I watched & listened in awe-Korean guitar prodigy

Subject: I watched and listened in awe
From: Betsy
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 06:58 AM

Sorry dont know how to make a blue clicky - but for guitarists, this may be the best 3 mins you have enjoyed for a long time.

http://www.wimp.com/northkorean/

Enjoy !!!!

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: maeve
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 06:59 AM

http://www.wimp.com/northkorean/

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Betsy
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 07:36 AM

Thanks Maeve !!!

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: greg stephens
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 08:08 AM

That's cheating. She's been practising.

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: GUEST,Ed
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 08:10 AM

LOL, Greg. Reminds me of the Flanders and Swann line: 'They practise beforehand which ruins the fun'

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 08:19 AM

Nobody likes a smartarse.

Dave H

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Will Fly
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 08:31 AM

Such a fantastic technique for such a little girl - and somehow disquieting. I watched it and wondered if she'd had a good childhood and was a happy little girl - or whether, like others (whom I've known) she has been force-fed the instrument to the exclusion of a normal childhood. Olga Korbutt syndrome...

If you listen to the piece without watching it, it's a pleasant enough guitar piece but not one that I'd want in my collection. So the awe in watching it comes from the curiosity factor of small child+unchild-like technique - like Dr. Johnson's metaphorical dog standing on it's hind legs.

On the other hand, Mozart was toured around the capitals and courts of Europe as a small child - and Genius was in every fibre of him. Perhaps I'm just being a mouldy old fig.

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 08:44 AM

I also found it disquieting. The word that came to mind while I watched was freakish. It has me wondering if Kim has music factories where they are churning out prodigies for the glory of the State.

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Wesley S
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 08:48 AM

Would I be a sourpuss if I pointed out that someone needs to tune that guitar? And I'm with Will on this. She's amazing - but I hope her parents are allowing her to do this because she wants to. Not because she's forced into it.

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 08:48 AM

Will, I have a friend who insists that anyone can become world class at anything with "10,000 hours of purposeful practice" and that no-one is born with a natural talent for anything. He's read a book about it which "absolutely convinced" him.

Seems like rubbish to me, as it seems obvious that in the range of normal human variation some will have better natural balance/ coordination/ hearing/ sight etc than others and therefore will start out higher up the "results of practice tree" than others.

So yes, 10,000 hours of practice might well make me a more than adequate guitarist, eventually, but I'll still never be as good as someone with natural talent who puts in the same hours as me.

This friend insists that Mozart was no genius, but a cild of musical parents who was subjected to huge amounts of enforced practice from a very early age!

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Will Fly
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 09:18 AM

This friend insists that Mozart was no genius, but a child of musical parents who was subjected to huge amounts of enforced practice from a very early age!

Mmm, possibly so. If Mozart had just been a very, very good pianist/performer, I'd subscribe to that theory. However, the "genius", if there is such a thing, is in the spring of melody and composition that welled up from within him.

I consider myself a reasonable musician, but I can't write a good tune for toffee!

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: kendall
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 09:41 AM

I don't often say "Holy Shit" but I did this time. Incredible.

She looked like she was enjoying it, moving to the music and all. I don't believe you could force a child to play like that if she didn't want to.
Natural talent is miles ahead of working at it.

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Crowhugger
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 12:23 PM

Wow! And again WOW! Yes very unusual for a child! Still, it sure looks to me as if she's loving it, both the music itself and the accomplishment of playing it. Then there's a moment where it looks like she's met someone's eyes, which seems to spur her on. I'm not going to worry too much that her parents are on the wrong track with her.

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: GUEST,Suzy
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 05:07 PM

Im with Kendall on this...she is amazing....

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Joe_F
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 05:19 PM

That guitar is bigger than she is!

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: gnu
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 05:32 PM

I'll vote with Kendall although I don't see the need to do so except to voice my dismay with the naysayers... she was obviously having fun. If she was "forced" to have fun by her parents or Kim, good for them.

Bravo.

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 05:44 PM

I love it! And she is obviously enjoying performing. Wow!!

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Jeri
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 06:22 PM

I thought the same thing, LEJ. I can't think of anything negative to say about the girl and her performance.

The nay-saying reminds me of times I've thought things like "Yes, she's drop-dead gorgeous, she's got money and people love her, but she probably doesn't have the teeniest bit of talent" and finding out I couldn't have been more wrong. There doesn't have to be something wrong to make people like me feel less un-blessed. Better to just enjoy the music.

One thing that is patently clear is that small hands are no handicap.

