Yuto Miyazawa
 

There's no video on youtube from his appearance on Conan last night
playing Clapton's "Crossroads." It's pretty wild.

He also did a bit of Deep Purple's "Smoke on the Water" during the fade to the commercial break.

Come to think of it, NBC Universal usually gets youtube vids taken down fairly quickly anyway.

But here are some other (lesser) clips:

YouTube - Yuto Miyazawa - 8-Year Old Japanese Guitar Phenom!

YouTube - MOONALICE - 05-07-08 - CROSSROADS - NYC, NY

Okay, here it is.

This is must-see online tv!

Just select the Act 2 chapter from the Wed JUL 30 ep.
http://www.nbc.com/Late_Night_with_C...episodes.shtml

I'll definitely be interested in him in about 20 years... which is a frightening enough thought in itself...

Cool, someone was able to tear themselves away from the chronic babble of the trash-talkers from Texas.
I'm kind of stunned.
Thanks much for the reply, sir Glice.

Ha, no worries - I have a soft spot for shredders, I came across this kiddie a while ago, hence my eyes pricking up.

Have you ever noticed how metaphors are often rubbish if you look at them directly (a bit like ghosts, or dogs)?

The cultural bar needs to definitely be raised in art, music and (as you sort of alluded) literature.

Hopefully this kid can help in the world of music. Now one may say he's not even playing his own songs. So what? He's eight. And in my view he's learning some great material. When Herbie Hancock played piano solos with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a child, he wasn't playing his own stuff, he was playing Mozart.

This kid has a lot of potential and that's putting it lightly. The solo he played last night is tremendous. TRE-MEN-DOUS!

Mmm... you're opening an argument that's a bit longer than I want to give time to right now... briefly

I feel slightly torn between egalitarian arguments of art and slightly more 'classical' arguments of craft, graft, practise (etc). On the one hand, I have an emotional investment to the idea that anyone can do art; potentially, a lot of this could be good. I've never held much stock with the hoary argument thrown at modern art of 'I could do that'. With writing, this isn't so much of a problem - it takes a long time to write a book and the 'aesthetic infrastructure' (such as it is) tends to prohibit every schlep with a laptop putting out their piss-awful poetry (or whatever). I tend to think visual art has innumerable tensions in its current qualia, but I'm happy that the zeitgeist's sword of Damacles turns swiftly enough for it not to concern me overly. Music-wise... too many people making it, and the 'rock' despair (which has seemingly taken hold of the mainstream since '91 or so) at 'chops' is preventing some amazing musicians 'showing off' (not a bad thing in itself).

Hmm. Poorly articulated I'm afraid... basically, a series of tensions in the arts, but generally I wouldn't object to a bit more explicit skill or virtuousity. These things exist, of course, which makes my criticism a bit limpid.

good to see you back here atari.. you HAVE been missed!

CallmeTravis (53 minutes ago) 0 Reply
Hate to ruin the party, but that was sloppy at best. I know he's only 8, but he's been playing for 5 years. It's simply practice, and for 5 years of practice, it's not that great, and I don't care how old you are. Not that he couldn't be good in the future, he probably will be, simply because of the fact that he started when he was 3 and actually practices unlike many. I'm simply saying THIS is nothing special.

The above was written as a reply at one of the youtube links.
I do get what they are saying. But, for the sake of not going into a more lengthy discussion, the commenter is more wrong than they are right.

Yuto sings and plays at age eight. He's comfortable on stage. The two youtube links show that he plays the solos differently during the covers he's featuring. There are some really inspired moments in the May link and the "Crossroads" solo he played last night. Sure, my inner critic can hear where he starts to get ever-so-slightly off the track, but what he is able to do makes up for it. Like the commenter above opines it's obvious that the kid has practiced a lot for his years. But what's also obvious is that he's a real prodigy.

Oh well, I feel boring because I'd probably rather be writing a reply to Glice.
Hey Paul, I've been here and there a little bit. On a lot less lately.

Hope everyone had a good day.