The Brain on Jazz

Bill Machon
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A recent study of the effects of jazz on the human brain has produced fascinating results. Scientists, using functional MRI (fMRI) scanners, looked at the brain activity of jazz musicians while they engaged in improvisation. Clear results show some areas of the brain shut down, while others became more active. One interesting finding was that during improvisation, neural activity increased in sensory areas of the brain such as touch and vision.

 

Photo courtesy Flickr user wakalani

 

 

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Comments

is it just playing?

Submitted by zezt on Sun, 03/30/2008 - 09:53.

I am not in any way a jazz musician, but I do enjoy jazz.

And I love to improvise when I do my guitar music, and when I sing. Always have

I am wondering the difference between say someone playing improvised jazz and someone listening to it?

I ask this because I remember years back when I stuck on this tape which had quite a fast complex improvised track by Miles Davies Quartet, and this woman freaked out saying "oh God, take it off! Your sense of music's more advanced than mine!"

LOL...So she obviously felt a block to it. This is why I wonder if they have 'mapped' listeners as well as players?

lyricism

Submitted by neonoctafish on Mon, 03/31/2008 - 06:25.
far out man. touch: yeah, i'm actually a jazz guitar player, and strangely I've always like sax players the best (i.e. Eric Dolphy, Coltrane, Ornette Coleman). I thought it was because they played with their mouth. So i threw away my pick and play electric guitar with my fingers now, trying to get "mouth fingers". Its really opening up my playing. vision: Also I've always really gotten into music when I interpret it visually, either in an abstract quantitative sense (seeing patterns of timbres, forming mathematical grids), or qualitatevly (having silly images play themselves out for irrational reasons). other: also there is something really neat about when a jazz musician is "on"; the notes just pick themselves off the stream, I think at that point it really becomes linguistic- the difference between a foreigner trying to learn a certain language, and a native speaking it with eloquence off the cuff. HOTCHA!

SunRA....

Submitted by neonoctafish on Mon, 03/31/2008 - 19:55.

Is THE MAN!

i've already signed up for Outer Spaceways Incorporated...second stop is Jupiter.