Woodjin...

[MarkBNJ]

If I remember right, you teach guitar? Do you think the following video is real and represents an actual performance? I'm thinking it does, and I'm not sure whether to be amazed or saddened or both. Well, actually, I can't help the amazed part, so the deliberation is whether to be saddened. I mean, these kids look like they're eight at most. How much of their lives must they have spent to attain that level of proficiency? The video has a... dare I say it? slightly creepy feel, but at the same time I can't help tapping my feet and nodding along with them. I may never pick up my Martin again.

http://www.wimp.com/playingguitar/

 

[woodjin]

It looks legitimate, Mark. The notes they appear to be playing are the ones you are hearing. I agree it is a little, alright, a lot creepy. One thing to keep in mind...just because they are playing at this level at such a young age does not necessarily mean they will be virtuosos by adulthood.

Jeff

 

[MarkBNJ]

If anything I would think they'd stop playing as soon as the Dear Leader releases their relatives from cultural education camp.

Nah, seriously, they look like they're enjoying themselves, but I can't imagine how much of their 7 or 8 years on the planet has been devoted to learning to play like that so that Best Korea can demonstrate to the world how awesome they are.

 

[manumuskin]

This is what children are capable of when they don't have a DS or an X-Box to sidetrack them.
I could recite all the presidents of the USA and all the states alphabetically and their capitals when i was seven but this is a fra greater accomplismnet then that.I have a seven year old granddaughter who reads at a fifth grade level.The secret is she loves to read and I did too and I loved history and geography,still do.I doubt these kids could be that good if they didn't like what they were doing.On the other hand I always hated grammar and punctuation and never took typing and i know it shows in my posts.On the other hand I was a spelling champ so if something is mispelled it's probably a typo
Al

 

[MarkBNJ]

I guess that's one way to look at it, Al. Another is: that's what kids are capable of when they are driven and whipped like a mule team toward a single goal. I guess it's possible that these kids all just spontaneously turned into guitar prodigies at the age of six or eight because they really like it, but I don't think so. I don't think any kid, or very damn few, becomes a prodigy at that age voluntarily. They have to be coerced into it by parents, or in this case a despotic state.

Reading well, knowing your presidents, I think that stuff very properly falls into the category you are alluding to: stuff that kids would be better off abandoning their iPods for. No question. But you're also correct to note the difference in scale. To play guitar like that requires hundreds and hundreds of hours of mechanical practice. At least two to four hours a day, every day, probably since they were old enough to hold the instruments.