The Mysterious Gift Of Musical Savants

Lesley Stahl Checks In On A Boy With An Extraordinary Musical Talent

(CBS) 
Ockelford acknowledges that trying to figure out what will happen with Rex when he grows up is the biggest challenge.

"The trouble is that Rex is what? Ten now. In the next ten years, all of those other young folk are gonna get better and better as well. So they're gonna catch up with Rex," Ockelford noted. "But he's got to have something special when he's 20, when he's 25, when he's 30, that other people don't offer, if he's going to really make his mark."

"And Derek has?" Stahl asked.

"I think Derek has exceptional talents by any standards," Ockelford replied.

And that's no accident. Ockelford worked hard to enable Derek to turn his innate ability into real-world prowess, and he made Derek work hard too, on technique, learning to accompany others, and to shine when the spotlight is his.

And Ockelford taught Derek something else: how to play duets.

“I'll tell you what Derek can do. Derek can offer himself to play duets with people who don't play very well, and then make us seem as though we do play very well,” Stahl said, laughing.

“Every musician who plays with Derek says ‘That's a fantastic experience.’ Because somehow he takes whatever you give and just adds a bit,” Ockelford replied.

Ockelford keeps trying to figure out how Derek’s brain processes music. Most people – musicians included – can make out about two or three notes at a time. Ockelford devised a test to see how many notes Derek could hear at once, and then repeat.

Stahl gave the test to Derek, initially playing four notes at the same time. Derek was able to instantly play back all notes.

Next, Stahl played Derek 10 notes at the same time, which sounded like noise. Derek was able to repeat that too. “Derek's hearing a different sound world. For us, we can perhaps hear the melody and the bass and the drums. But he can actually hear 10 different instruments at once. That's incredible,” Ockelford said.

But even though he could repeat exactly what Stahl played, when asked to count the notes, Derek was lost. Stahl played a four-note chord and he Derek said, "Two, is it one, is it?

"He could separate the notes out … and yet, he couldn't tell me how many. He couldn't even tell me there were four," Stahl said.

"That really shows Derek's brain in action, doesn't it?" Ockelford said. "Intuitively, he's like one in goodness knows, ten million people or something. And yet on what would be a simple task for for my son, who's three, he could do that … He can't do it. I mean that just sums Derek up, really."

Stahl wondered whether Rex hears a different sound world, too, and tried the test with him. She played two chords, each of which he easily repeated.