The biggest mistake in piano pedagogy in the last two hundred years was the assumption that talent is inborn. This meant that talent couldn't be taught. Now we know that proper practice methods can make practically anybody into a "talented" pianist! I saw this all the time at the hundreds of student recitals and piano competitions that I had witnessed. The statement "you won't succeed without talent" means that the speaker does not know how to teach. Fortunately, there has been a growing realization that genius can be
taught (Olson).
Knowledge is an amazing thing. We are the same humans we were thousands of years ago yet, today, we build skyscrapers and use the internet because we have new knowledge. Knowledge can replace, or be more important than, raw brain power. To see this, suppose we take an average 5th grader today and time- port him back to Egypt 8,000 years ago and that he had written down everything he knows about math. He would have been recorded in history as the greatest mathematical genius that ever lived! Therefore we can create geniuses by teaching genius capabilities. Here are some of the processes that can create geniuses:
famous geniuses were created by their parents who were already musicians, sports figures, performers, etc., and knew how to teach their very young children. The most extreme example of this success is Jesus, who became god in the eyes of many because his mother claimed an immaculate conception to protect herself and her baby at a time when women who became pregnant before marriage were often stoned to death. Thus Jesus's training to be god started before his birth and, in terms of "professional training", very much paralleled that of Mozart and other famous musicians, as well as Tiger Woods in golf, the Williams sisters in tennis, and Michael Jackson in entertainment. It can't be just a coincidence that almost all musical geniuses had parents who were musicians. Teachers are not as successful as parents because parents have access to their children 24/7, from before they are born.
(2) Another factor is the unbelievable difference in learning speed between the "right" and "wrong" approaches, which makes students with the "right" approaches appear to be far more "talented". Specifically, babies should be exposed to music from birth in such a way that they acquire Absolute Pitch [(17) Absolute Pitch, Relative Pitch] automatically, effortlessly. They should be tested for AP as soon as possible and trained to improve their AP as youngsters. Other important elements to teach for piano are the practice methods, which include: Mental Play [(15) Mental Play (MP)], memorization, piano technique, music listening, etc., as outlined in this book. MP picked up as an infant is possibly just as potent as absolute pitch picked up at the same age, something that becomes impossible after the teen years. A toddler can pick up absolute pitch without even trying, and that absolute pitch can be so accurate that no amount of training will come close to it if we tried to learn absolute pitch in later years. Imagine what a similar process in MP might do to a young mind! This early training may be particularly important for cultivating the ability to compose. Thus playing
by ear [(18) Playing by Ear (PBE), Composing] must be encouraged at this stage.
(3) One way of measuring genius is the IQ (Intelligence Quotient). There are three types IQ that can be raised by learning piano:
(i) The intrinsic IQ -- how good your brain is. This is the most difficult IQ to raise, but performing musical feats will exercise the brain in such a way that it works better, just as exercising will strengthen the muscles and nurture the nervous system. One of the objectives of learning piano is to increase the mental speed and stamina, and to train the brain to work all the time without requiring periods of rest. This will increase blood flow to the brain and increase the blood supply. Babies are routinely tested for hearing immediately after birth because deafness will retard brain development; thus additional music training will accelerate the development, especially because auditory inputs affect practically every part of the brain.
(ii) The effective IQ -- how well you use your brain. A person who uses the brain more effectively will appear smarter. This difference is obvious for piano because pianists can do things on the piano that non- pianists can absolutely not do. Thus it is easy for pianists to raise their effective IQ to much higher levels than their intrinsic IQ, at least, at the piano.
(iii) Perceived IQ -- how others judge your IQ. Mozart, Beethoven, etc., have some of the highest perceived IQs. A unique feature of the perceived IQ is that it can be raised far above even the effective IQ. The intrinsic and effective IQs are real -- it is possible to measure them. Perceived IQ is purely "in the eyes of the beholder"; it can be raised to any level by using methods or tricks just as magicians do, to perform
"miracles". What may surprise some is that all accomplished musicians do this routinely. Musicians are magicians with their own bag of tricks. Using music as an algorithm to memorize 5 hours of repertoire is such a trick. Mozart used mental play to read sentences backwards. Learning Absolute Pitch is another. Perceived IQ has no upper limit; religious icons have raised theirs so high that they are perceived to have supernatural powers or even as gods. Every pianist should be aware of these different IQs and cultivate them — it is part of being a musician.
