PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. – Jacob Velazquez likes to play games, and go swimming like any other 5 year old little boy but when he goes from the pool to the piano something very special happens.
You could call him a mini Mozart or baby Beethoven because Jacob began playing when he was barely 4 years old.
"Willie was at work and I was in the kitchen and I hear the song Willie was playing the night before," said Jacob's mom, Tina Velazquez. Tina thought Willie, Jacob's father, was home playing the piano.
"I came in here and said, 'Jacob, oh my gosh, that's you,'" she said.
Jacob then learned to read music.
He managed to learn Beethoven's Sonata in just three weeks. He doesn't even have to look at the music anymore and that's because he has a photographic memory. So they went ahead and had him audition for the National Musician's Guild and the audition process is quite daunting. It's something even veteran musicians would get nervous about."
"He had to learn 10 classical pieces all by memory and so he did and he did great," said Willie Velasquez. "He did amazing, actually. He exceeded the expectations."
Jacob's piano teacher says a song that takes her other students a month to learn, he will master in just one class, but this pint-sized pianist isn't without his own challenges.
"I think he has it in his mind the whole knowledge but he has too short of hands and he is too small and he wants to play," said Jaffird Sierra. "He knows, but he cannot do that."
So, Jacob tinkers with his technique to play certain pieces.
"He will tell me, 'OK Miss Jaffird, I think this is the best finger for me. What do you think?'"
Jacob is also a wizard on the Wii, but his parents say they don't have to push the piano.
When asked why he loves to play the piano, Jacob says, "Because I learn all these songs!"