Why can't a young prodigy (under 10) perform a truly profound rendition..

[leonidas]

...of for example a late Beethoven Sonata, or another great musical work?

Let's define the word profound for a moment here:

'showing intellectual penetration or emotional depths; from the depths of your being'

Now, I can see why they (perhaps) can't do this, but I'd like to question my own question here, and ask is 'profundity' really the remarkable thing about great works like this?

Let's say it wasn't, and say the music is great for the usual reason people think music is great - because it 'sounds good', which I feel may be the only important matter in producing great music.
Also, if the infant plays the music in a way that is 'musically' amazing - ie. beautiful rhythm and dynamics, and they don't happen to feel the (IMO) secondary elements of emotional and intellectual 'profundity', does this necessarily mean the audience members won't feel the 'profound' reaction to the great musical work, aswell as the primary musical one.?.

[pianochick93]

I believe that most 'young' performers would not have the emotional depth to feel the music, if what they are playing is particularly profound.

Such depth is generally not recognised until about 14 or 15 I think.

It depends on the person though. I was more deep at 12 than most of my friends are now.

[bob3.1415926]

I know not everybody agrees with me on this, but I think it is because great interpretations are based in personal experience.
At 10, the kid is unlikely to have experienced much, but that aside, they're unlikely to have gone through puberty, their body is mostly devoid of those colourful hormones which stop life from ever being that simple again.
When you're a kid, life is (comparatively) simple. The pieces you suggest involve complex emotion and thought. They're a bit beyond a 10 year olds understanding. I'm not saying 10 year olds are stupid, far from it, but the world is a lot more black and white at that age, and great interpretations require lots of colour.

[jlh]

The pieces you suggest involve complex emotion and thought. They're a bit beyond a 10 year olds understanding. I'm not saying 10 year olds are stupid, far from it, but the world is a lot more black and white at that age, and great interpretations require lots of colour.

Exactly. 

leonidas,

Just think of what was going on in Beethoven's life when he composed the late sonatas... he was going deaf (or already deaf for some of the sonatas), had chronic illnesses, family troubles with custody of his nephew, problems with women (he never married) and possibly had bi-polar disorder among other things.  This all after a long life of a musician -- do you think a 10 yr old kid would be able to fully comprehend what Beethoven was trying to express in his music and then convey it with the same profundity as someone older (with more life experience) would?

[counterpoint]

...of for example a late Beethoven Sonata, or another great musical work?

Let's define the word profound for a moment here:

'showing intellectual penetration or emotional depths; from the depths of your being'

That's a very intellectual definition 

If very young musicians are not able to perform truly profound (and that's not limited to late Beethoven Sonatas), then it is, because they are influenced too much by older people.

That's my opinion 

[jlh]

That's a very intellectual definition 

If very young musicians are not able to perform truly profound (and that's not limited to late Beethoven Sonatas), then it is, because they are influenced too much by older people.

That's my opinion 

How does that make sense?  If they are influenced more by older people wouldn't they take on more traits of older people and play more profoundly?

[counterpoint]

How does that make sense?  If they are influenced more by older people wouldn't they take on more traits of older people and play more profoundly?

The underlying assumption is, that older people are playing more profoundly.

I doubt this.

Because the playing of older people often is a bit boring, they have invented a criterion named "profound" 

[leonidas]

I believe that most 'young' performers would not have the emotional depth to feel the music, if what they are playing is particularly profound.

Just think of what was going on in Beethoven's life when he composed the late sonatas...  -- do you think a 10 yr old kid would be able to fully comprehend what Beethoven was trying to express in his music and then convey it with the same profundity as someone older (with more life experience) would?

No, but then, I am bringing up a related point.

Emotion and intellect are secondary in music, and they exist as a reaction and an inspiration too of course.

Now, knowing our emotional reaction to the music is important, we think the performer must be going through the same thing, but isn't it perfectly possible to be musically involved but emotionally detached or unaware?

Is it possible, just by musical talent, for the you prodigy to perform the piece amazingly in a musical way, without feeling the emotions that you as a listener associate with it?

[jlh]

Now, knowing our emotional reaction to the music is important, we think the performer must be going through the same thing, but isn't it perfectly possible to be musically involved but emotionally detached or unaware?

