Fascinating stuff, this. Above, Gabriela Montero improvises on the Goldberg Variations theme. I've always listened to her (and many others) and wondered "How does she do that?" Now Neuroscience 2013, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience, has released some information about what improvising can do for the brain, and vice-versa...
(Apologies for simply running the press release. Am short of time at present.)
To Change Your Brain: Improvise, Improvise, and Improvise Some More
With practice, specific brain circuits are strengthen and music flows
Brain
circuits involved in musical improvisation are shaped by systematic
training, suggest a new study presented at Neuroscience 2013, the annual
meeting of the Society for Neuroscience and the world’s largest source
of emerging news about brain science and health.
Researchers
also found that more experienced improvisers show higher connectivity
between three major regions of the brain’s frontal lobe while
improvising. This suggests that the generation of meaningful music
during improvisation can become highly automated —performed with little
conscious attention, reported lead author Ana Pinho, MS, of the
Karolinska Institutet.
“Our
research explored whether the brain can be trained to achieve greater
proficiency in improvisation,” Pinho said. “The lower activity in
frontal brain regions that we saw in trained improvisers is interesting,
and one could speculate that it is related to the feeling of ‘flow.’
This is the feeling that many musicians report feeling during
improvisation – when music comes without conscious thought or effort.”
Improvisational
training entails the acquisition of long-term stores of musical
patterns and cognitive strategies to aid in their expressive, skillful
combination. To test brain activity during improvisation, researchers
worked with 39 pianists with a wide range of both classical piano
training and training in jazz improvisation. They used functional
magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which images blood flow in different
parts of the brain.
While
the pianists improvised for brief periods on a 12-key MRI compatible
piano keyboard, researchers tracked activity in the frontal lobe. More
experienced improvisers showed a combination of higher connectivity and
lower overall regional activity during improvisation. Higher
connectivity also reflected extensive reorganization of functional
connections within the regions of the frontal lobe that control motion.
According
to the researchers, the extensive connectivity within the frontal lobe
of experienced improvisers may allow the musicians to seamlessly
generate meaningful re-combinations of music.
“This
study raises interesting questions for future research, including how
and to what extent creative behaviors can be learned and automated,”
said Pinho.
