Brains of Jazz Musicians Teach Lesson
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Jazz musicians who were asked to improvise showed dramatically decreased activity in the part of the brain responsible for evaluating one’s own actions. At the same time, the part of the brain responsible for “self-initiated” thought was highly active.
So what?
O.K., this may not be groundbreaking for many, but it does emphasize the importance of letting go of limiting thoughts. If these jazz musicians were worried that they might get stuck in the middle of a song, they would indeed get stuck instead of improvising successfully.
Whether you’re writing, singing, or in the midst of any other creative activity, learn to ignore that little voice inside your head that tries to edit and correct everything you create. Of course, later on you will have to let that little voice take over. But that is a completely different process than the original creation of the first draft. This ‘first draft’ should be as ‘improvised’ as possible in order to allow for as much originality as possible.
In other words: improvise to be more creative, and edit later.
To read the whole study, you can go to: An fMRI Study of Jazz Improvisation
This article also discusses the study: Creativity Explored, by Mapping Jazz Musicians’ Brains
(Image: moriza)
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