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."
You'll love the space, small chamber groups and choral societies from all over Atlanta come to sing here.
The choir had sort of languished under the prior director, but we're recruiting fiercely. The new choir director is a very talented musician, plays like an angel and is doing his best to motivate the choir! He has improved the music 100 percent, lots of chant and good traditional polyphonic anthems.
I'm a recent convert from the Episcopal Church, came from a parish with an amazing choir (we sang at Spoleto a couple of times) but couldn't hack the theology (or lack thereof) any more. I studied piano all through elementary and high school, but my performance experience is with choral groups. All amateur of course, but I'm very serious about producing a quality sound.
Are you a Catholic?
I wish I had written what you wrote. All true!
BTTT
Double BUMP!
I'm not a huge Classical fan but the fact that this kid can write, heck even read, music is great. I probably wouldn't buy anything he writes, but I'm sure many will. I like more Americana rootsy music. There's a 14-year-old girl from here in Texas who writes, plays guitar and sings like a 30 year old. (http://www.marenmorris.com ) I don't know about genius or prodigy but she's definitely ahead of her time.
I call it "emotive depth" and I agree - whatever you want to call it - the kid doesn't yet have it. He is no Mozart. The 9/11 piece was rather flat from beginning to end.
But from what I heard and saw, he is a prodigy of a kind. To attempt to compare him to Mozart is a red herring. He is what he is, and that's nothing to be easily dismissed.
At 15, you were concerned that there was no money to be made in music?
So, what is the difference between a violin and a fiddle?
Oh, I wish you hadn't said that.... Calling all FREEPER BAGPIPERS! Fill this guy in. He has obviously not heard Flames of Wrath, the 78th, Simon Fraser University, Bill Livingstone, Jack Lee, or the great Alistair Gilles in concert.
The difference? Attitude, man...attitude.
Mozart and this boy, Greenberg did not have equal upbringings. Mozart's father rigorously taught him music. Greenberg's parents didn't know anything about music.
From here: http://www.mozartproject.org/biography/bi_56_60.html
Not much is known of Wolfgang’s very early life. Probably, his father concentrated on his court career and on teaching. Certainly he tutored Maria Anna, who the family called Nannerl. When she reached the age of seven, Leopold began to instruct her on the clavier -- and soon discovered to his keen satisfaction that she had a gift for music. He continued the girl’s studies, challenging her with a series of exercises that he wrote out for her in a notebook that he titled Pour le clavecin, ce Livre appartient à Mademoiselle Marie-Anne Mozartin 1759.
The boy’s curiosity was piqued as well. As Nannerl later recalled, the three-year-old Wolfgang "often spent much time at the clavier, picking out thirds, which he was always striking, and his pleasure showed that it sounded good."
Recognizing his childrens’ special abilities, Leopold began to devote extra effort to their educations -- with an emphasis on musical instruction. He became a loving, but exacting, taskmaster. Some time later, he would somewhat ruefully describe to a correspondent how from a very early age Nannerl and Wolfgang had learned to wear the "iron shirt" of discipline. The children themselves probably never realized that life could be any different. Wolfgang, no doubt, enjoyed the extra attention and found great pleasure in learning -- and in pleasing his father. It was the start of a relationship that he would never quite break free of, and the beginning of a career that would consume him altogether.
I am quite impressed with the piece that was linked in a prior post (Overture 9/11). It was a bit more understated than I had expected, but it was far more evocative to me than some of the modern musicians I have heard of late. My husband likes to listen to some composer who uses her feet to play the instruments, but I am one of those people who cannot stand to listen to her music because it sounds nothing more than bangings and trumpeting. This young man seems to have some concept of THEME in his music, whereas so much of the modern day composers play music like it was lumps of sound. This young man is actually quite refreshing. Perhaps as he gets older, he'll be able to elaborate on this Overture and produce something even more amazing!
BTTT
nope, but thanks for playing.
The difference is...you don't spill beer on a violin.
Sorry, bluegrass humor (is that an oxymoron?).
I`ll believe it when he writes a Moonlight Sonata. As for now after seeing the show he is doing what anyone else can do, mainly take dictation from random sh*t.
Yeah everyone can compose a score for a full orchestra...
I guess I should have been prepared for the cynical critics that an Internet forum would attract.
Yeah, I think it's reminiscent of late Romantic Russian composers.
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