Nope, I’m not going to write about it, but I sure wish the press would!
The Olympics have renewed my fascination with all things surrounding
child prodigies and, especially with the games being in China, I wonder
why we haven’t seen child prodigy athlete vs. child prodigy classical
musician press.
Surely there are huge, glaringly obvious
similarities: extreme focus on a singular pursuit from a very young
age, supportive beyond-supportive-parents (or parental figures),
intense training, legendary coaches/teachers, presence of natural
gifts, all-consuming travel schedules, physical demands, careers
potentially cut short by injury, existence just below the mainstream
celebrity line for most….lots of interesting compare/contrast
material there. You can’t swing a dead Chinese cat without hitting a
human
“interest” story in NBC’s Olympic coverage, so I’m frustrated that
there hasn’t been a Chinese classical musician/Chinese athlete
development piece. Commitment from a national level to developing young
talent of all genre? Come on, that’s gold! [pun…intended.] Every time the cameras cut to Mama
Phelps, I think how intriguing a piece examining successful young
athletes’/musicians’ parents would be; similarities would certainly
cross national boundaries, there. And what better platform than The
Olympics to explore where and how prodigies in all areas
materialize, since multiple studies have shown that neither geography
nor ethnicity appears to matter in sports or classical music.
Wikipedia’s List of Child Prodigies
is comedy to behold. No Hilary, no Joshua Bell, no Michael Phelps!
Gotta love Ruth Ann Kepple, though, “prodigy of facts”. Hilary never
liked being called a prodigy; in interviews, she often half-jokes that
the word originally meant “monster”. Young, exceptional athletes
aren’t called “prodigies”, though: the term seems limited to the arts,
chess and academics. Why is that? There’s also the question of which
athlete/musician child prodigies become tops of their fields when they
reach adulthood; athletes almost can’t, for physical reasons, whereas
classical musician prodigies can have forty-plus year careers.
I
enjoyed the six minutes of my life that was spent watching a former
tennis pro eat “weird Chinese food” in between beach volleyball and
synchronized diving, but I do think that exploring the prodigy topic
during the Beijing Olympics could potentially shed some really interesting
light on both sports and classical music. As usual, in my absolutely
performing arts-biased opinion.
Benjamin Bloom wrote an interesting exploration of the parallels between prodigious talents in various disciplines in his book, Developing Talent in Young People. I remember specifically the survey of career paths of international piano competition winners and those of world-class athletes. Indeed, there were many striking similarities in the sacrificial levels of commitment demanded of these young people, their families and coaches. You can find Bloom’s book on Amazon at:
http://www.amazon.com/Developing-Talent-Young-People-Benjamin/dp/034531509X