Derek Paravicini: Blind, Autistic, Complete Savant

This guy is amazing.

Blind and severely disabled, austistic, unable to communicate with the outside world, Derek Paravicini (Camille Parker Bowles nephew) is not just a fgreat pianist. He is a great pianist with perfect pitch (he can recognize all ten notes in a chord, Maestro's can recognize five).

Impressive right? How about this. He is known as the human Ipod because he can hear a song once and play it immediately. I watched him on ABC News the other day, they played "Crazy In Love" on an Ipod and he played it immediately.

How does he do it?

Nobody knows because Derek has limited ability to communicate. Born 14 days premature, he was a surprise he lived at all (his twin sister died at birth). According to an article in the Daily Mail, he is an echolaliac, he will repeat wback your question in the form of a statement. he can't read music because he can't read, he can't even read Braille. (the daily Mail article has much more info, here's the link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191163/Derek-Paravicini-blind-severely-disabled-master-song-hearing–What-secret.html )

It is as if he is so deeply involved in the piano that his entire revolves around it. In a sense he is like the Who's Tommy: all the things that we consider normal doesn't exist, all that exist is the piano and his ability, some place in his brain, where it slots in and is his life.

I have more to say about this but I haven't thought them through yet, I think I'll return to what Derek's ability means about music at a later date