Experience Aids Creativity--Study of Jazz Guitarists

[Tom Wright]

Observing brain activity and comparing experts with novices, players' improvising was recorded and graded by other experts. The level of creativity was judged and compared with activity in left or right, front or back of the brain.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-...musicians.html

The study, which was recently published in the journal NeuroImage, showed that creativity is, in fact, driven primarily by the right hemisphere in musicians who are comparatively inexperienced at improvisation. However, musicians who are highly experienced at improvisation rely primarily on their left hemisphere. This suggests that creativity is a "right-brain ability" when a person deals with an unfamiliar situation but that creativity draws on well-learned, left-hemisphere routines when a person is experienced at the task.

By taking into consideration how brain activity changes with experience, this research may contribute to the development of new methods for training people to be creative in their field. For instance, when a person is an expert, his or her performing is produced primarily by relatively unconscious, automatic processes that are difficult for a person to consciously alter, but easy to disrupt in the attempt, as when self-consciousness causes a person to "choke" or falter.

In contrast, novices' performances tend to be under deliberate, conscious control. Thus, they are better able to make adjustments according to instructions given by a teacher or coach. Recordings of brain activity could reveal the point at which a performer is ready to release some conscious control and rely on unconscious, well-learned routines. Releasing conscious control prematurely may cause the performer to lock-in bad habits or nonoptimal technique.
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By themselves, these results might suggest that highly creative performances are associated with posterior left-hemisphere areas and that less-creative performances are associated with right-hemisphere areas. This pattern is misleading, however, according to the researchers, because it does not take experience of the musician into consideration.

Some of these musicians were highly experienced, having given many public performances over decades. Other musicians were much less experienced, having given only a very small number of public performances. When the researchers reanalyzed the EEGs to statistically control for the level of experience of the performers, a very different pattern of results emerged. Virtually all of the brain-activity differences between highly creative and less-creative performances were found in the right hemisphere, mostly in the frontal region.

This finding is in line with the team's other research that used electrical stimulation to study how creative expression is generated in musicians' brains and its study of how experienced and inexperienced jazz musicians reacted to being exhorted to play "even more creatively."

The new study reveals the brain areas that support creative musical improvisation for highly experienced musicians and their less-experienced counterparts and addresses the controversial question of the roles of the left and right hemispheres in creativity. Furthermore, it raises an important issue that goes to the heart of the definition and understanding of creativity.

"If creativity is defined in terms of the quality of a product, such as a song, invention, poem or painting, then the left hemisphere plays a key role," said Kounios. "However, if creativity is understood as a person's ability to deal with novel, unfamiliar situations, as is the case for novice improvisers, then the right hemisphere plays the leading role."

Aside from the right-left distinction, I note the confirmation of opinion that the improvised solos we are impressed by are always supported by a back-catalog of handy elements the player can assemble to meet the moment. The best players do invoke right-brain creativity but it doesn't stand on its own. A great idea needs language to express it, so learn melodies, chord progressions, riffs, and keep practicing. It is very pleasing to surprise yourself with a new idea or way to use a riff, but it is even more satisfying to put together a coherent chorus that has an effective dramatic line and smoothly adds to and enhances the original tune.