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Betsy
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 07:48 PM

I posted a note but forsome reason it didn't appear .I share the concerns that this young girl has been brainwashed (type of thing) at too early an age as expressed by some on the thread , but I also see her enjoying being good at what she's doing. My mind is cast back to those aimless conversations I've had over the many years when people have said that they would love to be able to play the guitar , BUT their fingers are too small , too fat, etc etc. I've got fingers like a fist full of sausages , but I was so impressed how her tiny fingers managed to do perfect Barre chords - but more importantly it was on a Spanish guitar which is a much wider neck than most of us play.
I don't know the background of her upbringing but I thought her performance was F****** brilliant.
Good luck to her - she is probably better at doing what she is doing, than (say) having a part in some Hollywood movie, and I thought she was genuinely moved when she was playing,rather than (as some have intimated ), that she is some sort of automonoton - the girl has loads of feeling for her music and I applaude her

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 08:36 PM

Yeah, but can she play "Free Bird"???

B;~)

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: katlaughing
Date: 21 Oct 10 - 09:05 PM

Rog and I both enjoyed it, though it did seem a little automatic at first, but then she obviously was relieved to have gotten to a certain part, maybe her fav. of the piece, or relieved at being done with a certain part, and smiled and she certainly has feeling for the music. It was amazing what she did with those tiny hands and fingers.

As for Mozart, WillFly said it better than I could...it wouldn't be hours of practice which inspired and produced the sublime compositions of his.

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: GUEST,Betsy
Date: 22 Oct 10 - 07:56 PM

Just for those who don't log in until the weekend - a very talented guitarist

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Oct 10 - 08:20 PM

I really wanted to hear this but as I was driving into Awe there was a detour because the main road was closed. It seems a busload of Tea-Baggers travelling to a rally had exploded from the pressure build-up of the excessive hot air when the air conditioning went out.

The detour was very poorly marked and, like Mmario in Zanesville, I became inextricably lost. After several hours of driving I found myself several miles to the south of where I started and running low on fuel. I decided just to return home and take a crap.

Spaw

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 22 Oct 10 - 08:29 PM

Wow, Grease. Once again, way more information than any of us had a right to expect. Awesome.

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 22 Oct 10 - 08:42 PM

"If she was "forced" to have fun by her parents or Kim, good for them."

Really?? it's good to be FORCED to have fun? where's the fun in that?

Subject: RE: I watched and listened in awe
From: Slag
Date: 22 Oct 10 - 08:55 PM

Truly amazing! She was rocking with the music. I do not believe she was tortured into it but is a true prodigy

I recall the story of Jose Raul Capablanca, age three watching his father play chess at his home in Cuba. After his father's opponet departed, little Jose told his father "You cheated!" Taken aback, his father said "What do you know of chess? You are but an infant and know nothing of the game! Here! Show me what you know!"

With that little Jose set up the position in question from memory and demonstrated the error his father had made. Astounded, his father asked how he had learned the game. "From wathching you play with that man!" replied Jose. So his father set up the board and began to play with "Cappy" as he became known by. Game after game Cappy bested his father. By age five he was beating Masters and Grand Masters of the game. It happens. Some people are just born with a gift and I see in this Korean child a true gift.

Subject: RE: I watched & listened in awe-Korean guitar prodigy
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 24 Oct 10 - 07:09 PM

I saw a true gift in Olga Korbutt and all the other young Romanian gymnasts who blossomed during the Ceauºescu regime.

Ten years later, they were all in rehab.

I pray the same fate doesn't overtake all the child prodigy guitarists who are now suddenly appearing from the last bastion of traditional Marxism.

Subject: RE: I watched & listened in awe-Korean guitar prodigy
From: GUEST,BanjoRay
Date: 25 Oct 10 - 05:56 AM

She's obviously enjoying herself BUT it doesn't look as if she's had much time for doing anything else....

Subject: RE: I watched & listened in awe-Korean guitar prodigy
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 25 Oct 10 - 06:36 AM

Child prodigies can be through abuse, but also through sheer skill. (A friend has a son who is a wonderful guitarist, and all through badgering them to buy one, and then practicing without being told. he now has a scholarship...)

My experiences of Korea is that smiling unnecessarily is not good manners by many customs, (it shows self pride,) so I do't think you can tell her level of enjoyment through her expression.

Many kids are pushed, some rebel later, some don't. Perhaps the least we can do is appreciate the rather extraordinary skill on view in the clip.

Thanks for sharing it.