Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart began playing piano minuets at age four. Niccolo Paganini played the mandolin from the age of five, then switched to violin aged seven. Classical music has always had its child prodigies, but only in recent years has the rock music fraternity began to sprout thousands of kids whose guitar-shredding or tub-thumping skills seem most precocious.
While Jimi Hendrix didn't begin playing the guitar until he was 15, and the Foo Fighters' Dave Grohl first pounded a tom-tom in anger at age 14, pint-sized shredders and drumstick-wielding infants are all over YouTube these days. Is it something in the water? Pushy parents, perhaps? Have the Guitar Hero video game and its Band Hero spin-off version played a nurturing role? Whatever the catalyst, it's clear that training for rock stardom now begins long before spotty adolescence.
10. In 1978, Eddie Van Halen's famed guitar showpiece Eruptionseemed the stuff of arcane hocus-pocus, but now it's fair game for nine-year-old kids. This unnamed axe-hero nails it loudly and nonchalantly, mimicking Eddie's finger-tapping wizardry from 49 seconds in. Search "9 year old kid plays Eruption guitar solo by Van Halen".
9. What better place to air Mötley Crüe's Power to the Music than a junior school talent show? The six-year-old drummer Robbie can really groove and he lays down a thunderous backbeat, but that dude dressed in black stage left is way too old to be in his band. Watch to the end to see Robbie take a well-earned bow. Search "1st grade talent show - amazing kid drummer".
8. It takes guts - or the glorious self-belief of childhood - to play Carlos Santana's Samba Pa Tiin front of Carlos himself, but young Lucciano Pizzichini does just that. Carlos is thrilled by Lucciano's performance, and Lucciano is somewhat underwhelmed by Carlos. Still, if you're gonna compete with the big boys, maybe that's how it has to be. Search "Carlos Santana - Lucciano Pizzichini".
7. The Who's Won't Get Fooled Againplayed by the four-year-old drummer Jonah Rocks. Jonah has reached the ripe old age of seven now, but here he is in 2009, barely out of nappies yet capable of a relaxed, free-flowing performance that Keith Moon would surely have enjoyed. Nice headphones, too. Search "The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again, Jonah".
6. A full-size bass guitar can seem gigantic when you're 10, but Brandon Rose is clearly a Bootsy Collins in the making. He slaps, he pops, and whatever the funk is, he has it. Note, too, that he never has to look at his fingers. Search "Brandon Rose, bass guitar riff".
5. Is it just me, or is the talent of the six-year-old tub thumper Julian Pavone a little bit scary? "I started playing in the womb," he claims, but he didn't get his first kit until he was three. Here he is on Fox News nailing Fire by The Jimi Hendrix Experience. For a while it looks as though the show's presenters won't get him to stop. Search "Julian Pavone, Fox News New York".
4. OK, OK, it's not really rock, but you really have to see this North Korean guitar quintet. The focus, the precision, the seamless choreography - rehearsals-wise, I'm guessing 14 hours a day, seven days a week. Search "amazing kids play guitar impeccably".
3. "This guy's the future!" says Ozzy Osbourne of the tiny Japanese guitarist Yuto Miyazawa, and here he is, age 10, playing Crazy Train with Ozzy and his band at the Blizzcon convention in California in 2009. Like his hero, the late Randy Rhodes, Yuto plays a polka-dotted Gibson Flying V guitar. Search "Ozzy Osbourne, Yuto Miyazawa".
2. Like all great drummers, six-year-old Joshua Allen Mojica Hui knows that you really have to feel the music. Here he is living and breathing Journey's AOR classic Don't Stop Believin'. The bit from around 1.56 minutes where he hits the bell of the cymbal is admirably deft. Search "Journey, Joshua Allen Mojica Hui".
1. Is that a proud dad counting eight-year-old Zoe Thomson in? We suspect so. As she shreds along to Stratosphere by Stratovarius, your jaw will drop. This clip has already scored more than 1.5 million YouTube hits, and a cover of Metallica's Enter Sandman by Zoe's group The Mini Band has been acclaimed by Metallica themselves. Search "The Mini Band guitarist Zoe Thomson, Stratosphere by Stratovarius".