白癡+天才= ？

被媒體稱為“Human iPod”，被世界音樂界視為“令人不可思議的音樂天才”的他卻是一個有嚴重智障的盲人。于是，有人刻薄地稱他為“白癡天才”。但他的出現無疑讓我們不得不面對這樣的問題:究竟什么才是天才?

Derek: The thing I’d like to do most of all is to play the piano. Yep.

Derek Paravicini is completely blind and severely learning 1)impaired.

Derek: I’m going to do Flight of the Bumblebee， by Rimsky-Korsakov.

He also displays many of the signs of 2)autism. Yet his brain is a perfectly programmed musical computer. What does it mean to be a musical genius in the wake of such a profound disability?

Derek is 26. He doesn’t know his left from right， and can barely count to ten. Like many people who cannot see， Derek has developed an 3)acute sense of hearing. Most of us， without knowing it， filter the noise around us to make sense of our environment， but Derek seems to have no filter at all.

As the train gathers pace， Derek is actually translating the changing 4)pitch of the engine into precise musical notes.

Derek: E. F. A minor. I’d like to play someMozart .

Derek’s talent is clear， but it raises questions. Where does genius like this come from? And， how can it possibly co-exist with such severe disabilities?

Derek’s problems began when he was born three and a half months prematurely. His family had little hope that Derek would ever be able to communicate meaningfully until， at the age of two， something extraordinary happened.

Derek’s Father: In the hall (of a school for the blind) there was a piano lesson going on and Derek broke free and ran straight towards the piano， as if he could see， pushed the little girls having a piano lesson. He pushed her out the way， tried to take over.

The piano teacher that day was Adam (Ockelford).

Adam: So he just freed himself from 5)Nick and Maryann and he just started to play. He was using not only his fingers， but also the backs of his hands. 6)Karate chops. Elbows for the phonics. And occasionally he’d dip forward and use his nose as well.

Since then， Adam has devoted thousands of hours to nurturing Derek’s talent. And it wasn’t long before Derek was acknowledged worldwide as a 7)bona fide musical prodigy.

Derek’s brain is now almost exclusively dedicated to hearing， processing and creating music. Derek possesses an extremely rare gift of universal， absolute pitch. Which means he is able to 8)discriminate every note he hears， much as we recognize different colours.

But not only can Derek clearly perceive every different note， but he can do this even when they are played 9)simultaneously. He is about to listen to a sequence of chords that he has never heard before， and this time played by a full orchestra. Fifty instruments are playing dozens of notes all at the same time. Almost incredibly， Derek is able to distill the essence of all he hears into what he plays. Derek’s brain must be wired very differently from the rest of us.

Today， Derek is traveling to Sheffield with his old friend and mentor， Dr. Adam Ockelford.Through Adam’s 10)painstaking efforts， Derek has transformed his extraordinary gift into a language all of his own. And today he speaks it 11)eloquently.

德里克:我最喜歡做的事就是彈鋼琴。沒錯。

德里克·帕拉維契尼雙目完全失明，而且有嚴重的學習障礙。

德里克:我現在要彈里姆斯基·科薩科夫的《野蜂飛舞》。

他還有許多自閉癥的癥狀。然而，他的腦子就像是一臺程序編排得盡善盡美的音樂電腦。一個殘障如此嚴重的人卻是一名音樂天才，這代表著什么呢?

德里克今年26歲，他左右不分，數數也僅僅可以數到十。就像許多失明人士一樣，德里克的聽覺極其敏感。我們絕大部分人為了適應周圍的環境，會在自己毫不察覺的情況下濾除身邊的一些噪音，而德里克似乎對身邊的所有聲音都全盤接收。

隨著火車在加速，德里克竟然把火車頭不斷變化的聲音轉化為準確的音符。

德里克:E調、F調、A小調。我想彈一些莫扎特的作品。

德里克的天賦再明顯不過了，但這也給我們提出了各種疑問:像他這種天賦是怎么來的?這種天賦與嚴重的殘疾如何共存?

德里克的殘疾源于他是一個早產兒，他提前三個半月就出生了。他的家人本來不指望他會有能有效地與他人交流的一天，但在他兩歲的時候，不同尋常的事情發生了。

德里克的父親:在一所盲校的大廳里，學生正在上鋼琴課。德里克自己掙脫開來，沖著鋼琴奔去，就好像他能得見到一樣，他把正在上課的那些小女孩推開。……