Simply amazing!

[Gene Oh]

https://youtu.be/8u-6LzNtkpQ?si=_As_CX-3SBE-r08_

https://youtu.be/LZwtNO7plhc?si=xuzj-FF1q_pw9plf

Gene

[Bernie9]

The best harmonica I have ever heard, and so young.

[Age]

Yeah, the kids are definitely good, but I suddenly realized I have a weird problem with it. I know it's good to read music, but these kids never take their eyes off the chart. I can't help but wonder how much better these kids would be if they weren't "chained" to that silly chart. Believe me , I'm not trying to brag here, but I was playing that number, probably as well, when I was eleven, and never read a note. A performance ceases to be a performance when the players are doubling as "player pianos."  Maybe it's just me, but that's where I land on the subject.

[Lockjaw Larry]

Wow, don’t tell me it takes ten thousand hours of practice to get good!  We need harmonica music study in grade schools in US.

[Gary Richardson]

Fantastic, impressive, heart warming and what a laugh at the end.

[brorat]

I like to think I’m a person who appreciates many types of music. I don’t like all of any genre, but I like SOME of all genres.
Having said that, I think hearing some music played AS IT WAS WRITTEN is a treat. No one, except maybe the composer, can play a piece exactly as the composer had in his/her head. There are lots of notations on sheet music to guide the player in the way the composer envisioned the piece. Even so, it takes a heck of a talent to simply play the right notes with dynamic nuances close to what was intended by the writer.
These young kids have (had?) plenty of time to develop their style of play. However, being able to read the score and play the correct notes as they were written requires much talent, and these kids are off to a great start.
Not all music is meant to be improvised. Sometimes reading and following the score is the way to go. Sometimes we owe it to the composer to play what they wrote…note for note!

[Age]

Sure, but back then, I didn't even know the meaning of "improvazashun;" I just played it the way I heard it on the radio. So I guess if they played it rong, so did I.

[Lockjaw Larry]

My first forty years or so of playing music I attempted to play note for note but eventually got tired of that and commenced varying my playing.  Still do both but I’m not as boring nowadays.  At least to me.  Now I “make” music instead of just playing music.  To each his/her own. 

[Gene Oh]

I think kids are talented enough to learn quickly, not like me who is quite old.
For a test, I gave my 7-year-old grandson one of my Easttop Forerunners and taught him how to play it for about half an hour a day over 3 weeks.
He didn't know anything about harmonica, except that his granddad was crazy about it.

And the result is:


Gene

[Age]

Wow! That's impressive!
Please Keep encouraging him.

Age

[Grizzly]

The cream always rises to the top. When we hear a child prodigy, we tend to forget that they're highly rare.

Playing from musical notation or not doesn't make a person better musically. Many soloists play from memory, but they learned the piece from music notation. Most orchestras don't play by ear; the results would be cacophonous. Musical scores are blueprints of a sort. They've allowed these youngsters to progress much more rapidly and more accurately than playing by ear. Even the best reader relies on memory in order to play well. This goes way beyond being a paper-trained note-pusher. I'd rather hear a musical interpretation from a score than a hack playing by ear wrong notes and rhythms because s/he "feels" the music. Do non-readers make good music? Of course they do. But that approach is not superior to any other method.

Tom

[Age]

Again, I'm sure it's best to use both. Where I tend to step on my own feet is when I hafta admit that learning to "read" is probably ten times harder after one's become a more or less proficient ear player, cuz an ear player already knows where the next note is on a familiar piece, and since most ear players tend to "learn" the notes after hearing it once, he /she already knows the verse, chorus, whatever after hearing it once, and the chart becomes a distraction rather than a help.

[Grizzly]

Again, I'm sure it's best to use both. Where I tend to step on my own feet is when I hafta admit that learning to "read" is probably ten times harder after one's become a more or less proficient ear player, cuz an ear player already knows where the next note is on a familiar piece, and since most ear players tend to "learn" the notes after hearing it once, he /she already knows the verse, chorus, whatever after hearing it once, and the chart becomes a distraction rather than a help.

You're right. Surprised? (mostly right)

Being a reader makes me lazy. i don't have to memorize,'cause it's all right there in front of me. I've always envied admired ear players their ability to absorb music nearly instantly.

~however~

There is a difference between knowing what the notes on the page mean, and sight-reading fluently with few mistakes on the first try. The same with listening to a recording multiple times, and still having to guess what the notes are, and hearing a recording once and duplicating it flawlessly on the first try.

It's a matter of degree, and of cracking the code. Which is why most kids don't pursue music as a career, or even as a continuing hobby. Without the passion, other things become more important. Cars. Painting. Dating. Math. Sports. College studies. Military.

With music, as with anything else, there is more than one way to (pardon the image) skin the cat.

Adult learners have other challenges. Essentially, a brain crammed with a whole lot more stuff than a 10 year old's. And unrealistic expectations that being smarter than they were as a kid that they'll learn more easily. "Patience, grasshopper."

Tom