Gavriil (3 yrs. 10 mos.) plays Tchaikovsky

Gavriil tries Tchaikovsky's "At the Church" - "В церкви" Чайковского - Гаврилушка пробует разучивать

Gavriil investigates a basic building block of music

From YouTube:

Gavriil wearing father's t-shirt, comprehends the logic of the circle of fifth. At the end of the video Ivan is explaining for us (I actually didn't understand that) what this circle is and how it helps to detect the key signatures in different major keys.

This video Gavriil counts five steps (a fifth) up to reach the next tonal center and then he adds a new sharp at VII step.

Gavriil on the piano at 3 years and 3 months

Gavriil is picking up Beethoven's 'Fur Elise'

 

Gavriil is 2 years and 11 months.

Gavriil Scherbenko on May 1

Checking if fingers have grown enough - Проверяет, выросли ли уже пальчики

Гаврилушке сейчас 2 года и 7 месяце. Ему очень хочется играть всей ладошкой, а ручки маленькие. Но он все время проверят, подросли ли пальчики :)) 

 Gavriil is 2 years and 7 months. He wants to play with all hand, but it is too small. Anyway he is always checking if finger has grown enough :)

Theme and variations on root position

Um, err, "root position" is a technical term in musical analysis. It refers to a chord (another technical term) with the tonic (another technical term) voiced on the bottom of the voicing (another technical term). Gavriil is playing triads, though he is doubling the tonic on the top of the voicing as well as having it on the bottom, so the chord he is playing have four notes. He does other things, too, but mostly he's playing chords in root position, or trying to.

Keeping up with Gavriil [thumbs!]

A young composer considers his craft

There's definite order what young Gavriil does here. He starts with some not-quite-random plinking.

He (obviously) hears something and sets out to explore it at 0:37, where he plays a repeated note in the left hand, adds a note with the right (0:43), and then opens it up, adding more notes with both hands (0:48).
Pause.
Repeat the sequence (0:56), starting with a higher note.
Repeat (1:24), quickly.
Repeat (1:33), moving higher, with some variations thrown in (1:36).
Repeat (1:47), moving higher (notice how he shifts position on the bench, 1:49) – follow his eyes.
Repeat (2:03), notice how he lays into that first note (even dropping his right arm to the side), adding the right, filling it out, increasing the volume. The repetition slows, becomes more insistent...
Pause, both hands raised (2:37),
Repeat (2:38), really laying it on with the left, adding the right (2:43)
He's thinking (2:51), and now begins developing some new material.

That's the really significant thing, he introduces some new material after having worked through one basic idea seven times (by my count). I leave it as an exercise to the reader to attend to how he deals with this new material, which seems a bit more concerned with what the two hands are doing at the same time.

After a bit be pauses and thinks a bit at 3:35, and is figuring out whether or not he's done (3:45). Ah, not quite. Last note at about 4:00. But he keeps working his arms and hands without sounding notes, moving them back from the keyboard at 4:10, down to his lap (4:15), then back up. 4:24, hearing his mother (I assume), he's done, and moves away.

Is this how young Johan Sebastian and young Wolfgang got started?

Addendum: From a note to a friend:

Let me offer some observations about young Gavriil. At 2 years and 3 months he’s got problems with fine motor control which have to do with the immaturity of his nervous system. Differentiated control of his fingers is tough. I rewatched half the video, focusing on his fingers. He does most of the work with the first and index fingers of both hands. Ring and pinky are curled under and not used. I saw him use the right thumb twice. I can see how small hands make it difficult to use ring and pinky, but not thumb. This is mostly about motor control, not physical reach. For that matter, why not thumb and pinky to span a fourth, perhaps a fifth? Will he be using thumb and pinky alone anytime soon? That’ll be interesting to watch.

Now, what’s he hearing? You have no trouble those neo-soul chords. Your problem is controlling the hands and fingers to produce them. I’m guessing that young Gavriil is still learning to hear and to organize those sounds. Notice that he does avoid hitting two adjacent keys. He’s figured out that much. Has he gotten as far as a triad, which he could easily produce across two hands? I suspect not. If I had a graduate student who could notate everything he’s doing, which fingers and keys, etc. Better, sit him at an electronic keyboard that records every motion. He may well be playing triads in some inversion, but it’s probably hit or miss and he has no sense of harmonic progression. What he’s controlling seems to me to be rhythm speed and density, pitch density, movement up or down the keyboard, and volume. Which is quite a bit.