Nope, sorry. Not overly impressed. You're just "really good" (or are told you are
) but as Bardan and Reeka said, that has no relevance in a topic on child prodigies. You would be a prodigy or really something special if at a very young age you played bass so well that you belonged to the top players of the world and were offered scholarships, giving concerts/recitals to crowds going wild with admiration and awe, etc. Just having your bandmates telling you you're incredibly good doesn't really cut it.
Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that you're as good as you and they say you are, and that you have a natural talent for playing the bass, I'm just saying that you are not alone in that accomplishment. I know quite a few people who play in relatively unknown bands, who are completely autodidactic (self-taught) and who are really very good musicians. That's a far cry from someone like Mozart, who started playing at three, composed music at 6 and his first opera at 12 and went on in his short life (he died at 35!!) to attain a level of genius that in my opinion and that of many critics is completely unique. Even if you take less illustrious examples, there is still a BIG difference between being really good (which can be subjective to a large extent) and being a genius (which is to an extent objective). And as Reeka was talking about child prodigies in this topic....
(actually, those children you originally started talking about, the creative writing ones, are probably a far cry from prodigies or geniuses too, right? I have seen some pretty good and promising teenage writing online (you know who you are) but if I'm honest it's pretty damn rare! So those would be examples of being "really good" and talented too, rather than examples of genius. If not, I'd love to read some!)
On topic: I think it's a good and interesting question! You're right many composers/musicians have been child prodigies but I too was hard-pressed to think of geniuses in other arts that showed promise at an early age. Perhaps Keats is a good example, he died at 25 leaving behind poems that are arguably better than most people could produce in a full lifetime. Not really a child prodigy maybe, but certainly a young genius. Also an artist like Aubrey Beardsley, who showed a great deal of promise at drawing when he was just a child, and who went on to create a very idiosyncratic, popular and (in)famous style of drawing. He too died at 25.
I'll have to think more on this - I do think there are other young geniuses in the literature department certainly, not sure if I can think of any others.
[ 09-10-2003, 06:27 AM: Message edited by: Melusine ]