I can always tell when an improvising musician is in "the zone" because they seem to channel a higher power [may the force be with you]. Clearly some cats can do it more easily and more often than others.
OK now who wants to play jazz with your head in an MRI scanner? I can hardly believe they did this first of all but not too surprised that they actually discovered some unusual neural activity when jazz musicians improvise. Study: Prefrontal Cortex In Jazz Musicians Winds Down When Improvising
"The researchers explain that, just as over-thinking a jump shot can cause a basketball player to fall out of the zone and perform poorly, the suppression of inhibitory, self-monitoring brain mechanisms helps to promote the free flow of novel ideas and impulses. While this brain pattern is unusual, it resembles the pattern seen in people when they are dreaming."Posted by dancoy at March 5, 2008 11:41 AM
Dad -
These findings don't surprise me at all. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain responsible for you being able to plan your actions. It's also the last part of the human brain to develop so maybe the decreased activity there is an indicator that creative behavior is more primal in humans than reason and logic.
But don't tell anyone that I'm such a nerd and actually DID pay attention in college.
Posted by: Rachel Jean at March 5, 2008 04:21 PM"Primal", I like that.
Albert Einstein knew something about reason and logic but said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge".
But Einstein might be wrong. A big fat school bus driver, who likes to get drunk on the weekend and pilot speedboats on Lake Lanier, told me that sailboats and bicycles are for idiots. I told her that Albert Einstein rode a bicycle and loved to sail. She said, "that guy must be a moron."