I don't think it is possible.  There must be a connection between the emotional center of the person playing and the piece or else there are just notes.  Especially for something like late Beethoven.  I have yet to hear an exception to this.  Think of it as method acting for pianists in a sense.

Is it possible, just by musical talent, for the you prodigy to perform the piece amazingly in a musical way, without feeling the emotions that you as a listener associate with it?

Yes, this is possible, but then again I wouldn't expect every person to have the same reaction as everyone else to any stimuli, musical or not.

[leonidas]

I don't think it is possible.  There must be a connection between the emotional center of the person playing and the piece or else there are just notes.  I have yet to hear an exception to this.  Think of it as method acting for pianists in a sense.

I just find the relation of music and emotion very interesting, and unlike most others I don't necessarily view it as an intrinsic element.

Any random person can feel emotion, and they can't write anything like Beethoven composed.

I agree they are connected, but I think Beethoven's genius would be the same if he was tortured or not.

Could a happy content man write music like that though?

We come to roundabouts here, but I would like to assert that a comical scherzo is not necessarily a lesser musical work than a piece that expresses 'deeper' emotions.

[counterpoint]

Could a happy content man write music like that though?

leonidas, your questions are getting more and more interesting!

[teresa_b]

Is it possible, just by musical talent, for the you prodigy to perform the piece amazingly in a musical way, without feeling the emotions that you as a listener associate with it?

Of course, just listen to Data on Star Trek play the violin in the exact style of Heifetz! 

Seriously, you are asking, I think  , a basic Artificial Intelligence question.  Whether that's true is argued all the time by those who believe AI is theoretically capable of totally simulating human thought/behavior, and those who don't.  Now, the question of "Once a robot appears conscious, is he really conscious?" is a real toughie.

Teresa

[bob3.1415926]

I agree they are connected, but I think Beethoven's genius would be the same if he was tortured or not.

Could a happy content man write music like that though?

Fantastic question. I imagine that Beethoven's output would have been very different (and probably less interesting) had he not suffered, but this is speculation, I don't know it would.

Looking at the examples, Schumann and Schubert both had pretty messy lives (and died young) Brahms was in love with his much admired mentor's wife, Mozart died young and penniless, Liszt had a burning determination to prove himself as the greatest to high society, coming from a 'lower' background, then later became a religious fanatic (this is another major source of inspiration for composers)

It isn't exactly happiness and joy. I think you need passion and intensity. Misery is an readily available source of this. But there are others (religion being quite a common one in music)

There's some quote about contentment being the bane of inspiration, but I can't remember who it is by, or the exact wording. 

[tengstrand]

As being the older guy here, I think one of the few perks is that I can be a little like (I know, this is the most annoying comment ever...) "when you get older you will understand this, blabla... "
Lately I have put the music I play much more in the perspective of being connected to all music, not historically, but with its emotional output, so to speak. I have, and this I would have thought was a very corny thing to think years ago, connected the incredible passion, sweat, pride and, yes, feeling, of Bruce Springsteen singing Born in the USA with the same tributes in let's say the finale of the Hammarklavier Sonata. Just realizing that music is a human experience, living in us all differently, not as an "interpretation". Very hard to express this, but take this video, my favourite on youtube:

&feature=related
I think this is Horowitz coming back to his homeland after the exile...I cannot believe this did not matter in his performance, and I'm pretty sure it partly made this the incredible performance that this is. I'll stop babbling now, just watch the video, think of the circumstances, and you'll get what I can't really express here...
Sorry for this being so unclear, folks...
Per

[daniloperusina]

I feel something similar. Many years ago I was a bluesguitar player and was heavily into Clapton, Robert Johnson and others. Above all I loved music with 'passion, sweat, pride and feeling', as you say. Although it's a long time ago, sometimes I can feel a connection to that. As if, say, Schubert's D960 is suddenly a blues. I mean spiritually. Robert Johnson sings Schubert.

I remember reading an eyewitness account of Horowitz' return. A student at the Conservatoire. Briefly something like: 'hiding in the toilets (no one was allowed in the building), hearing that the audience started to come, sneaking out, bluffing his way past security and ticket controllers, standing at the back of the hall, and as soon as Horowitz took his first steps out to the platform he could see many people around him breaking into tears. 60 years absence. And the student risking his whole career over one concert. Isn't that profound?

