The Key to Genius

Wired Magazine ^ | Issue 11.12 - December 2003 | Steve Silberman

[mjp]

Autistic savants are born with miswired neurons - and extraordinary gifts. The breakthrough science behind our new understanding of the brain.

Matt Savage launched his jazz career by attempting to improve a Schubert sonata. His piano teacher told him that the G-sharp he just played was supposed to be a G-natural. "It sounds better my way," he protested. She replied that only when he wrote his own music could he take liberties with a score. Keen on taking liberties, he became a jazz composer. He released his fifth album this year, making guest appearances on the Today show, 20/20, and NPR. Recently, his trio booked two shows at the Blue Note in New York City.

Michael Elins Matt Savage is a jazz phenomenon. He’s also a perseverative hyperlexic with pervasive developmental disorder. In May, he will celebrate his 12th birthday.

Matt is a musical savant. The term savant dates from the late 19th century, when a small number of people in European asylums classified as feebleminded "idiots" were discovered to have extraordinary, even uncanny skills. One had memorized The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire after reading it a single time. Others were able to multiply long columns of numbers instantly and factor cube roots in seconds, though they could barely speak.

When Matt was 3, he was diagnosed with a form of autism called pervasive developmental disorder. Autism and savant syndrome overlap, but they are not the same thing. Nine out of ten autistic people have no savant abilities, and many savants suffer from some form of neurological impairment other than autism. Savant syndrome itself is rare. The rarest of the rare is the prodigious savant, like Rain Man's Raymond Babbitt, who could memorize phone books, count 246 toothpicks at a glance, and trump the house in Vegas. Darold Treffert, the leading researcher in the study of savant syndrome, estimates that Matt is one of fewer than 50 prodigious savants alive today.

But Matt is even rarer than that. While the IQs of most savants are below 70, he is highly intelligent. And while the musical prowess of savants is often confined to playing thousands of songs from memory in a stiff and mechanical way, Matt is a prolific composer and skilled improviser. With the precocious abilities of a savant and the melodic imagination of a seasoned musician, he has dual citizenship in two countries of the mind.

[RightWhale]

Fine. What is creativity?

[You Gotta Be Kidding Me]

Kinda agues against abortion, dod'nit?

[perfect stranger]

ping

[Rabid Dog]

Great Article! Autism ping.

[tiamat]

A lot of autistic kids are very intelligent... they just don't communicate well.

My daughter is mildly autistic.

She has a knack for memorising tunes and lyrics after she has heard them once. She is also a great mimic. ( birds and animals)

Tia

[perfect stranger]

Blue Highway and I went and saw this kid.
He's amazing considering he's just now big enough where his hand can finally span one octave.
He can improvise right along with the bass player and the drummer.
The kid knows about dynamics, and even finished with an Miles Davis tune.
If Dave Brubeck praises the kid he's gotta be good.

[Burn24]

Wow, you just reminded me of what the nuns used to say back in high school.

"Now gels,
Let's say you are a semi-retarded mother of 14 with an abusive, alcoholic husband. You find yourself pregnant for the 15th time. Would you consider abortion?"

Class: "Well, maybe, in this case..."

Nuns: YOU WOULD HAVE KILLED BEETHOVEN!!!"

[Age of Reason]

I despise jazz.

It's no wonder that someone with a mental disorder would play it.

[tiamat]

Age of Reason wrote:

I despise jazz.

It's no wonder that someone with a mental disorder would play it.

*********************************

You are free to despise jazz or not.

I personally find your comment obnoxious in the extreme and it belies your screen-name.

Tia

[Age of Reason]

I'm glad you found it obnoxious.

[MonroeDNA]

There are many slightly autistic people around you who have genious IQ's. You probably recognize them as very smart people who pi$$ you off.

[syriacus]

That was a great article!!

Thanks for posting it.

[Age of Reason]

Only when they play jazz and other such noise.

[beckett]

Of interest

[y2k_free_radical]

THAT WAS NOT CHRISTIAN

[tiamat]

I'm not surprised.

[Blue Highway]

Age of Treason, were you tortured at a young age subjected to Herb Alpert or Gershwin? Either way you should have found the beauty in it, instead of loathing it.

Besides Matt Savage is a kid and he can play amazingly! Even though me and Perfect Stranger missed the Friday night show and my car broke down Saturday a couple of hours before the show (prompting me to buy a new car), the kid we were jokingly cursing we were praising afterwards. Better yet we left with autographed cd's and some small talk with the band. Pretty cool guys imo.

[Age of Reason]

I have heard it; I understand it; jazz is loathsome.

[TAIPAN22001]

Not everyone is a fan of classical music (like myself) and I pity them, but I too dislike most jazz, which, as someone (not me)has said is "a form of musical masturbation". Most of it sounds like noodling and aimless riffing, whereas some practioners of it such as John Coltrane and Miles Davis have made some impressive music. That much said however, most jazz is far superior to (c)rap, "R&B" and most of the "musical" garbage that infests the world nowadays.