A six-year-old Ohio boy who is blind taught himself to play the piano by ear and now plays wonderful renditions of well-known songs.
Children often start learning to play the piano or other instruments when they are five or six years old. Avett Ray Maness, age 6, isn’t your typical youngster. While most kids can pick out a few notes and perform a few easy tunes, Avett is an exception. As a young child, Avett picked up the piano by ear. More if that is remarkable on its own, the fact that he is blind makes it even more remarkable. It turns out that the six-year-old from Dayton, Ohio, is a piano prodigy.
Doctors found Avett had optic nerve fibroplasia, a retinal disorder, when he was born. He thus suffered complete vision loss in one eye and almost complete visual loss in the other. Avett walks with a cane and is legally blind. He has also picked up Braille reading. At the age of eleven months, Avett was already playing his first song on the piano despite his vision impairments. As soon as he was able to bring himself up to the piano, he started playing. By that time, he was able to discern simple tunes on his own, including “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
Avett asked his mother to send his songs to his favorite musician, Adele, in his first widely watched video. The video of him requesting that his mother email Adele for him went viral right away because he was so endearing. When a nearby news station learnt about the young prodigy, they ran his tale right away. According to Avett’s mother, Sara Moore, “music is in his body.” He recently put a lot of effort into improving his performing abilities. Because of his incredible talent, people ask him to perform.
Avett has already entertained the Centerville, Ohio, schools’ staff and faculty. On this occasion, he performed for close to 900 spectators! He will also play in April at a fundraiser for the Ronald McDonald House. The extraordinarily talented Avett performs and sings his own rendition of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” in his most recent popular video. Little Avett is just tall enough to sit at the piano bench and reach the keys. Before starting to play, the little guy with the spectacles gives a little introduction to his song. It’s amazing to see him play something he can’t even see with such assurance.
Avett won’t allow anything stop him from practicing the piano, which is what he loves to do. He doesn’t appear to be aware that he is disabled, and I hope that never changes.