I don't know if a 9 year old can't be profound. But profound in a sort of nine-year old way?

[counterpoint]

We should clearly distinguish between true feelings and sentimentality.
If sentimentality is "profound", then I don't want to hear profound performances.

Kids are never sentimental (I see this as a great advantage!), but it's very easy for them to imitate sentimentality just for fun.

[jazzyprof]

This is the same as asking why a young prodigy can't give a truly profound reading or performance of Shakespeare's King Lear.  Playing the piano is after all speaking a language.  In order to move your audience you don't just mouth the words by rote.  You have to feel what you are saying.  What we feel and how we react is a result of years of accumulated experiences and memories.  All these inform our interpretations whether it be in playing a sonata or telling a story. 

[counterpoint]

This is the same as asking why a young prodigy can't give a truly profound reading or performance of Shakespeare's King Lear. 

There's an important difference:

In literature we have to know many things about life and history to understand what's going on.

Music is understandable directly, without needing additional information.

For example you don't need to know what a blue note, a 7th chord or a syncope is, to hear and feel Jazz music. And what is needed to improvise and play Jazz - a prodigy will be able to learn this very quickly.

[leonidas]

Indeed.

I'd like to question why profundity makes a work great.

Like I asked before, why is, for example, Islamey considered not as 'great' a work as the Beethoven op111, as an eg.

Both are innovative, rich,  and excite great reactions in most listeners.

[jazzyprof]

Music is understandable directly, without needing additional information.

For example you don't need to know what a blue note, a 7th chord or a syncope is, to hear and feel Jazz music. And what is needed to improvise and play Jazz - a prodigy will be able to learn this very quickly.

That is an immense falsehood.  For someone brought up on nothing but rap music, the sound of Bach at a first hearing may be nothing but noise.  To hear, feel, and appreciate any new type of music you need repeated exposure and experience.  To play a solo in jazz that actually touches the listener one needs more than technical virtuosity.  That's why jazz players will sometimes criticize a player as "having nothing to say"...they can play tons of notes with great rapidity but their playing doesn't tell a story.   

[jlh]

That's why jazz players will sometimes criticize a player as "having nothing to say"...they can play tons of notes with great rapidity but their playing doesn't tell a story.   

The same could be said of performers in ANY music genre.

[counterpoint]

The same could be said of performers in ANY music genre.

... and of performers of ANY age   

[gerry]

We argue here about whether or not these young prodigies are capable of a profound interpretation of, for instance, late Beethoven; but, in reality how many of them are attempting to? I seem to see and hear them playing a lot of Lizst Chopin, and some early Beethoven but seldom, if ever, late Beethoven Sonatas and the like. Perhaps they are covering their lack of profundity by sticking to impressive and virtuosic pieces. Does anyone have examples of 8- to 11-year -olds attempting some of these more "profound" works?

Another thought. If it were true that some young geniuses could be capable of really understanding to the fullest, great music and art, would they, as a result, be way too tortured too early on in their lives to handle it without burning out or going mad? Would it be sensory overload so to speak?

[jakev2.0]

Young Hofmann.

End of.

[cygnusdei]

Young Hofmann.

End of.

Under 10?

[viking]

The answer is quite simple.  Nobody at the age of 10 is physically, nor intellectually developed enough to be able to create the right sound.  They are unable to have a true presence or focus in the sound that they make, therefore they fail to produce a touching rendition of, say Beethoven's Op.111. 

[jlh]

Look at it this way:  Would you entrust your life to a 12 yr old prodigy surgeon, even if they knew everything someone 30 yrs old knows?

I think the analogy is valid.

[cygnusdei]

I'd like to peddle my own theory. Late Beethoven, or Beethoven in general is not intuitive, i.e. it requires formal training to play correctly. Therefore it is not suitable for young children who may have excellent musical instincts, yet lacking in proper tuition.

On the other hand, Bach, Mozart, and even Chopin is intuitive music. You can pretty much rely on your own ears for guidance, provided that you have a good set.

[counterpoint]

I'd like to peddle my own theory. Late Beethoven, or Beethoven in general is not intuitive, i.e. it requires formal training to play correctly.

That's an interesting point of view.
I'm not sure if I really agree - I have to think about it - but late Beethoven is indeed not a music that can be described in a positivistic way. It's a bit like: "I will show you, how bad music can sound". Early avantgarde-music.

