The genius of music and echolocation Ellen Boudreaux (5 photos)

People-savants are a rare phenomenon, little studied and therefore especially attractive.





Such a person is Ellen Boudreaux, a blind woman with unique, exceptional musical abilities, who was born in the United States in 1957. She can perfectly reproduce any tune after hearing it just once, and has such a huge repertoire of songs in her head that a newspaper reporter once tried to stump Ellen by asking the woman to play several obscure tunes. And he failed.



Ellen knew them all. Absolutely. A female savant also has unusual abilities. Despite being blind, she can walk without bumping into objects. When walking, Ellen makes quiet sounds that resemble chirping. This is something like a built-in sonar - a device used to determine the depth and presence of objects in water by sending a signal underwater and then receiving its echo.

Ellen has an extremely accurate digital clock running inside her head. To help her daughter overcome her fear of the phone, Ellen’s mother once persuaded the girl to listen to the automatic time recording. Since then, Ellen knows the exact hour and minute at any time of the day. However, she had never seen a clock, and it was not explained to her what the passage of time was.

Just when her favorite news program starts, she runs into the room, wherever she is, turns on the TV, and the announcer begins the program, as if at Ellen's prompting.

Ellen plays piano, guitar, and is currently the keyboardist and lead singer of a rock and roll band in her hometown.





Boudreau is a striking example of a rare but sometimes encountered triad: blindness, mental retardation and musical genius.

The baby was born premature and developed very slowly. When she was 4 months old, doctors confirmed her parents' suspicions regarding blindness.

From an early age, she could only distinguish large objects - walls, fences and buildings - and insisted on going up to them and touching them. Her father recalled that his daughter could walk through dense, unfamiliar forests without bumping into trees.

As Ellen learned to navigate, she made a constant chirping sound.

At the age of 4, psychological testing showed a Vineland Social Maturity Scale of 40, which allowed him to estimate his IQ, which at that time was 30-50.

The family was determined to find the best educational and training opportunities for their daughter. Ellen did very well in school and progressed through a number of special education levels, including the adult special education program.



Ellen's musical abilities and memory are amazing. Her interest in music began already at the age of 6 months. Around the age of 4, Ellen surprised her mother by playing some tunes on a small electronic organ.

At the age of 7, a teacher advised his parents to buy a piano. They did so, and since then music has turned into an ocean, an endless waterfall of songs and melodies.

Now Ellen builds complex chords to accompany melodies she hears on the radio or TV. Ellen learned to play the guitar by spending countless hours going up and down each string, memorizing tones and experimenting with chords.



Savant is captivated and captivated by rhythm of any type, form or origin. She loves to improvise and, after listening to almost any album, begins to play chords to it, creating unusual, but bright and memorable arrangements. She can play what she hears in one form, such as jazz, and then in another, such as classical. Ellen will easily translate rock 'n' roll into waltz or minuet form.

It is believed that the phenomenon of savantism, a rare condition in which individuals with developmental disabilities have an “island of genius” - outstanding abilities in one or more areas of knowledge, contrasting with the general limitations of the individual, is genetically determined. But it has not yet been possible to unravel the code of this genius, which endows the chosen ones with unique abilities, similar to those possessed by Boudreau.