Posted on 11/29/2004 8:27:37 AM PST by MaineRepublic
(CBS) There is a composer studying at New York’s renowned Juilliard School who some say is the greatest talent to come along in 200 years. He’s written five full-length symphonies, and he’s only 12 years old.
His name is Jay Greenberg, although he likes the nickname "Bluejay" because, he says, blue jays are small and make a lot of noise.
Greenberg says music just fills his head and he has to write it down to get it out. What’s going on in Bluejay’s head? Correspondent Scott Pelley spoke with him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jay wrote a piece, "The Storm," in just a few hours. It was commissioned by the New Haven Symphony in Connecticut.
When the last note sailed into the night, Jay navigated an unfamiliar stage, and then took a bow.
"We are talking about a prodigy of the level of the greatest prodigies in history when it comes to composition," says Sam Zyman, a composer. "I am talking about the likes of Mozart, and Mendelssohn, and Saint-Sans."
Zyman teaches music theory to Jay at the Juilliard School in New York City, where he’s been teaching for 18 years.
"This is an absolute fact. This is objective. This is not a subjective opinion," says Zyman. "Jay could be sitting here, and he could be composing right now. He could finish a piano sonata before our eyes in probably 25 minutes. And it would be a great piece."
How is it possible? Jay told Pelley he doesn’t know where the music comes from, but it comes fully written -- playing like an orchestra in his head.
"It's as if the unconscious mind is giving orders at the speed of light," says Jay. "You know, I mean, so I just hear it as if it were a smooth performance of a work that is already written, when it isn’t." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All the kids are downloading music these days. But Jay, with his composing program, is downloading it from his head.
The program records his notes and plays them back –- that's when the computer is up and running. Jay composes so rapidly that he often crashes his computer.
"It's as if he’s looking at a picture of the score, and he’s just taking it from the picture, basically," says Zyman.
Jay’s parents are as surprised as anyone. Neither is a professional musician. His father, Robert, is a linguist, and a scholar in Slavic language who lost his sight at 36 to retinitis pigmentosa. His mother, Orna, is an Israeli-born painter.
"I think, around 2, when he started writing, and actually drawing instruments, we knew that he was fascinated with it," says Orna. "He managed to draw a cello and ask for a cello, and wrote the world cello. And I was surprised, because neither of us has anything to so with string instruments. And I didn’t expect him to know what it [a cello] was."
But Jay knew he wanted a cello, so his mother brought him to a music store where he was shown a miniature cello. "And he just sat there. He ...started playing on it," recalls Orna. "And I was like, 'How do you know how to do this?'"
By 3, Jay was still drawing cellos, but he had turned them into notes on a scale. He was beginning to compose, and his parents watched the notes come faster and faster. He was writing any time, anywhere. By elementary school, his teachers had no idea how to handle a boy whose hero wasn’t Batman, but Beethoven.
"He hears music in his head all the time, and he’ll start composing and he doesn’t even realize it probably, that he’s doing it," says Robert. "But the teachers would get angry, and they would call us in for emergency meetings with seven people sitting there trying to figure out how they’re going accommodate our son."
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. But Jay can’t turn off the music in his head. In fact, he told us he often hears more than one new composition at a time.
"Multiple channels is what it’s been termed," says Jay. "That my brain is able to control two or three different musics at the same time –- along with the channel of everyday life."
"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," says Orna. "And when a child that young tells you where their vision is, or where they’re going, you don’t have a choice."
By the age of 10, Jay was going to Juilliard, among the world’s top conservatories of music, on a full scholarship. At age 11, he was studying music theory with third year college students. Jay also takes high school courses at another school – courses his parents say he will finish when he’s 14.
Elizabeth Wolff is a concert pianist who works with Jay on his piano technique. Jay writes things he can't even play, and he says he wants to perfect his piano playing, even though he doesn't need the piano, or any instrument, to compose.
What happens when he first hears a tune?
"At first, I just listen to it, and then I start humming it. And then while walking, and I like walking a lot when I am inspired," says Jay. "Because I walk to the beat of the music. For example, if the beat is (piano), I start rocking. ...And I often start conducting as well."
Jay’s not a usual 12-year-old, and he knows it. Catching onto baseball isn’t as natural as playing piano. Even though Jay’s a genius, he’s still a kid.
What happens when Jay gets bored? "He gets restless, and then he starts improvising. Last week, he took the Beethoven sonata we’re working right now, and decided that everything would be kind of interesting upside down and backwards," says Wolff. "So he took the volume and literally did just that. He can do it for you right now. And I couldn’t even follow it. But he actually took the clefs and inverted them. The treble became bass, bass became treble, and did it backwards."
How does Jay rank among other child prodigies?
"To be a prodigy composer is far rarer," says Zyman. "You have to conquer these issues. 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 that you need to master to be able to write a piece of music."
Talented composers might write five or six symphonies in a lifetime. But Jay has written five at the age of 12.
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."
Sam Adler was a child prodigy himself. Today, he’s an accomplished composer and professor of Jay’s at Juilliard. He agrees Jay can be great, but only if he is constantly questioning his gift.
"Let's take a great genius in the musical world, someone like Beethoven. When you look at a Beethoven score, it’s horrendous. He didn’t have an eraser. So, he had to cross it out," says Adler. "And it looks as if, you know, he was never satisfied. And that is something that comes with maturity. And I think that’s going to happen to Jay."
But is it fair to say the potential is there? "Absolutely," says Adler. "Without doubt."
"Since I don't think many of you watch 60 Minutes, I thought I would share this amazing, non-political story with you. At least I find it amazing."
Thanks for posting this. I, too, watched it...I was changing channels and stumbled onto it. I figure the kid is a savant.
