RE: OT: Interesting research on brain activities of improvisers

[cpr@musetrap.com]

Coincidentally, I am currently reading "This is You Brain on Music" by 
Daniel J
Levitin, who runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition and
Expertise at McGill University. I just started it a few days ago, but I am
enjoying it thus far.. :)

peace
-cpr

Quoting "Sowonja, Tomson" <tomson.sowonja@cba.com.au>:

> Yeah Per - I'm a long time lurker/occasional poster and I always find
> your posts incredibly interesting/helpful and informative.
> 
> I sent this link through to my Keyboardist in The Soldiers Of Fortune
> who is also doing his PhD in Psychology - something to do with pattern
> recognition/memory and music. 
> 
> He found it very interesting and had a few comments which I've pasted
> below as some of you on the list may find them interesting as well:
> 
> "Ah yes, I've heard about this. I haven't read the study, I'll have to
> find it and be more informed about exactly what was happening - lots of
> times media coverage of these  things misses the point or gets things
> wrong, etc.
> 
> However, it does seem more or less intuitively right to me, with some
> disclaimers: 
> 
> Firstly, improvisation isn't really as improvised as people like to
> believe - most improvisers have a bunch of licks they play, which they
> know more or less well. Often it's things they know intuitively rather
> than consciously, but they're there. 
> 
> [I have themes and things that I tend to use in Sliced Bread in
> particular songs - I don't have solos planned...though with the Soldiers
> of Fortune in improvisations and jams I really would make it up as I
> went along, feed off others - maybe that's something the study missed -
> the fact that improvisation happens in a group, and that would alter the
> way things work.]
> 
> Secondly, the other thing is that brain imaging studies like the one I
> presume they used are temporally pretty poor in resolution, but
> spatially pretty good - it's hard to figure out at which points in the
> improvisation bits of the brain were being used, etc etc. e.g., you
> might find that someone inhibits the monitoring process at the start of
> a phrase, but doesn't at the end of a phrase.
> 
> Tim."
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Emile Tobenfeld (a.k.a Dr. T) [mailto:emile@foryourhead.com] 
> Sent: Tuesday, 4 March 2008 8:51 AM
> To: Loopers-Delight@loopers-delight.com
> Subject: Re: OT: Interesting research on brain activities of improvisers
> 
> Thanks for the great link.
> 
> At 12:44 PM +0100 3/1/08, Per Boysen wrote:
> >I found this rather interesting: 
> >
> >Scientists funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other 
> >Communication Disorders (NIDCD) have found that, when jazz musicians 
> >are engaged in the highly creative and spontaneous activity known as 
> >improvisation, a large region of the brain involved in monitoring one's
> 
> >performance is shut down, while a small region involved in organizing 
> >self-initiated thoughts and behaviors is highly activated.
> >
> >
> >Link to read more:
> ><http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/02/29/the-real-ai-jazz-factor-think
> >-different/>http://createdigitalmusic.com/2008/02/29/the-real-ai-jazz-f
> >actor-think-different/
> >
> >I've always also filed meditation into the same type of brain 
> >activities. Particularly disciplines where you practice to stay relaxed
> 
> >and focused at the same time - without falling asleep, lose 
> >concentration or wander astray along associational thoughts. But this 
> >article doesn't mention meditation.
> >
> >--
> >Greetings from Sweden
> >
> >Per Boysen
> ><http://www.boysen.se>www.boysen.se (Swedish) 
> ><http://www.looproom.com>www.looproom.com (international)
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two
> opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability
> to function."
> 
> F. Scott Fitzgerald
> 
> 
>               Emile Tobenfeld, Ph. D.
> Video Producer and Digital Photographer       Image Processing Specialist
> Video for your HEAD!                  Boris FX
> http://www.foryourhead.com            http://www.borisfx.com
> 
> My photography can be viewed at
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> 
> 
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