EagleMum - As someone who plays the piano myself, it was interesting to watch your son play. I used to follow Jarrod Radnich, so I have known about this arrangement of I Saw Three Ships ever since it came out. I can very much relate to your son, as I started out self-taught and used to garner appreciation for my covers of songs back in the day. Very often pianists who play "by the book" show respect for those who create arrangements and compose -- it almost felt like cheating to me sometimes lol, because I thought that they would be able to do the same with practice, but surprisingly enough it doesn't always seem to be the case. There is discipline and technical rigor, and there is musical insight, and they don't always go hand in hand, and I'd say most often you tend to see either one or the other.

It's interesting to note similarities: there will be disciplined, dedicated professional piano aspirants who are better technically, who have often been practicing several hours a day since early childhood. But still, somehow, those who have a natural musical ear seem to shine through somehow, despite a relative lack of (equivalent) formal training. People pick up on this surprisingly often, and you somehow gain appreciation even from those who are technically better than you. I have seen others play the same arrangement on YouTube before, but it pretty much always lacked something. I think your son has managed to capture the essence of the original arrangement well, which is something I do not see often. Kudos to him. I also watched his other arrangements, and it takes technique and skill (perhaps compositional talent and an understanding of music is the best way I can explain it) to be able to bring across passion in a piano arrangement of a song -- you need to know when and how to swell and to draw back, at what precise moment to ramp up the intensity, and basically understand musical points of interest and accentuate them.