Jazz involves the brain!

[Marty Grass]

Your Brain in the Zone: A New Neuroimaging Study Reveals How the Brain Achieves a Creative Flow State

Rock involves another important organ I'm guessing.

[DawgBone]

It's a good article but doesn't really tell me anything new. Just gets science-y about it. I play my best when I'm very relaxed. When I don't really give a crap what anyone thinks and am not consciously try to work out my part in the brain. A basic sketch idea already set in my head long before helps me get there easier because less thinking is involved.

[ruger9]

Music is Gung Fu. Being "in the zone" is Gung Fu. Flow is Gung Fu. It goes beyond the brain, and actually the brain can be a great hindrance: you need to STOP thinking to get there. Which is actually how alot of rock and roll has been made over the years... and alot of the GOOD jazz.

Was it Charlie Parker? "Learn everything, then forget it all and just play"?

[Tal_175]

Unlike most other types of music, jazz involves a lot of mental organization and conscious focus when practicing and even off the instrument. But if you still have to think when you are performing, then you haven't practiced enough to internalize and hear your ideas.

[emanresu]

You have to practice enough to have enough brain-time left over to think.

[Jimmy Smith]

Jazz involves the brain!

No friggin way. I thought it was fundamentally so anti-intellectual that amoebas could do it.

[pauln]

Findings sound familiar to me

- Practice a lot for a long time
- Relax in deep focus listening
- Do it! Let go and play by ear

[pauln]

No friggin way. I thought it was fundamentally so anti-intellectual that amoebas could do it.

Thinking is the enemy of flow.
Amoebas have an advantage.