, so even though we pass it on it gets changed over time.
 
 

Well. If you look at orchestra musicians, there is no room for putting in your personal flair into the playing. You must play the same as the rest and take the directions of the conductor. If not, you’re not going to last long. And that is not a bad thing at all. So, there is room for copyist/those who take direction best. Everyone can’t be the composer, someone must play the pieces too. Some are good at being virtuosos, but if everyone was one and couldn’t copy and be great at take directions, we wouldn’t have any great orchestras. And that is good. So, to think that one must be everything is raising the bar too high for me.
 
And I think there is room for people who are not the at the top too. And watching these kids or grown up that is jaw dropping is great, but great music doesn’t need the best musicians. In my opinion.