A tribute to John Tavener (1944-2013)

Here is my short but heartfelt tribute to John Tavener, who died today at the age of 69, greatly mourned. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/pioneer-of-new-classical-music-john-tavener-dies-aged-69-8935709.html

How improvising can change your brain

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.

 

A Remembrance Sunday rarity

This is the astonishing Elegy for Strings 'In Memoriam Rupert Brooke' by Frederick Septimus Kelly, the brilliant Australian pianist and composer who survived Gallipoli only to meet his death at the Somme.

An Olympic rowing champion in 1908, he was a sometime pupil of Donald Francis Tovey at Oxford and was close to the young Jelly d'Aranyi, who hoped to marry him. The Sonata he wrote for her on his way back to Britain from Gallipoli - having composed it in his head while in the trenches - was unearthed and performed a couple of years ago by the Australian violinist Chris Latham and turned out to be a carefree, sunny sort of work. The same cannot be said for the Elegy, which is not many miles in mood from Vaughan Williams's Tallis Fantasia.

Please listen, enjoy and think.

Connections...

I've been having some fun with the connections between Gypsy music and classical, with the help of such individuals as Jascha Heifetz, Grigoras Dinicu, Ginette Neveu and Roby Lakatos...and the result is up on the Sinfini site now. Enjoy.

Speaking of connections, a friend asked me how she could subscribe to JDCMB by email, since she doesn't do Facebook or Twitter. I didn't know, so I've been finding out, and now I've put a "Subscribe by email" box in the sidebar. If you sign up to this, you'll automatically receive a message whenever I publish a new post. I hope this is a useful new way to connect.

Premiere of ALICIA'S GIFT is tonight at the Musical Museum, Kew Bridge. Next up, Kensington & Chelsea Music Society at Leighton House, Wednesday evening. I narrate the story from my novel about a child prodigy pianist and her talent's effect on her family. Viv plays Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Gershwin, Ravel...and I need to practise glissandi. Please connect by coming to say hi afterwards if you're there.

Friday historical: Fritz Wunderlich sings Tamino

Last night left me convinced (as if I needed convincing) that this is the most beautiful aria for tenor ever composed. What a good excuse to listen to Fritz Wunderlich singing it.