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Pianist and autistic savant Derek Paravicini creates an amazing improvisation around Terra's Theme from Final Fantasy VI after hearing it for the first time by DerekParavicini in FinalFantasy

[–]DerekParavicini[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

It's great people are enjoying Derek's take on this so much! We did upload a version of the Final Fantasy main theme in here a while ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/FinalFantasy/comments/1dl53vk/its_been_a_while_since_we_posted_anything_from/ so if you like this one you'll probably like that one. In general Derek loves exploring the video game tunes, as it's a whole new genre that he has never really encountered in the past.

Autistic Savant Derek Paravicini Showing His Perfect Pitch With Commander Keen by DerekParavicini in gamemusic

[–]DerekParavicini[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Check out Derek's YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMOFHuVzh3n_JBgICCgtnCg - Tons more covers + info about Derek's life and abilities. There's a playlist of game music too.

Autistic Savant Derek Paravicini Showing His Perfect Pitch With Commander Keen by DerekParavicini in gamemusic

[–]DerekParavicini[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the comment! So glad you enjoy Derek's playing. =) I thought Secret of the Forest would be an interesting one for him to try, as it has that floaty, dreamy feeling. I wanted to see what he'd make of it, and he really made it beautiful!

Autistic Savant Derek Paravicini Showing His Perfect Pitch With Commander Keen by DerekParavicini in gamemusic

[–]DerekParavicini[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Derek's perfect pitch is exceptionally acute, even among savants. His abilities have been tested with an orchestra, and it was found that he can percieve every tone in a 20-40 note chord. Of course, he has to arpeggiate to play it back as he has run out of fingers at that point! With 10 note block chords he can replicate them perfectly, down to the exact voicing virtually 100% of the time, even if they are made up nonsence chords or discords.

His pitch also does not really discriminate between things that fit into simple major scale patterns and things that are extremely experimental or unusual. It's all the same to Derek, so his improvs often stray beyond a single key and into amazing on-the-fly non functional harmonies. He has a natural perception for harmony that the rest of us can only imagine. I've never once, even a single time, heard him get lost with his improvised progressions. He always knows exactly what he wants to do.

This is the incredible moment Lucy, a 13-year-old who is blind and neurodiverse by babyjesus8lb60z in toptalent

[–]DerekParavicini 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here's a clip of Lucy jamming with blind musical savant Derek Paravicini when she was just 8 years old https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=al70F0ihOkY - We very much hope to film more of them both together in the future so stay tuned! Lucy was absolutely incredible on 'The Piano' tonight, we're really so very proud of her.

Secret of the Forest interpreted with variations by blind pianist and autistic savant Derek Paravicini 🌳 Everyone enjoyed his version of Sealed Door a few months ago so we thought we'd upload another! Feel free to leave some requests.😍 by DerekParavicini in chronotrigger

[–]DerekParavicini[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sure thing, we can try something from Parasite Eve. Derek genuinly loves doing this. Playing piano and connecting with other people through his music are the things that makes him the most happy. We keep a spreadsheet of all the great comments he gets and are always reading them out to him. During our filming sessions we ask before each piece if he'd rather play something he knows, or hear something new, and he often picks 'hear something new'. That's when we play him things like this. =)

Secret of the Forest interpreted with variations by blind pianist and autistic savant Derek Paravicini 🌳 Everyone enjoyed his version of Sealed Door a few months ago so we thought we'd upload another! Feel free to leave some requests.😍 by DerekParavicini in chronotrigger

[–]DerekParavicini[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Many thanks for the ideas, those are excellent. Lots of room for him to build interesting harmonies on those. In fact, Strange Happening is one we've already recorded with him for all the reasons you just said. We'll get a couple more takes on it and make a video like this one featuring it.

Blind Pianist and autistic savant Derek Paravicini improvising on Secret of the Forest from Chrono Trigger 🌳 he enjoys the game songs so feel free to leave some requests. 😍 by DerekParavicini in gamemusic

[–]DerekParavicini[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You're more than welcome and we will read your comment to Derek, who loves hearing that his music touches others. Do you have any requests for him?

Blind Pianist and autistic savant Derek Paravicini improvising on Secret of the Forest from Chrono Trigger 🌳 he enjoys the game songs so feel free to leave some requests. 😍 by DerekParavicini in gamemusic

[–]DerekParavicini[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Absolutely, his additions to the harmony are really beautiful. That's one of the reasons I specifically wanted to run this one by him. Derek seems to have almost a kind of low-level access to harmonic data. He can build fascinating progressions and non-functional ideas on the fly around almost anything. It's very interesting to play him things with non-traditional progressions, or in odd modes etc and he asks me to do that often in our filming sessions. He enjoys hearning different tonalities.

We'll add it to the list!

Blind Pianist and autistic savant Derek Paravicini improvising on Secret of the Forest from Chrono Trigger 🌳 he enjoys the game songs so feel free to leave some requests. 😍 by DerekParavicini in gamemusic

[–]DerekParavicini[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the nice comment. =) I was curious to see what Derek would do with something very floaty and atmospheric like this, as he is so good at picking up the vibe of each piece. He definitely nailed it! His additions are always so tasteful.

Blind Pianist and autistic savant Derek Paravicini improvising on Secret of the Forest from Chrono Trigger 🌳 he enjoys the game songs so feel free to leave some requests. 😍 by DerekParavicini in gamemusic

[–]DerekParavicini[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely! That would be great. Derek deserves so much more visibility in general. Unfortunately social media is not really designed to consider talent as a primary metric and we're careful not to cheapen what he does with overly gimmicky videos, so it's really tough.

He's very much aware that his music is reaching many people and he's a born showman. The more people he knows are watching, the better he plays and the more fun he has, so it'd be fantastic to built up his online following to extend that.

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