Entertainment
12-year-old pianist wows train station audience with ‘Sound of Silence’ cover
He has so much talent!
Heidi Kennedy
12.11.19

There is sometimes nothing more thrilling and comforting than a beautiful piano cover of one of your favorite songs. What is even better, is coming across someone playing the piano in an unexpected place like a department store or an airport or train station. Cole Lam is a very talented young man who frequently records and plays beautiful piano arrangements for the people traveling through London. He is only 12 years old but already has the skills and techniques for playing the piano for someone well beyond his years.

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Cole Lam played a piano cover of the famous song, The Sound of Silence.

Cole Lam has a knack for playing the piano and creating soulful arrangements of well-known songs. One of his more recent was at St Pancras International in London, England. There sits a piano that is open to the public for anyone to sit down and play a tune. But the people who happened to pass through the station this day encountered a beautiful performance.

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Cole began to play The Sound of Silence, written by Simon and Garfunkle, but the arrangement that was created by The Disturbed. It is a dark, haunting, and moving arrangement that Cole expresses in a beautiful way. He does not use any sheet music, but instead plays by memory and by his soul.

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The people passing by were shocked to learn how old he was.

Cole’s piano performance begins to draw a crowd as people passing by stop and listen to the beautiful music. At the end of the piece, a group of women stood by to speak with Cole. A woman asked if he was training classically. Cole got a fun reaction when the same woman asked how old he was.

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“You’re twelve?!” the woman asked, obviously shocked at the answer.

Cole’s dad walks over to say hello as he keeps the camera rolling. The woman says that the piece was “moving” and thanked him for playing for them. Cole has grown quite the following now with over 200,000 followers on YouTube with millions of views. His videos have inspired many people who enjoy listening to his beautiful arrangements.

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The song, The Sound of Silence, is a classic.

Originally recorded by Simon and Garfunkel, but the arrangement that Cole Lam played was done by Disturbed. Normally a heavy rock band, the group decided to do a cover of the song that ended up being a very gratifying and haunting rendition of a well known classic.

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Hearing the lead singer of Disturbed, David Draiman, speak about the process of recording the cover leaves the impression that they felt a sense of duty to honor the original song while creating something unique.

Cole explains”I love how songs that were written years ago can still mean so much today. My arrangement is a bit of a mix of both with a lightness from Simon and Garfunkel and “darkness” from the Disturbed version.”

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Check out Cole’s beautiful performance below!

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