All that Jazz

I attended a talk given at the Library of Congress last Friday where the speaker, Charles J. Limb, from the School of Medicine and Peabody Institute, Johns Hopkins University gave a talk called "Your Brain on Jazz."

The talk focused on studies done using a functional MRI to measure the blood flow in musicians' brains when they were improvising. Researchers constructed a special keyboard that had no metallic elements and would not damage the MRI machine - or the test subjects!

They then measured the blood flow to areas of the brain that as the musicians improvised over a 12-bar blues progression in C-minor. The musicians had to play the piece exactly as it was composed and then had to improvise while they listened to a group comp the progression.

Dr. Limb and his team found that the lateral prefrontal cortex of the musician's brain - the area that he said is where the "rules" dwell - where the sense of right and wrong live - shut down. The area getting the most blood flow was the medial prefrontal cortex - identified with the "autobiographical" region - the place where the self dwells. So these guys were expressing themselves without regard to whether they were playing the right or wrong note.

The motor sensory areas of the brain also went up in blood flow, the areas that make the fingers do what they do when they play.

The Limbic areas had a lack of activity. You would think that they would be positive, that these players are going to love improvising. Maybe that’s not the case. Maybe to be a successful jazz improviser you have to be a little neutral.

Dr. Limb said that children improvise, that they are naturally creative but then when they go to school and are taught to "play by the rules" they lose that ability.

The players that were tested were all men, all middle aged, all right handed and all playing with their right hands. They were all highly skilled players, not amateurs that have to think about what they want to do next, so they were truly improvising, they were making it up as they went.

I found the talk fascinating. The next one is by Jessica Krash, George Washington University and Norman Middleton, Library of Congress Music Division, called "Dangerous Music. It is Thursday October 30th and deals will explore the psychological and social issues associated with the human tendency toward censorship of musical expression.

The Library is holding its Music and the Brain series for the next two years, and most of the talks are in the Whittall Pavilion or the Coolidge Auditorium in the Jefferson Building.