I know, I will get killed now... 

[jlh]

I'd like to peddle my own theory. Late Beethoven, or Beethoven in general is not intuitive, i.e. it requires formal training to play correctly. Therefore it is not suitable for young children who may have excellent musical instincts, yet lacking in proper tuition.

On the other hand, Bach, Mozart, and even Chopin is intuitive music. You can pretty much rely on your own ears for guidance, provided that you have a good set.

I also have a theory about my 12 yr old prodigy surgeon... everyone knows that heart surgery in general is not intuitive, i.e. it requires formal training to perform correctly.  Therefore it is not suitable for young children who may have excellent medical instincts, yet lacking in proper tuition.

On the other hand, brain surgery is intuitive medicine. You can pretty much rely on your own patient for guidance, provided that you have a good one.

[jakev2.0]

Under 10?

W.J. Henderson in the New York Times on Hofmann November 29, 1887 Metropolitan Opera House debut (as related in Gregor Benko's 1976 introduction to a Hofmann book):

Men shouted "Bravo!" and women waved their handkerchief.  Pianists of repute were moved almost to tears.  Some wiped moisture from their eyes.  The child had astonished the assembly.  He was a marvel. ...Josef Hofmann ...is worthy of the sensation that he has created.  More than that, he is an artist and we can listen to his music without taking into consideration the fact that he is a child.

This was written at a time when the playing of Liszt, Rubinstein, and Tausig were still fresh in the ears of the reviewers, and when Rosenthal, Busoni were busy achieving prominence.  Not trivial stuff.

Hofmann was 9 at the time of the concert.

[maxy]

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation about Kant with some 8 year old kid.   

[counterpoint]

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation about Kant with some 8 year old kid.   

Who is Kant?   

[gerry]

Who is Kant?   

dunno...that word isn't in my vokabulary

[jakev2.0]

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation about Kant with some 8 year old kid.   

By the age of 10, John Stuart Mill could write on a level comparable to Kant.  That's not a hyperbolic statement; go read some of Mill's early letters.

There is a difference between the precocity exhibited by your typical garden variety prodigies and the phenomenon of sheer intellectua/ artistic mastery at an early age. The latter, though occurring far less frequently, occurs nonetheless.

Mendelssohn.
John Stuart Mill.
Von Neumann.

These belief defying people do exist.

[gerry]

I think what it boils down to is that, in our overzealous quest for sensation, we tend to abuse the term prodigy and rush to apply it too liberally and too soon to astonishing but undeserving pianists rather than to those very very few exemplary individuals who truly merit this sobriquet.

I also think that today, what with our unlimited access to media (recordings, videos, etc.), access to intellectual assistance via the internet, improved nutrition, coupled with ambitious parents and ease of exposure to wide audiences via television, we are apt to see more and more of these young "technicians" who are able to impress average audiences with superficial skills. Maybe we need another term other than "prodigy" to describe these phenomena.

In my dreams, the true geniuses are being sheltered from all this by wiser guardians.

[webern78]

Maturity. It exists you know, even if most people are just over-grown children this days.

[danny elfboy]

I think it depends on the individual.
Some people never have deep thoughts, emotional depth and intellectual even when they are 40 and some people have it already even when they are 8.
It depends on the environment you live in and the experiences you make and age doesn't equate strictly with any of that.

As for hormones, we have all kind of hormones from testosterone to epinephrine and cortisol since we're babies. Puberty is not a process by which an hormone-less body becomes hormone-full but the last visible stage of a hormonal activity linked to tissue growth started in the first years of life.

In other words if we look for an objective anatomical and physiological way to standardize the kind of maturity, knowledge, emotional depth, empathy we should aspect a child to have we won't find any. It's a subjective and environment based thing. Even Piaget has been proven wrong, since his studies on "cognitive development" (that lead him to theorize that cognitize development is strictly linked to chronological age) dealt with children of a single social class of a single city of a single nation. When researchers started to mix children from different cultures and social classes it became clear that their level of maturity and cognitive ability depended on the environment they were growing, the right to explore the world in their own way they were granted and the responsibilities they were given.

The modern society infantilizes children so that we almost forget the potential we are supposed to have at a very young age.

