Friday, July 18, 2008

Jennifer Lin: Piano Improvisation

Today, I watched an episode of Oprah on kid geniuses. It was very amusing and pretty neat. Anyway, there was one thing that stuck with me though: there was a music prodigy and boy was she good! I've taken some piano lessons but it was on-and-off, and though I liked it, it didn't stick. I do like thinking about it from time to time and once in a while, I'll sit down and play something just to see if I remember how (I do, just in case you're wondering - just a little out of practice), but that section of the episode made me want to play again.

Of course, I would be nowhere as good as her, but it's of some consolation. :) I admit that when my sister and I first spied her on the TV, we both thought of how stereotypical it was that she was Asian. I know this because my sister voiced it out loud the same time I thought it. I thought it would just be some girl particularly talented with the piano and that she could just play well because she had lessons since she was 4 (she was 16 when the show was shot). Well, first, she played some incredibly fast (and complex) song of the classical genre, which fit in with how I thought it would be. Then we were informed she composed her music and she could do some improvisation with only 5 randomly selected notes. She ended up drawing out F, E, G, B, and C.

When she finally got to the song - it was BEAUTIFUL. :) I will remember it for a while longer. It would LOVE to have a copy of it for myself... but oh well.

You can find the YouTube Video of it here.

Oh - I forgot to mention that it was a RERUN and debuted in 2006.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

this is going to be kind of a random question, but did you ever find how to get a hold of what she played that day? I am completely in love with that song and want to walk down the isle to it when I get married in September. I've emailed the Oprah show and got no reply. I've even thought about having someone listen and try to write the music to it. Please let me know if you find it!!! Please email me at onfire2004k@aol.com