Is this the real life?

March 12, 2019 9:08 PM

6 year old Avett Ray is a near-blind musician and singer. Here he covers Bohemian Rhapsody
posted by growabrain (10 comments total)

So sweet! I look forward to seeing this little guy grow. Poor kid is sitting so low in order for his feet to reach the pedals so no wonder he's struggling with all the arm cross overs (it's not just because of low vision). That's one of the reasons we so often see child pianists playing Bach because they need music that doesn't require pedaling!
posted by acidnova at 9:24 PM on March 12, 2019 [3 favorites]

This is excellent!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:30 PM on March 12, 2019 [1 favorite]

astounding. Is this the kind of thing where he's uncannily good for a six-year-old at memorizing and playing the sheet music, or the kind of thing where he's uncannily good for a human at knowing what are the right chords based on the recording?
posted by Jon_Evil at 10:07 PM on March 12, 2019

I don’t suppose he can use sheet music, can he?
posted by Segundus at 1:48 AM on March 13, 2019

The beautiful thing about a piano, is once you know your piano, the keys are evenly spaced; you can transpose and remap your notes an octave up or an octave down very quickly. The beautiful thing about piano chords is that they are not mapped adjacently. Meaning that if I go for the B flat 6th on the start, and I've used the black key positions to find that chord (watch - that's one of the reasons he bumps his hands up and into the black keys), if I've missed that chord by whole stepping one key down for one note, more than likely I haven't whole stepped down the entire chord - and the upper notes are only moving a half step - meaning, I get instant feedback to tell me 'wrong chord, wrong position'
posted by Nanukthedog at 2:46 AM on March 13, 2019 [1 favorite]

A girl next door to me is also blind, and she plays the piano so good. I hope this talent will make these kids happier.
posted by GoEdit at 3:04 AM on March 13, 2019

Like he's caught fire: there's a kid in my children's school like this. He's a regular, dopey 13 year old kid but put him in front of a piano and he's a freaking hard charging band leader - like, everyone sits! up! and listens! Like with this kid - he just has it, I hope it brings him joy. I hope he's brought up to enjoy it as much as we do.
posted by From Bklyn at 4:00 AM on March 13, 2019

Is this the kind of thing where he's uncannily good for a six-year-old at memorizing and playing the sheet music, or the kind of thing where he's uncannily good for a human at knowing what are the right chords based on the recording?

I'm going to guess that it is the latter, since he is near-blind and is taking liberties with the melody that none the less make harmonic sense. I mean, his pitch alone indicates that he's got a fantastic ear.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:04 AM on March 13, 2019 [2 favorites]

It seems like he figured the whole thing out on the piano by himself, just so he could have someone accompany him while he sung his brains out.
posted by grog at 7:04 AM on March 13, 2019

Braille and large print sheet music exist but I suspect this kid learned it by ear. It also sounds like he might be referencing Marc Martel’s piano/vocal cover rather than creating a piano version himself from the original song.
posted by acidnova at 11:47 AM on March 13, 2019 [1 favorite]