You can for example notice that poor children are way more mature than whealthy spoiled children and often more mature than wealthy spoiled adults. This is not a bad thing. This is not exposing them to real life too early, this is letting them be people rather than semi-conscious puppets living in perpetual triviality and kept under a dome of glass away from the real world, ready to grow with lot of fears, paranoias, hatred and superficial outlook of life (what do you expect from someone forced by his/her parents and teachers to live in a humanless surrogate of the world rather than in the real world?)

Some children are capable of more maturity, intellectual and emotional depth, insightful outlook and empathy then their parents, and some children are not. Even though, usually, when children are like that their parents are like that too and viceversa. There are indeed young performers who can render the profound emotional content of a piece better than their adult counterparts.

[danny elfboy]

Exactly. 

leonidas,

Just think of what was going on in Beethoven's life when he composed the late sonatas... he was going deaf (or already deaf for some of the sonatas), had chronic illnesses, family troubles with custody of his nephew, problems with women (he never married) and possibly had bi-polar disorder among other things.  This all after a long life of a musician -- do you think a 10 yr old kid would be able to fully comprehend what Beethoven was trying to express in his music and then convey it with the same profundity as someone older (with more life experience) would?

But let's even say that having problems of similar intensity that Beethoven had would be required to express the same feelings in music (which is a premise not many agree with, as Aristostele said you don't have to have experienced death in order to perform your death in a teather)  but what are the chances that a performer have experienced that?
And according to your own premise wouldn't a child performer who is fighting with cancer express those painful emotions better than a wealthy healthy adult performer who had a rather straightforward life devoid of the serious problems Beethoven had to endure?

[jlh]

But let's even say that having problems of similar intensity that Beethoven had would be required to express the same feelings in music (which is a premise not many agree with, as Aristostele said you don't have to have experienced death in order to perform your death in a teather)  but what are the chances that a performer have experienced that?

You don't have to experience death to be able to perform death in a theater, that would be absurd I agree.  By the same token, you don't have to be bi-polar and deaf to play Beethoven.  What we're talking about here is life experience, which is the best teacher of all. 

Children are incapable of comprehending the complexity of the human condition and all the emotions and experiences that entails.  Not to say it's their fault, as you say society tends to infantilizes children; but beyond that, children have no responsibilities beyond what their parents have them do, which tends to be marginal if anything.  They have not had the bad fortune of having a broken heart from an adult relationship, many have not had to deal with the death of a close family member or friend, and the stress of the real world has not made its mark on their lives.  By and large they have not had to deal with the crises of growing older and failing health that plagues everyone eventually.

Put simply, their lives are simple so they are incapable of realizing the complexity of feeling they are to convey.  If they have a good teacher they should be more than capable of imitating the notes they are to play and the right time and velocity, but in my opinion that is not enough to constitute a convincing performance of a 'profound' work of music.

And according to your own premise wouldn't a child performer who is fighting with cancer express those painful emotions better than a wealthy healthy adult performer who had a rather straightforward life devoid of the serious problems Beethoven had to endure?

Are you arguing class now?  What does wealth have to do with performance of music?  I don't know of any adult who has not experienced some kind of harship.  Finances are not the only hardship.  Besides, wouldn't a child fighting cancer be weaker as a result of the treatment?

[danny elfboy]

You don't have to experience death to be able to perform death in a theater, that would be absurd I agree.  By the same token, you don't have to be bi-polar and deaf to play Beethoven.  What we're talking about here is life experience, which is the best teacher of all. 

Children are incapable of comprehending the complexity of the human condition and all the emotions and experiences that entails.  Not to say it's their fault, as you say society tends to infantilizes children; but beyond that, children have no responsibilities beyond what their parents have them do, which tends to be marginal if anything.  They have not had the bad fortune of having a broken heart from an adult relationship, many have not had to deal with the death of a close family member or friend, and the stress of the real world has not made its mark on their lives.  By and large they have not had to deal with the crises of growing older and failing health that plagues everyone eventually.

Put simply, their lives are simple so they are incapable of realizing the complexity of feeling they are to convey.

