Are There Prodigies in Pop Music?

Has technology changed the way we assess and define what a prodigy is? This is a fascinating question to ponder. Historically, child prodigies usually surfaced in two primary disciplines. Those disciplines were mathematics and music. Technology has not changed mathematical genius much. A math genius is still pretty much a math genius. The same cannot be said of music. Technology has changed music greatly. Prodigies playing classical instruments such as the piano and violin are still pretty self-evident, but what about non-classical music, which today is most music. Is a person who excels at making music with computers and synthesizers still a prodigy? To answer this intriguing question, this writer consulted several classical music aficionados, but also prestigious professors at music productions schools.

The classical music experts, as was somewhat expected, took a dim view of most modern pop and non-classical music. One sarcastically said that rapper Eminem be enshrined as a prodigy alongside Mozart. When we asked another to name a rap prodigy, they said that rap wasn't music and that few rappers were true musicians.

Faculty at music productions schools had a more favorable view of modern music, which was also unsurprising. These individuals said that synthesizers and computers were instruments just as much as a piano or cello. Classical music professors were disdainful of this notion. They argued that the violin, cello, piano and other instruments are less transient, and not mere fads as computer and synthesizer music may prove to be. Some expressed the view that in a few centuries pop music may have vanished, while violins and cellos will have endured.

One staunch critic of the notion of rap "music" had us try to envision some concert in 400 years at which Eminem is played. The wealthiest and most educated members of the societal elite will assemble, and the greatest musicians of the age will play Eminem's guttural beats with violins, cellos, oboes, and flutes. One of the civilizations greatest singers will clear there throat and then sing, Two trailer park girls go round the outside, round the outside. . .

Upper crusty audience members will offer demure claps. Bravo, sir. Bravo indeed. Bloody well done, chap. During an intermission, before the audience reassembles to hear the 100 piece orchestra perform "Fuck the Police" by a famed ancient group of prodigies called "Niggers with Attitudes," academics in the audience will be questioned. What did the renowned musical prodigy Eminem mean when he sang of two trailer park girls going round the outside? Was he also a mathematician pondering pi, resonance, and the nature of galaxies? It will be admitted by more honest academics that extant historical records provide no conclusive answer to what the genius Eminem might have meant.

What sort of brutish, decadent, perverted civilization would find such guttural music, and such vulgar lyrics to be entertaining? The scholar in the audience will doubtless explain that all late-stage empires on the verge of collapse experience at time of moral decay. Romans ate and vomited and had orgies, Americans gorged on fast food and stapled stomachs and ate fast food and came to consider the basest and most openly crude and guttural "music" entertaining.

That's the insight offered by experts at universities and music productions schools. Take it for what it's worth. In the final analysis, only time can provide conclusive answers.