The Musical Genius - Channel 5's Extraordinary People

[Gareth]

Did anyone else watch this last night on Channel 5?

Link: http://www.five.tv/programmes/extrao...musicalgenius/

Originally Posted by Channel 5

26-year-old Derek Paraviccini is completely blind and partly autistic; he can’t tell left from right or count to ten. Derek now lives in a RNIB home for the blind but despite his profound disabilities, his brain is a perfectly programmed musical computer.

I thought it was astounding - his ability to play any tune perfectly after only hearing it once is amazing, even more so considering the guy is blind and has severe learning difficulties and the mental age of a toddler.

The only down side to the show was the feeling that the young American kid with similar disabilities and musical skills to Derek was being exploited. Whilst Derek seems to revel in playing his music to an audience, I didn't feel the same way about the young child... although maybe that will change as he grows older.

There's more info about Derek on his website: http://www.derekparavicini.net/

Not sure if the show will be repeated again, it's definitely worth watching if it is and you missed it the first time around.

[Stuart]

An excellent show.. The scary thing is that Five used to be considered the low end, now it's shows are frequently better than ITV's..

[skyblueheroes]

Read about it, but didn't catch it. How good was he ?

The human mind is an amazing thing.

[Stuart]

Put it this way, he is one of the few people in the country who can be considered pitch perfect. He can also accurately reproduce music after having heard it once (and quite complex pieces as well). He cannot read music, as he is blind.

Oh, and in one test, his mentor played a series of chords on the Piano. The chords went from using three fingers all the way up to using ten. He reproduced every one accurately.

[Gareth]

Yeah, let's just say that they had a scene where he performed a duet with Jools Holland, and he put Jules to shame

I also liked the way that he could reproduce the complicated chords performed by the orchestra, that you can't normally do on a piano so he instead used arpeggio to play the individual notes when there were more than 10.

Stu, you're right about the quality of C5 shows being better than the other channels. I was thinking the same thing.

[AntiSilence]

When 'Five' was first launched as Channel 5, I watched it quite alot because they had loads of Comedy Store stuff on which was fantastic. I don't venture down to the standard 5 channels anymore though. I'm sick of all the soaps and reality TV.

[nffc]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Put it this way, he is one of the few people in the country who can be considered pitch perfect.

Few (I'm another)?

Though relative pitch can be learned, that's not an option with him. I have this programme taped on Sky+ - for viewing tomorrow no doubt!

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by nffc

Few (I'm another)?

Though relative pitch can be learned, that's not an option with him. I have this programme taped on Sky+ - for viewing tomorrow no doubt!

The programme said that, not me.

By pitch perfect, I meant that he can accurately work and possibly reproduce the pitch of any sound. As an example, on a train journey, he was naming the pitch that the engine of the train was running at.

[Halcyon]

Anyone know if this will get repeated ?

[nffc]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

By pitch perfect, I meant that he can accurately work and possibly reproduce the pitch of any sound. As an example, on a train journey, he was naming the pitch that the engine of the train was running at.

I know. (Even the slightest mistuning in recordings/concerts annoys me, like our piano was tuned back in the summer when it was scorching, now it's cooler it's slightly flatter... dead annoying)

[tv mad]

i dunno about the musician one, but the one whats coming up is heart breaking so sad, her parents of the little girl suffering with treacher collins syndrome, they are selfish