This is Jon Schmidt. I went to one of his concerts a few years ago. I enjoyed his performance and have loved much of his music ever since. He is known to have played "Rootbeer Rag" faster than Mr. Joel himself.* He also played a difficult piece while positioned on his bench upside-down. But why is he able to do stunts while playing piano, and I cannot? A recent University of Illinois study likely has an answer that explains it scientifically. As the researchers put it, a portion of the brain called the striatum causes people to learn complicated tasks quickly. In other words, the larger the striatum is, the better chance I have at succeeding in playing piano like Jon Schmidt. This research was made possible because of a video game called Space Fortress—akin to Asteroids, but with a “frictionless” playing field and more simultaneous tasks to accomplish. The research team found that the size of parts in the striatum predicted people's ability to achieve higher scores in-game. Potentially, this knowledge could be applied to the education field**, giving students individual, specialized attention if their MRI comes back with a smaller striatum. And all thanks to a video game. This is a far-distant dream, but it seems possible. Until then, I guess there is no “royal road” to learning to playing piano. I've got to get back to practicing.
*During the concert I went to, one person timed him; he was literally faster!
**Paraphrased from the bottom of the page.
Other cool links to the same study: Link 1, Link 2
And the study itself: Click here.
For those of you who have not ever heard his music before, here is my personal favorite song of his (see videos: "All of Me").
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