He is no Mozart. He is not even close to a Bach.
I know Mozart's work fairly well but I am no expert. The scene in Amedeus where F. Murray Abraham ( won an Academy Aware for it) curses God for Mozart was pretty accurate. Abraham played Mozart contemporary Salierni (sp?). He never was as good as Mozart and the film portrayed Salierni as destroying Mozart. It is somewhat fictional but he curses God for putting Mozart on earth. Mozart could pour out beautiful music as fast as he could notated it
There will never be another Mozart. Bach was a another giant but he lived much longer than Mozart.
You and me both. I listened to the Patriots game on the radio yesterday rather than tune in to CBS to watch it. I simply will not watch that network again.
Good post. I doubt there will ever be another Mozart. If this kid is just writing slight variations of the melody for different instruments then he is not on the same planet as Mozart.
The stuff Mozart wrote in his early teens was far better than most great classical composers best work. Young Mozart apparently learned much from Bach's son J.C.. J.C. was a pretty good composer with wonderful music but he did not have the depth of his father or Mozart.
Mozart was a once in 1,000 years phenomena.
I doubt he was. I know that when I really listen to Mozart I am taken out of it. Which is very good.
with maturity this kid may settle down and make music that blasts Mozart away or he may fade away into obscurity. lets give the kid a chance to change our world.
I would hold Mozart and Bach to be the highest level of musical genius...followed closely by Beethoven, then closely followed by a whole host of genius such as Stravinsky, Bartok, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, etc. We judge this level on a lifes body of work.
My point is that there is a whole continuum of genius. We understand little about the functioning and capacity of the human brain, even less about what constitutes true genius.
IMHO, the highest level of genius is reserved for those who not only have superior technical facility, and a breath of technique, but an ability to reach inside themselves and produce creative work that connects and is understood at an emotional level, as well as a technical level.
I havent heard this young man, but he seems to have the technical facility. That doesnt mean that he will also achieve the highest level of creative expression. I would hope he does.
One aspect IMHO that is overlooked about genius is that during their process of creation they often reject much that they produce. I suspect that this was true with Mozart, although he was able to write out his themes and melodies verbatim, I believe he utilized the same creative destructive process to arrive at a final product, just much much quicker and efficiently than the average genius could.
If this boy can maintain the discipline to not self indulge his obvious gifts, he has a good chance to achieve the highest standards.
Comparing him to Mozart at this point however, is not doing this boy any favors IMHO.
There is a link in the thread to his piece. That's what I listened to. Anyone can hear the same thing. It's not difficult. It's straightforward. The kid is playing the same melody on different instruments.
Folks, music isn't opinion. If it was purely opinion then universities would not have spent the billions of dollars in sum over hundreds of years to teach it. If it was opinion, what would there be to teach? There are objective techniques and aspects to it all that are concrete and teachable.
This young man is writing a melody and is able to write it for various instruments, and that's a nice thing for him to be able to do at age 10 or 12. But he is not merging multiple themes from those different instruments into one output that has some thematic coherency. And no, thematic coherency is not some touchy feely phrase that means nothing. It means that some underlying tune, or technique, underlies it all and holds it all together.
This young man has everything holding together because all the instruments are playing the same tune. That's not coherency. That's just a child writing music.
You don't have to be a music expert to hear this. The comparison with Mozart makes no sense at all on a purely objective measurement basis. Mozart's work at the same age is in a different league. Mozart was so far ahead of the world that he added phrases that merged with a whole just as a joke. He added phrases that sounded like human laughter, and made it fit the melody and conform to theme.
This young man has a very long distance to travel to the destination of Mozartville. Mozart had already arrived there at younger age, had taken up residence, furnished the rooms and was hiring painters for the exterior.
I have a 9 years old grandson who is a fine pianist/composer for his age. His compositions are generally a little beyond his physical ability to play ... interesting phenomena.
"Mozart was so far ahead of the world that he added phrases that merged with a whole just as a joke. He added phrases that sounded like human laughter, and made it fit the melody and conform to theme."
You are touching on another important aspect of true genius that I didnt mention explicitly...the ability to create something new..to innovate...to explore new territory in new ways.
If you really do know something about Mozart you will know that his father was a composer that pushed his son to perform at an early age. That might have something to do with why he became a composer. This 12 year old kid's parents don't have any musical background at all, and everything the kid has done has been on his own.
That's because, like ogres and onions, they have layers!
Zeugma ducks, heading for stage, left
Was accepted to Julliard at the age of 15, but declined because there's no money to be made in music, and I had equal passion in the sciences. Went on to graduate from Stanford University with a double major in physics and economics. Much happier now.
Maybe I was a bit harsh on the kid, but he shouldn't be compared to Mozart or Saint Saens (two of my favorite composers). That got my blood boiling. More along the lines of Goldmark, Previn, Glass would be a more apt comparison...
If you're anywhere near Atlanta GA, we could use you in the choir . . . < g >
I may very well live in Atlanta fairly soon. If you sincerely need a bass-baritone, I'd be interested (although I can't sing nearly as well).
Ya. The me I was 20 years ago would puke at much of the music that has managed to accumulate on my hard disk. There is still stuff that I find absolutely unlistenable, but I thought the same thing about the 67th Psalm by Charles Ives the first time I heard it. That particular piece taught me the power and possibility that can be found in carefully crafted dissonance.
I agree. people are surprised that a kid could compose such cloying little pieces, I'm more surprised by the fact that ADULTS are composing the same crap.
Maybe, if people will quite fawning over him, he'll grow out of it and compose something worthwhile. If not, all this praise will just retard his growth.
Its called pianist envy!
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