Word: ockelford
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...just once, even if it was years ago. The 27-year-old pianist is blind and severely learning disabled; he can't tie his own shoelaces or butter a piece of bread. Yet his musical gifts appear almost unlimited. With rehearsals over, Paravicini and his longtime teacher Adam Ockelford go into a quiet room to listen to a recording of the version of Bumblebee that the orchestra has learned. A few hours later, in front of 400 people, Paravicini and the Emerald Ensemble charge through a dizzying performance of the music he has just listened to, perfectly in sync...
...Most people, when they hear a piece of music, can pick up the tune and some sense of accompaniment," says Ockelford, a music psychologist and director at the Royal National Institute of the Blind in London. "But for them, it's just a blend of sounds. For Derek, it's all separate - like being able to hear six conversations at once, in six different languages, and understand them all." Paravicini, who lives in a boarding school for the blind where he receives round-the-clock care, is one of a handful of recognized savants, unable to carry out the most...
Since then, Paravicini has mastered everything from classical to pop to avant-garde, but he always comes back to jazz. His conversation is still limited; in an interview over tea at Ockelford's London home, he mostly just repeats what's said to him, albeit with the confidence of a man who thought of it himself. Talk to him about music, though, and he opens up, asking: "What would you like me to play?" and "Did you enjoy that piece?" Music is the only language he's fluent in, and jazz, with the freedom it gives him to improvise, helps...
What Paravicini can't tell you is his story, so Ockelford has told it for him. In his book, In the Key of Genius, published May 3, Ockelford recounts the extraordinary story of Paravicini's bizarre early lessons, his TV appearances and his concerts for charity (one at Buckingham Palace, another with the Royal Philharmonic Pops Orchestra) and ends with him playing Scott Joplin's The Entertainer to 12,000 people in Las Vegas last year. Paravicini, who is related through marriage to Prince Charles' wife Camilla Parker-Bowles, was only 5 years old when he and Ockelford first...
Even as a child, Paravicini's ear for music was remarkably advanced. But his technique "was very eccentric - mainly karate chops, thumbs and knuckles, elbows," says Ockelford. "But all on the right notes." It took 10 years to teach Paravicini how to play using the more conventional method. Now he can reproduce the sound of a 50-piece orchestra, hitting as many notes as his 10 fingers can reach together and then filling in the rest with arpeggios and scales. He can shift to a different key midway through a tune, without stopping. He can dip into his mental library...