(4) A genius is a person who has genius skills. Let's take Mozart as an example and see what these "genius skills" are, and which ones can be taught.
(i) Mozart had absolute pitch (AP). We now know that infants can learn AP effortlessly, and even adults can learn it, but requires more effort. This genius skill can be taught.
(ii) He could memorize practically any amount of music, even hearing it only once. We have
developed, and understand, memory methods. If a person has AP, knows memory methods, composes music (knows music theory), and has mental play abilities, this type of memory capability is certainly achievable. Our daughter attended one piano competition in which one of her best friends was competing; she paid special attention because it was her good friend. She had never heard this piece before, but the next day, she played the entire piece for her teacher, and got most of the notes right (but not the fingerings). Therefore,
this capability can be taught; Mozart is certainly not the only one.
(iii) He could compose an entire composition in his head and write it down, backwards and forwards, from anywhere, even one hand at a time. This is just a case of a highly developed mental play. It was
especially easy for Mozart because he used a fixed formula [(67) Mozart's Formula, Beethoven and Group Theory] for practically all of his compositions. Mental play is definitely teachable, especially because we all do it everyday [(15) Mental Play (MP)].
(iv) He could speak sentences backwards. This is also mental play; all he did was to write the sentence on an imaginary blackboard and read it backwards, so it is easily teachable.
(v) He had technique; he could play anything. We have shown that there are practice methods that can solve technical problems, and many pianists will agree that there are probably many pianists today whose technical abilities are better than Mozart's. Therefore, this is eminently teachable.
(vi) He composed glorious music. This is the only controversial item because it all depends on the definition of "glorious". Certainly, there have been enough composers since Mozart's time so that the ability to compose is not unique to him. In addition, we expect every composer to be different so that it doesn't make sense to compare composers. Therefore, as long as a person composes, this item should also be in the teachable category.
(5) It is quite probable that Mozart did not become a musician because he was a genius, but he became a genius with a extremely high perceived IQ because of his music training. The ability to compose is a natural consequence of having the genius skills and is therefore not mysterious, even for Mozart.
Music has a powerful effect on the functioning of the brain and its motor control. This is one of the reasons why we usually use music when dancing or exercising. The best evidence for this comes from
Alzheimer's patients who have lost their ability to dress themselves because they cannot recognize each
different type of clothing. It was discovered that when this procedure is set to the proper music, these patients can often dress themselves! "Proper music" is music that they heard in early youth or their favorite music. Thus mentally handicapped people who are clumsy when performing daily chores can suddenly sit down and play the piano if the music is the right type that stimulates their brains. Therefore, they may not be musically talented; instead, it may be the music that is giving them new capabilities. Another evidence comes from patients with syndromes that prevents them from communicating with other humans; however, given a computer, they can suddenly communicate because computer communications are always exactly identical whereas human speech is not. To them things that are not identical are totally different, which makes it difficult to communicate with other humans. Therefore, auditory inputs can give the brain capabilities that it does not normally have. If music can produce such profound effects on the handicapped, imagine what it could do to the brain of a budding genius, especially during the brain's early development in childhood.
Conclusion: Creating geniuses is the process of teaching genius skills at the approriate time, which
is "as young as possible", before age four. Genius skills are identified by the skills that all known geniuses have. They are: mental play, absolute pitch, play by ear, and efficient practice methods. These skills in turn enable secondary genius skills such as great memory, technique, sight reading, and composing/improvising. What is so amazing is that the four genius skills can all be taught, yet were seldom taught because of the wrong belief that they were inborn talents. Why did such wrong beliefs persist for two hundred years? (1) Because teachers did not know how to teach genius skills. (2) Because geniuses had to be taught at a young age by parents before they started lessons, and therefore it appeared to the teachers as if those skills were inborn. Even the ability to compose naturally follows from having mental play, absolute pitch, and play by ear. There is no known process for geniuses to be created biologically at birth but we know how they can be created by teaching.