As you admitted this is true just as long as the parents doesn't allow those children to experience the full spectrum of complexity of their lives and emotions. The lives and emotions of children are as complex as the lives and emotions of anyone else, or better yet, it is not a matter of age but a matter of what kind of lives the individual has. Children are not designed or supposed to have trivial lives made of infantilizing black and white emotions and experiences and this is indeed what will turn them into unsympathetic, greedy and alienated adults. For example in my father's day, death was an everyday thing even 4 years old knew about and understood. Children were not protected from real life and it's ugly side and beautiful sides. You can't have one without the other and if you "protect" a child from the ugly sides of lives you're blinding him/her to the genuine beautiful sides too and his/her life is just fake and this will negatively impact the kind of person he/she is and will be.

The truth is that there are as many children capable of emotional depth and profound insight than there are shallow, insensitive, unmetional and superficial adult totally devoid of any insight. Besides as I said our understanding of what children can or can't understand, feel and do has been influenced by a lot of outdated pedagogical ideas that have been proven wrong. For example we know nowadays that the "mental stage" children were supposed to reach not before 12 is observed on children as young as 3 and that complexity, complex mental maps and ability to look the world from as many different perspective as possible including the life of another person (i.e. counter-egocentrism) belong to children as young as 2. To paraphrase Tom Trabasso "what children do in spite of adults' hypothesis".

Are you arguing class now?  What does wealth have to do with performance of music?  I don't know of any adult that has not experienced some kind of harship.  Finances are not the only hardship. 

That's true but usually wealthy people have trivial and infantilizing lives whether they're children or adults and poor people have more enriching and genuine responsible lives whether they're children or adults. In fact many agrees that the infantilization of children and teenagers started with the growth of the middle class and with the sudden wealth of the consumist society. You can do the experiment yourself and go talk about life with a child who is living in a big house with a swimming pool, a dozen of giant rooms, a personal driver and waitress, required to follow all the exclusive schools and clubs and with a child who is living in a 40 mq flat with 4 younger siblings to keep on eye on, outdoor activities as his only fun, needing to go to bed without having eaten anything many times and able to appreciate the blessing a piece of bread soaked in water is.

[jlh]

As you admitted this is true just as long as the parents doesn't allow those children to experience the full spectrum of complexity of their lives and emotions. The lives and emotions of children are as complex as the lives and emotions of anyone else, or better yet, it is not a matter of age but a matter of what kind of lives the individual has. Children are not designed or supposed to have trivial lives made of infantilizing black and white emotions and experiences and this is indeed what will turn them into unsympathetic, greedy and alienated adults. For example in my father's day, death was an everyday thing even 4 years old knew about and understood. Children were not protected from real life and it's ugly side and beautiful sides. You can't have one without the other and if you "protect" a child from the ugly sides of lives you're blinding him/her to the genuine beautiful sides too and his/her life is just fake and this will negatively impact the kind of person he/she is and will be.

The truth is that there are as many children capable of emotional depth and profound insight than there are shallow, insensitive, unmetional and superficial adult totally devoid of any insight. Besides as I said our understanding of what children can or can't understand, feel and do has been influenced by a lot of outdated pedagogical ideas that have been proven wrong. For example we know nowadays that the "mental stage" children were supposed to reach not before 12 is observed on children as young as 3 and that complexity, complex mental maps and ability to look the world from as many different perspective as possible including the life of another person (i.e. counter-egocentrism) belong to children as young as 2. To paraphrase Tom Trabasso "what children do in spite of adults' hypothesis".


That's true but usually wealthy people have trivial and infantilizing lives whether they're children or adults and poor people have more enriching and genuine responsible lives whether they're children or adults. In fact many agrees that the infantilization of children and teenagers started with the growth of the middle class and with the sudden wealth of the consumist society. You can do the experiment yourself and go talk about life with a child who is living in a big house with a swimming pool, a dozen of giant rooms, a personal driver and waitress, required to follow all the exclusive schools and clubs and with a child who is living in a 40 mq flat with 4 younger siblings to keep on eye on, outdoor activities as his only fun, needing to go to bed without having eaten anything many times and able to appreciate the blessing a piece of bread soaked in water is.

I can understand and relate to what you're saying, however, in the end it is the product that matters.  What kind of proof is there that a 10 yr old can play one of the great works in a profound way -- as they would had they another 20 yrs added to their life?  I'm not just talking about technical profiency either.  Beyond that, if there are 1-2 people that can be found that are capable of such a performance at that age, can that necessarily be extrapolated to a generalization of 10 yr old pianists?

