I just got back from what I tell my coworkers is "music camp" and wanted to toss this question out to the café. Can genius/prodigality be undisciplined? Or is discipline a necessary requirement?
What made me wonder is a 9-year-old child who was proficient on violin (or so we were told) was dropped off in our mandolin class because mandolin is fingered the same and apparently someone in the family thought there was a carryover. This wasn't the first time someone dropped off a young child who played some version of fiddle/violin to pick up mandolin. The same thing happened a few years ago with the child of musicians and IIRC the child was about the same age.
I have no idea how well either child played violin/fiddle. In one case the parent assured us that, even though the child had "just" picked up the mandolin (literally was handed one immediately before class), that they were brilliant at violin/fiddle. The other was nearly the same, but it was more a piece of gossip that the child was some sort of prodigy.
In both cases, the child was more a distraction than anything else. Neither could sit still, could sit in their chair for longer than 2 minutes, were obviously bored to tears, kept sliding down onto the floor until told by the teacher to please get back in their seat, may or may not have been able to finger notes but put nothing into it except a couple of strokes looking like they would want to be any where else. In one case, we suffered through the child for 3 of our 5 classes (the other two, the child was in a guitar class where the exact same behavior occurred -- according to my-husband-the-guitar-player who was unfortunate enough to pick up the child that I lost in my class). In the other, the teacher suggested the child would do better with some private lessons tailored specifically to them and the parent acquiesced.
But I wondered whether these children were actual geniuses or prodigies, even on their violin/fiddle. Can you be that dedicated to your instrument/music while being completely undisciplined in behavior relating to any piece of music? Wouldn't genius or prodigality imply at least musical discipline?
Anyway, that's a long way of asking for thoughts, but I am. Some of you have known geniuses or prodigals. What's your take?
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