Neural correlates of improvisational experience in jazz guitarists

Have you ever watched a jazz musician improvising and wondered how they come up with such creative and spontaneous music on the spot? As a researcher at Drexel University, I teamed up with my colleagues to investigate what happens in the brains of jazz musicians during improvisation. We wanted to understand how different types of thinking processes contribute to their creativity.

Two Types of Thinking Processes

Our brains use two main types of thinking processes: Type-1 and Type-2. Type-1 processes are fast, automatic, and intuitive, while Type-2 processes are slower, deliberate, and controlled. We wanted to see how these processes played out during jazz improvisation.

Key Findings

1. Quality of Improvisation:

   • High-quality improvisations were linked to increased activity in the left side of the brain, especially in regions involved in associative thinking and creativity.

   • Lower-quality improvisations showed more activity in the right side of the brain, which is associated with more deliberate, controlled thinking.

2. Experience Matters:

   • When we took the musicians' experience into account, we found that more experienced musicians had more right-hemisphere activity during high-quality improvisations. This suggests that with more experience, musicians rely less on deliberate control and more on intuitive, automatic processes.

3. Flow State:

   • Musicians who reported being in a "flow" state—feeling fully immersed and enjoying the process—tended to produce higher-quality improvisations. This flow state is associated with less executive control and more intuitive processing.

What This Means

Our research supports the idea that creativity in jazz improvisation involves a balance between automatic, intuitive processes and deliberate, controlled processes. For novice musicians, more executive control might be necessary to perform well. However, as musicians gain experience, they can rely more on their intuitive skills, allowing for more spontaneous and creative performances.

Practical Implications

For aspiring musicians, this means that while practice and technical skill are important, allowing yourself to let go and trust your intuition can lead to more creative and enjoyable performances. Embracing the flow state and minimizing overthinking might be key to unlocking your full creative potential.