Child Prodigies that Link Math and Music

Child prodigies have been a phenomenon for ages and are now at the point where they are being overexposed by the media as something of a spectacular nature. A child prodigy is usually defined as a person who has the natural ability to master one or more skills by performing at the same competency of an adult (usually by a very early age, often before the age of 13). Over the centuries, an astounding number of children possessing a high IQ have been found to have a strong aptitude in both mathematics and music. Tuft University's Child Development Professor and author Dr. David Henry Feldman has researched child prodigies and documented how it is much more likely that a child could excel in areas such as math and music because of those fields' highly structured and established rules. It would be more difficult for a child to excel in areas that require a substantial amount of experience and abstract thinking in areas such as writing and philosophy.

In the recent news concerning child prodigies, we learn that Alia Sabur has accepted a professorship at Seoul's Konkuk University at the ripe old age of nineteen. Ms. Sabur has set the Guinness Book of World Records for being the youngest person to read (at the age of 8 months) and for being the youngest female to earn a mathematics degree (at the age of fourteen). What sparked my own interest in this young woman who is highly gifted in mathematics is her ability to play the clarinet and her passion for jazz-fusion. Since her solo debut with the Mozart's Clarinet Concerto at eleven years old, she has been performing with orchestras and established musicians such as world-renowned pianist Lang Lang and the alternative rock band Smash Mouth. She studied music at Juilliard and has also won several awards for her musical talent - including the prestigious Yamaha Young Performing Artist in 2005, being the youngest ever to win.

When we take a look at other child prodigies it appears that there could be a connection between being gifted in math and being gifted in music - both of which involve "feeling" numerical calculations. Right before his fifth birthday, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart stunned his parents by mastering his first piece of music in half an hour. He continued to master more and more difficult pieces then began composing his own musical arrangements. During his lifetime he composed over 600 classical music pieces, all of which set the formula by which today's standard music is measured. Mozart's ability to create those harmonies that are immediately found to be pleasing to the ear along with being easy to process and enjoy, takes an innate mathematical ability. This ability enabled Mozart to be able to quickly calculate the distances (intervals) between the notes in any given musical scales.

Michael Anthony Viscardi is another mathematical child prodigy who is currently attending Harvard University on numerous scholarships. Before he was 18, Viscardi won two prestigious fellowships for describing the manner in which the flow of heat travels across metallic substances and how those changes in temperature can affect the metal's surface. His discovery updated a law by mathematician Lejeune Dirichlet. In addition, Viscardi plays the piano and has landed the highly coveted position of first violin in the San Diego Youth Symphony String Quartet. He was also concertmaster of the San Diego Youth Symphony and the San Diego Symphony Philharmonic.

During an interview with ABC, Viscardi said about his playing music "They kind of give me balance. So when I do a lot of math and I'm doing less music, I start to feel a little bit funny, and then I go and practice one of my instruments and I realize that's why I felt strange. I really need a combination of both in order to feel right."[1]

It is not uncommon for people who are innately gifted in mathematics to counterbalance that ability with music. From my own experience of both playing music and working in finance, I found that picking up my instrument helps to relieve the high levels of stress that come from crunching numbers. Composing music has also helped me to delve deeper behind the intricate connections between numbers and the various patterns, odds, and probabilities that they can create. It was suggested long ago that I myself might have had the potential to become a prodigy as I started reading, writing and speaking two languages at the age of 2. Unfortunately, as the "love child" of two people who hate each other, this didn't help set up the best possible environment to grow into a prodigy. Even though I entered college at the age of 15 and earned my first degree at the age of 19, it still wasn't enough to reap any of those rewards, benefits, or recognition usually reserved for being a child prodigy.

In a book based on her research of gifted children, psychology professor Ellen Winner writes about how the parents of precocious children play a vital role in their development. According to Ms. Winner it is the parents who are ultimately responsible for providing their children with the proper environment that is required for them to succeed with their gifts. Time Magazine author Alissa Quart stated in an article that having a high IQ doesn't necessarily mean that a child will become a prodigy as an IQ is only a measurement of the person's ability to reach his or her potential. In another Time Magazine article, educational specialist on gifted children Maria McCann stated that many gifted children don't necessarily register with having high IQs because they don't do well on standardized exams. Even if children test lower in standardized scores, the parents could still foster their ability to excel in other specific areas.

In another high-profile child prodigy case, French baby Jory Lemoine was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as being the youngest singer ever to have a #1 hit single. At only 4 years old, Jordy's song "Dur Dur D'être Bébé" (French title) or "It's Tough to Be a Baby" (English title) topped the music charts at #1 for 15 weeks. Selling over 2 million copies per week, the song became a smashing dance hit single in Europe, Brazil, Bolivia, Columbia and Japan until it reached #58 on the US pop charts.

In 1994 the French government banned Jordy from television and radio after rumors surged that his parents were exploiting him. The family opened a French children's tourist attraction named La Ferme de Jordy (Jordy's Farm) but it became a financial disaster. The parents divorced and Jordy became emancipated from them. As a teenager Jordy won a French reality TV show, "La Ferme Célébrités," and continues to plays guitar. He recently published a book about his tumultuous experience in show business titled "Je Ne Suis Plus Un Bébé" (French) or "I'm not a baby anymore" (English). He claims his father, music producer for the Rockets Claude Lemoine, spent his son's musical royalties. Now that Jordy is continuing with his schooling, there is still time for him to excel in other areas besides music (such as math).

On the other hand, there are children who have not demonstrated any mathematical or musical proficiency whatsoever but are still considered child prodigies and as being gifted solely by their own parents' specialized devotion. The most famous case for an example would be Britney Spears, who at the age of five was singing and dancing to the point where her family put their own lives on hold to take her to musical auditions in New York City. She landed a number of small-time gigs until signing on with Disney's "Mickey Mouse Show," and with the support and encouragement of her mother, grew up to be a multi-platinum international pop star.

In all, I think that it is more important for people to love their children for who they are. All humans are born with the natural ability to do something. As far as parents go, I feel the best thing to do is simply encourage their children to grow competent with the gifts that they already have and allow them to grow in their own time while the child is still developing the consciousness of their own mind. It's much better to nurture children's talents slowly-yet-surely rather than to capitalize on them prematurely. With mass media's crazed obsession over this and dancing babies and child multi-millionaires, it seems once again that this society is fond of living vicariously.

News Sources:

ABC News Online. Bob Woodruff. Person of the Week: Michael Viscardi 16-Year-Old Updates 19th Century Mathematical Law. World News Tonight. April 25, 2008. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/PersonOfWeek/story?id=1391089

Child Prodigies: A Distinctive Form of Giftedness. David Henry Feldman. National Association for Gifted Children, Gifted Child Quarterly Fall 1993 Vol. 37, No. 4, pp. 188-193. April 25, 2008. http://www.geniusdenied.com/articles/Record.aspx?NavID=13_13&rid=11426

The Star Online. S.S. YOGA. Child prodigy: Two sides of genius. April 25, 2008. http://thestar.com.my/lifestyle/story.asp?file=/2008/4/14/lifefocus/20902655&sec=lifefocus

[1] ABC News Online. Bob Woodruff. Person of the Week: Michael Viscardi 16-Year-Old Updates 19th Century Mathematical Law. World News Tonight. April 25, 2008. http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/PersonOfWeek/story?id=1391089