Each day this week, we're introducing you to 'Remarkable Kids.' We kick it off with a Mountain View girl who is the best at something that may surprise you.
"It's one thing to be able to play an instrument. It's another thing to be a musician," said Lillyanne McCool.
And no doubt, she is a musician. It's in her blood.
"I grew up on stage," she said. "My mom brought me out on stage when I was ten days old I think. And I was in a backpack on her back and she was playing bass."
But when people find out the type of music this teenager plays, "I think on the inside they're thinking, she's so weird," she admitted. Instead of picking up a six string, "a guitar player is a dime a dozen. You can find them everywhere," she plays banjo.
She started playing when she was nine. In less than three years, she won her first state banjo title. The next year, she won it again. "So two years in a row I got kicked out of that division," she remembered.
She kept winning. Over and over, against adults who'd been playing longer than she'd been alive. "Age is not necessarily a factor in whether you're a better musician or not. A lot of that depends on the time you put in and your talent," she said.
The 15-year-old had put in the time, and certainly had the talent. So she competed against the best anywhere at the 2018 national championships in Tennessee.
Lillyanne's dad, Jackie cheered on his little girl. "It was really special," he said. "I knew she had played well enough to win. But contests are contests, and they're judged. I got see her play the best she's ever played and it was good enough."
Good enough to be the best. At just 15 years old.
"I was the youngest to ever win it," she said. "And I think one of only three women to ever win it."
She's 16 now, a national champion, and teaches banjo lessons in her hometown of Mountain View. Now this family tradition is hitting a note with people across the country.
The 2019 national championships were earlier this month. But she chose to miss it so she could go with her family on their first cruise. She said she will compete in the state championship in her hometown, which is coming up Labor Day weekend.
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