Making sweet music is kid’s play for prodigies

It is appropriate that “Yuto” sounds a little like “YouTube,” because the former is definitely a hit on the latter. There is Yuto Miyazawa, ripping his ax on “Crazy Train”: more than 1.4 million views. There he is again, tearing it up on “Crossroads” with blues legend G.E. Smith and Moonalice, and picking on “Freebird,” and wailing on Jimi Hendrix’s version of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Not bad for a 9-year-old.

Certainly YouTube hasn’t seen the last of Yuto. He is the rare combination of guitar player who sounds like he has been playing the club circuit longer than Buddy Guy, yet enough of a kid to suggest his most exciting days are ahead. That’s just the way prodigies work.

The Internet is rife with video of musical performances, but those of youngsters with special talent who dazzle with their instruments have a unique ability to elicit “ooohs” and “ahhhs” as well as Web hits.

A small sampling along with Yuto might include the piano stylings of Chris and Alex Lu of Bellevue, Wash.; virtuoso violinist Phillip Finkle of Austin, Texas; and drummer extraordinaire Igor Falecki of Gdansk, Poland.

In the case of 9-year-old Yuto, he had already built a small following in clubs in his native Japan, and particularly at the Bauhaus Club in Tokyo, known as a haven for American and British rock fans. Steve Bernstein, an American businessman who lived in Japan for more than five years, was captivated enough by Yuto’s skill that he signed on to manage Yuto and brought him to the U.S.

“It dawned on me that he was one of the best guitarists I’d ever seen, and he was only eight,” said Bernstein, an avid guitar player himself. “I thought he’d be much bigger in the U.S. I got him on ‘Conan,’ and Ellen (DeGeneres) showed his video on her show. Major League Baseball used him.

Video   Yuto Miyazawa performs ‘I Don't Know’ Guitar prodigy Yuto Miyazawa channels Randy Rhoads while playing Ozzy Osbourne’s “I Don’t Know.” msnbc.com

“I’ve been around musicians for many years. I’ve never seen a kid so comfortable on stage, with the effects and all the pedals. He knows what sounds he wants to get, and he’s a very fast learner. I told him about ‘Freebird.’ He said, ‘What’s that?’ He went ahead and learned the seven-minute lead, and if you closed your eyes you’d swear it was the album.”

Right now, Yuto says his goals are to keep improving, to play someday with Ozzy Osbourne, and to have a “Yuto” model guitar. And to keep playing live in cool places like New York. “I received great responses from the audience at my first New York live performance,” said Yuto. “Some audiences were throwing things which scared me, but I was very happy.”

In the world of classical music, few people throw things, unless you count accolades directed at the Lu brothers. Chris is now 12, and has been playing piano for eight years. Alex is nine, and has been at it for about four years.

Chris became interested in the piano when he was only a tot, and his grandmother came by to baby-sit. “My mom plays the piano,” said the boys’ mother, Mei. “We asked her to come by and take care of Christopher after he was born. That’s why we got a piano, so she would have something to do. She would play to Christopher all the time. She said whenever he started crying, she would play and he would stop crying.”

Shortly after Alex was old enough to tell the black keys from the white, he expressed an interest in playing also. Now the brothers are not only studying piano and practicing, but winning competitions. When Chris was eight he won his age group in the Seattle Chopin competition, and Alex won it four years later. The season runs from November to April, and it’s a hectic time.

“My friends say they’d probably die of anxiety,” Chris said. “They wonder how I can get so much piano time in.”

Said Alex, of playing in competitions: “Sometimes I get nervous, but usually when I get about halfway into a piece I start to cool down and lose my nervousness.”

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