[danny elfboy]

I can understand and relate to what you're saying, however, in the end it is the product that matters.  What kind of proof is there that a 10 yr old can play one of the great works in a profound way -- as they would had they another 20 yrs added to their life?  I'm not just talking about technical profiency either.  Beyond that, if there are 1-2 people that can be found that are capable of such a performance at that age, can that necessarily be extrapolated to a generalization of 10 yr old pianists?

No, I don't think it can be extrapolated in either way.
I'm not trying to infer a general rule about this, just trying to de-emphasize the importance of chronological age. What I'm saying is that being X years old is not a criteria for empathy, emotional depth, profound insight in the same way that being blond or brunette is not a criteria linked to these characteristics either. So clearly you can find the very immature and lacking empathy or experiencing the world in a superficial manner 10 year old and the very mature empathic and experiencing the world with insight and transportation 10 year old and you can find the very immature and lacking empathy or experiencing the world in a superficial way 50 years old or the very mature and empathic and experiencing the world with insight and transportation 50 years old. But I think what we are really talking about here is empathy. So as we said someone doesn't need to be blind to feel what a blind person could feel or doesn't need to have lost his sister in order to feel what such a person could feel.
But empathy is needed, and when you have empathy and don't see the world in black and white but can see thing from different point of view you can feel the pain and joy of everyone even if they're something absent in your life experience, and people either are empathic or not whether they're very young or very old.

[jlh]

I agree that a chronological age is not the one determining factor for one to be able to perform profoundly (as seems the buzz word here), but wouldn't you agree that someone older has by default been exposed to more human experiences and therefore is more likely to play works in a more mature way?

If they don't, then it's a matter of negligence by their teachers or by themselves -- or perhaps they simply lack the minimum amount of brain cells or the capacity to learn. 

However, for a 10 yr old to have experienced what a 30 yr old (for purposes of argument) has experienced and be to the level where they can produce something that is convincingly profound on the piano is extremely rare.  For instance, someone perhaps that has lost everything early in life won't probably be in a practice room all that much before age 10, or won't be able to afford a teacher (without whom I can't imagine anyone under 10 will be able to play 'profoundly'), or in the case of physical disability probably won't even be able to play much at all.

You typically don't see extremely underprivileged children at that age playing at a very high level, no matter what culture you come from, so what's left are those youths that have not the life experience to be able to relate in a convincing way.

[danny elfboy]

I agree that a chronological age is not the one determining factor for one to be able to perform profoundly (as seems the buzz word here), but wouldn't you agree that someone older has by default been exposed to more human experiences and therefore is more likely to play works in a more mature way?

If they don't, then it's a matter of negligence by their teachers or by themselves -- or perhaps they simply lack the minimum amount of brain cells or the capacity to learn. 

However, for a 10 yr old to have experienced what a 30 yr old (for purposes of argument) has experienced and be to the level where they can produce something that is convincingly profound on the piano is extremely rare.

But it's not a matter of how many experiences but the level of those experiences.
Many 30 years old have a flat uninteresting and understimulating life behind them, and many 50 years old have just lived in the same city, interacted with just a bunch of people their whole life and just spent all their evenings in the same bar. It's not that rare to see younger people having had way more experiences or interacted with more people. It's just an age-unrelated potential.
But if we agree that you don't need to be blind to feel what must be life for a blind person and perform a blind character than we must agree that the age-unrelated empathy is what will allow a young performer to really play a profound piece convincingly and not the numerical amount of experiences. In fact if we followed your reasoning about a 30 year old having more experiences (not necessarily) than a 10 year old then a 70 year old should have even more experience and hence playing the piece better. Now, why putting a demarcation in childhood and claiming that a child can't convincingly portray those emotions because he/she had accumulated less experiences than a 30 year old, when with the same reasoning we could put a demarcation way later and claiming that a 30 year old can't convincingly portray those emotions because he/she had accumulated less experiences than a 60 year old? In other words the "numerical amount of experiences" argument (chronology) is rather contradictory and I find more convinging the "empathy" argument.

