Opher Brayer’s Blog

So when do we notice that “this child is talented”? Not before the age of 2 or 3. A  child that at the age of 2 displays curiosity, awareness, good communications with the environment and ability to mimic ,will capture  our heart  in a minute.

“Yotam”, age 4, plays the piano for his enjoyment. The tune is unknown but it is obvious that it has structure and that the child remembers it. Exited, we go up to Yotam, pet him on the back and tell him: “you are a talented child!”.
To ourselves we say: “this child was born talented… more proof that all piano lessons in the world are wasted on those who were not born talented”.

Rubbish! What would you say if I were to prove to you that real talent is not magic, but method?
The only people who can proclaim that “talent is inborn” are geneticians who will affect genetic mapping to the infant that was just born. Do you know of any such examination? Imagine the baby was just born, the mother lies exhausted and overjoyed in her hospital bed, whilst the child is sent for genetic testing to find out whether he is: “talented”.
Luckily we know not of such an examination.

Let’s suppose that we got to know Yotam when he was 3 years old. How many days has such a child lived already? 1095. How many hours? 26280…and how many minutes? 1,576,800!

Let’s suppose that he has had an experience what so ever every minute, whether he was dreaming or awake. Will such a million and a half experiences part positive, part negative, part traumatic and part pleasurable not form his personality?

What do children do when they are young? They play! Often we find them playing at building “patterns”. They are interested in puzzles, Lego, or in arranging their toys. Sometimes the arrangement of toys affected by the child will seem like a complete “mess” to our grown up eyes.

If our Yotam received three different parts of a Lego puzzle at the age of 3 and arranged them in several fashions: once the first part was first, the next time it was second, another time it was third and so on. There might be a chance that he has recognized a “pattern” that repeats itself.  When he put a triangular piece on top of a square piece and a cylinder beside them there is a possibility that he thought to himself “this is like” a house with a tree. When he put together 4 square pieces and put two circular pieces underneath and a triangular one on top, there is a chance that he was thinking to himself: “this is like” a train.

Yotam didn’t understand this but what he was doing was “conversion”.
The cubes can be either a “train” or a “house”. Tomorrow he might see the Azrieli towers in Tel Aviv and when he returns home he will “build” the tower out of the Lego cubes. The day after tomorrow he will visit a kibbutz and see chickens in the chickens coop , when he returns home excited, he will try and build a chicken coop out of his Lego cubes.

At a certain stage Yotam will understand that there is a limited amount of combinations to the Lego cubes. Being of an inquisitive nature, he notices that 3 Lego cubes have a possibility of only 6 combinations.

He does not know how he effected this calculation; he can only “feel” it. After an unlimited number of minutes of training (playing) with the Lego cubes, he realizes that he has already used all possible combinations with those cubes. He knows which pieces he has, and what each combination reminds him of. Suppose we call each separate combination of cubes: “pattern”, then usually and unintentionally the child will try to join “patterns”.
He will join one known “pattern” to another known “pattern” and produce a new combination. This action is called: “composition”.
Imagine that “Yotam” goes on a trip to Europe with his parents. He sees trains running in villages, tall towers, different houses, water canals, and sea and airports. He already knows he can “build” towers and trains. “Can I build this too?” he will think, looking at the canals, houses and castles.
Meanwhile our Yotam grows up. He notices that if 3 Lego parts can only be combined in 6 different combinations, so are 3 toys , and 3 tunes on his toy Xylophone.
Whilst visiting his aunt in the village, he sat down at the piano in the living room presses down on the piano keys and plays 3 notes in the same order he learned whilst playing with his Lego cubes. A silent dropes on the grown-ups sitting in the room, Yotam is producing short tunes at the age of 4 and is able to repeat it them time after time with no mistakes.
The child is playing as if he were a born composer.
The child looks excited. There is no doubt that the grown-ups in the room are excited as well. They go up to the child pet him on his  back and say : “you are a talented child!”. Between themselves they say: “this child was born talented. Once again it has been proven that all the piano lessons in the world are wasted on someone who is not born with it”.