When I left home to go to university, I rented a room in the house of a local family — the

Bridges. They had two kids: Robert, their fifteen year old son and Louise, their eleven year old

daughter. Mr Bridges is a successful chemical engineer and a really friendly guy. His big hobby

is restoring vintage motorbikes. Mrs Bridges works in the university library which was really

useful for me as she often gave me a ride to campus. I lived with them for a year and still see

them pretty often, even though I now have my own flat.

The Bridges are fantastic people and I was welcomed into their family almost as an elder son.

But looking back on it, the most memorable thing was watching the incredible transformation of

Robert — their talented son.

I love listening to music and I often go to listen to live music, but Robert is possibly one of

the most naturally gifted musicians I have ever come across. The amazing thing is that when I

first met him he’d never even touched a musical instrument. However, not long after I moved into

their spare room, an upright piano was installed in their lounge. It was actually an unwanted gift

from Mrs Bridges’ sister who secretly hoped that the children might want to learn how to play it.

I had a small part to play in what happened next. I was chatting to Robert when he told me

how much he loved the piano music sound track to Final Fantasy, one of his computer play

station games. I then found him a piece of film on the internet of someone playing the same

piece of music — but the film showed only the musicians hands on the keyboard. I joked to

Robert that he could teach himself to play by copying the hands on their own new piano.

That was two years ago. Robert has become an astonishingly good pianist in this time. He

learned that first piece in just 3 days. After a month he could play 10 or more complex pieces

although at that stage he couldn’t even read music. The Bridges then got him a piano teacher,

Luke, who turned out to be an inspiration. Luke liked the same kind of music as Robert and

always gave him exciting new pieces to learn whilst teaching him to read music and the

fundamentals of technique.

The most exciting thing of all started about a year ago when, with only a little guidance from

Luke, Robert began to compose music himself. Then, with help from some of Luke’s friends, he was

able to submit several pieces for publishing and for use as sound tracks for future computer games.

I now really enjoy listening to Robert’s music. Perhaps one day another youngster will see Robert’s

hands on the computer, filmed playing his own compositions — and the cycle might begin again.

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