The the non empathic person you say: "think of the strongest pain YOU have ever felt and you'll know how that person feels"

But to the empathic person you say: "think of what HE is feeling, look in his eyes, sense the sadness in his voice, understand what he has gone through, can you feel HIS pain?"

[jlh]

But I don't think it's possible to simply "look through someone's eyes and feel his pain", unless one has themself been through it. 

Sure, you can close your eyes and then you know the world of the blind person, but other elements of the human condition can only be understood by experience. 

Two years ago I had mono for a month and was incapacitated from normal life.  Many people helped me through this experience and I'm grateful to everyone.  However, there was a BIG difference in the amount of empathy shown to me by those who have themselves suffered from this illness and those who have not.  Those who have never had mono were sympathetic but generally apathetic as well.  I even had to approach the dean of my school to get a medical withdrawal for a class because I missed so much school -- guess what, she has not experienced mono and refused to give me any leeway because her understanding was that if you have mono you can go about your daily life with minimal disturbance, which is the polar opposite of what most mono sufferers experience.  Those who have had mono were extremely helpful and it was a tangible difference because those people KNEW what I was going through.

Also, perhaps it is common knowledge, but 10 yr olds do not possess a body that is neurologically fully formed yet.  Need I say more?

[danny elfboy]

Also, perhaps it is common knowledge, but 10 yr olds do not possess a body that is neurologically fully formed yet.  Need I say more?

As I said this is just questionable.
The theories of cognitive development (especially those of Piaget) have been disproven as the fact that there's a chronological cognitive development linked to neurological changes.
We have been told that certain cortex changes are seen in certain ages but it has been proven that different children of different ages pass through these changes at different times and the reason seems to be that these are not changes triggered by a chronological process (internal clock of the body) but by the environment we live in and the experience we do.
If you keep a child in a basement for 20 years with just food but no human contacts and experiences he/she will exihibit similar neurological unripeness of a baby. There are interesting hypothesis demonstrating that these changes are just capacity adaptations, in other words they occur to compensate an increasing amount of memories. This has little to do with maturity, intelligence, insight and empathy. After all if it was a chronological growth matter you couldn't see mature children and immature adults, while I see both all the times.
That being said neurological and cerebral changes go on thorough our whole life and even when we're 30 year old those changes are occurring. There's no kind of correlation between not having gone through certain body changes and empathy, intelligence, insight, sensitivity, responsibility, knowledge.

[danny elfboy]

But I don't think it's possible to simply "look through someone's eyes and feel his pain", unless one has themself been through it. 

Sure, you can close your eyes and then you know the world of the blind person, but other elements of the human condition can only be understood by experience. 

Two years ago I had mono for a month and was incapacitated from normal life.  Many people helped me through this experience and I'm grateful to everyone.  However, there was a BIG difference in the amount of empathy shown to me by those who have themselves suffered from this illness and those who have not.  Those who have never had mono were sympathetic but generally apathetic as well.  I even had to approach the dean of my school to get a medical withdrawal for a class because I missed so much school -- guess what, she has not experienced mono and refused to give me any leeway because her understanding was that if you have mono you can go about your daily life with minimal disturbance, which is the polar opposite of what most mono sufferers experience.  Those who have had mono were extremely helpful and it was a tangible difference because those people KNEW what I was going through.

You're not talking about empathy.
Empathy is rather rare nowadays because we live in an alienating society where human contacts are either few and segregated or just fake and hypocritical. It's a society that tells us that what we need to do is accumulating stuff to fill our grave with and that we must do this at the expense of anyone else. A person who doesn't emphasize with your mono because she/he hadn't experienced just isn't an empathic person. A person who does emphasize with your mono just because she/he had experienced it just isn't an empathic person. Empathic people do exist and their attitude, insight and sensitivity is totally of another level. When black people were being discriminated (and notice the parallel with children, i.e. claiming a person is infantile and stupid a priori because he/she is forced to live in perpetual mediocrity and isn't even given the freedom to show his/her could-have-been maturity) there were white people who fought for their cause even if they had never experienced anything like discrimination, slavery, poverty and abuse.

[jakev2.0]

These replies remind me of a rodeo - a point here and there and a lot of bull in between.

[danny elfboy]

These replies remind me of a rodeo - a point here and there and a lot of bull in between.

Wow thanks for such a mature, insightful and profound contribute.
Trying to help me to prove my point  ?