It sucks when a child prodigy becomes a reality TV star

Avideo of a 13-year-old prodigy playing piano on an American reality TV show was recently uploaded, and it caught my interest because last May I began piano lessons despite being well into middle age. Lydian Nadhaswaram of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, wowed the reality show audience and celebrity judges with his rendition of The Flight of the Bumble Bee from Nikolai Rimsky-Korasov’s 1899 opera, The Tale of the

Tsar Sultan. However, he did not just play the short piece that musically emulates the frantic buzzing around of a bee; he played it a second time at two beats per note, and then a third time at four beats a note. His rapid fingers held my interest because recently I’ve been trying to go up and down the C major scale at four beats a note. (I find it difficult.) He also, on another round of the show, played a short 18th century piece

Turkish March by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — blindfolded. It was followed by loud applause.

Lydian’s father is a composer-musician in the Tamil film industry who obviously nurtured in his son a love for music since the age of two, when Lydian started learning the drums. By now he plays eight instruments, including the bass guitar, the tabla, the mridangam, and the flute. The father is an accomplished flautist, as is the prodigy’s elder sister. The mom appears to, unsurprisingly, manage the rest of the family and also home-school her son, who puts in, by his own admission to an American TV news interviewer, five to six hours a day practicing the piano. Lydian, who has his own YouTube channel, is guided by teachers at the academy that famous film composer AR Rahman set up in Chennai.

Incidentally, Lydian in his videos never fails to mention the awards he’s picked up such as international child pianist of the year, etc. I did not know there were such awards until now. Presumably his parents are entering him for superlative awards, and are arranging TV interviews, and showing him off at reality TV shows in America. Such shows merit a whole column but perhaps another time. All that need be noted now is that Lydian comes across as a performing monkey, while in one video his father is seen with tears in his eyes.

It is a truism that children are quick at picking up technique when it comes to musical instruments. The most famous prodigy was Mozart who composed concertos when he was five. Recently I was asked by my teacher to perform at my music school’s recital, where I was one of 16 students — the rest were children, the youngest was four and a half years old. The kids played very well, and seemed nonplussed about the parents or their own minor slip-ups.

Lydian’s playing, however, leaves me cold. It’s not because I’m so behind but because his playing is mechanical, emphasising technical mastery. On YouTube you can find a lot of masterful young pianists who have been performing before serious audiences since they were 13, and I find that many of them are from Korea and Japan. Lydian is also Asian but what sets them apart is the beautiful emotion that they somehow convey in their performances of entire piano concertos that last 30, 40 or even 60 minutes. There is no emotion in Lydian’s one-minute burst of playing; indeed, it seems that he drains the music of its default emotion.

Lydian’s playing reminds me of those Indian parents who uni-dimensionally drive their children into the Guinness Book of World Records. Where’s the fun in that? Obviously, the prodigies from other parts of the world are taught with a different approach, perhaps a more holistic one, in which technical mastery is just a part of appreciating the entire landscape that music comprises. Perhaps when Lydian grows up and experiences life he will accumulate enough to give his playing some meaning. Or perhaps his family doesn’t care; perhaps they don’t want him to play long pieces by Debussy or by Chopin, they just want him to become like Rahman, an accomplished musician and composer in his own right in India (though Tamil purists would not rate him above Ilayaraja).

For now, however, as he gradually builds into an internet sensation what would be good is if he was to inspire a generation of children to begin learning piano, or any musical instrument for that matter. In these perilous, polarised times (that I would characterise as B-flat minor), we need more music and beauty and joy in our lives. Encore, Lydian!

Lydian’s playing reminds me of those Indian parents who uni-dimensionally drive their children into the Guinness Book of World Records.