01 Dec 17 - 07:51 PM (#3891753) Subject: Your brain and playing music From: Donuel The back and sides of your brain are most active when playing. The front not so much. the back of the brain has an area called the cerebellum that coordinates vision and movement. However it is most active when playing with eyes closed because it is processing body movements independently without visual input. Long story short; If you want to train the cerebellum, it may be best to play and practice with your eyes closed. technical sources: https://www.mendability.com/sensory-enrichment/the-cerebellum-coordinates-eye-and-hand-tracking-movements/ http://www.themusiciansbrain.com/?p=195 |
01 Dec 17 - 08:21 PM (#3891760) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: leeneia Thanks, Donuel. When I play with my eyes closed, I hear my music better. |
01 Dec 17 - 08:35 PM (#3891763) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: punkfolkrocker Closing your eyes.. not such a great idea if playing an instrument whilst riding in control of a bike in heavy traffic...??? |
01 Dec 17 - 09:18 PM (#3891764) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Tattie Bogle Your cerebellum coordinates balance and appreciation of movement(proprioception). Your occipital cortex processes visual images. They are not that far apart anatomically, but wonder if the neurology here is a bit mixed up! And please.....don't close your eyes if playing with a group of people: visual as well as auditory observation is paramount: essential for keeping together! The best accompanists you'll ever see watch the person they are accompanying like hawks! |
01 Dec 17 - 10:47 PM (#3891766) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Mooh There's a good book, Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy by Robert Jourdain and it's a worthy read. |
02 Dec 17 - 06:49 AM (#3891814) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Donuel I'll look for the book mooh. Tattie is right, while looking for a new hypothesis based on the data of a most active cerebellum processing orientation in space when the eyes are closed, could the cerebellum be the minds eye when the visual cortex is sending no input? When in a symphonic orchestra visual input is essential for precise timing. Sound is actually too slow in a large area to rely upon when a total unification is required. When an antiphonal brass choir is added to a balcony only light is fast enough to achieve simultaneous sound for a certain segment of a music hall. The larger the group of musicians the more sight is important. My question is - is the visual cortex the minds eye or does the cerebellum simply coordinate with 'imagined vision' when eyes are closed |
02 Dec 17 - 07:11 AM (#3891817) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Donuel As you see even the question is still evolving. Perhaps the minds eye is a concept that may not apply at all, but I remain curious. leenia hears better with eyes closed. I have been able to see with eyes closed (sounds crazy but felt normal) Dolphins can see in 'X-ray 3D detail. *Experiments are underway to read images in someone's mind. To understand even some of this I need more questions. I'm going on faith that music is a key to this *mystery. |
02 Dec 17 - 07:36 AM (#3891823) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Donuel * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1Gu1YSoDaY Music sometimes creates imagery or color in imagination, sometimes sensation from orgasmic to 'meh'. Sometimes other thoughts leaves the music far away. Before the NIH Obama Brain Project goes away, answers born from music and the brain are possible |
02 Dec 17 - 07:39 AM (#3891824) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Rusty Dobro How am I supposed to dodge flying bottles if I'm playing with eyes closed? |
02 Dec 17 - 08:56 AM (#3891835) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Tattie Bogle Ha-ha Rusty! Improve your playing...? A lot of the big ballad singers tend to sing with eyes closed, so that they can "see" the story unfolding, a bit like a film running through. (or so they tell me: I can't remember long ballads!!) |
02 Dec 17 - 01:16 PM (#3891880) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: meself I play with my eyes closed so I can see what I'm doing. |
02 Dec 17 - 06:04 PM (#3891909) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Marje Closing my eyes certainly helps me if I'm trying to learn or memorise a tune, but I try not to do it when I'm singing or playing with others, as communication and watching each other are an important part of this. Marje |
03 Dec 17 - 06:00 AM (#3891957) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Mr Red you look at any professional, they have practised long and hard and they know where to put their body, without looking where to position themselves or their limbs. IME most professionals play/sing with their eyes open, this has more to do with engaging the audience and thus giving a rounded performance. Dancing is similar in this aspect. but we all can put our bodies in the right place for familiar tasks. It is called proprioception. I close my eyes to sing because I find it prevents distractions. But playing the bodhran is a different matter. Probably because I have been playing a long time I can even speak to people, answer questions and carry on playing. I make no claim as to the quality of either of the multi-tasks. I suspect both will not be of the most complicated variety. But then there are no lyrics nor written music to recall. It really boils down to practice/familiarity IMNSHO. |
03 Dec 17 - 06:33 AM (#3891966) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Steve Shaw Bodhran owners have to keep their eyes open in case there's a real musician around who happens to be in possession of a Stanley knife. |
03 Dec 17 - 03:34 PM (#3892080) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Donuel I completely agree with Marje and Mr. Red however the inner workings of the mind are not giving me its secrets via insights or accident. It looks like the mind is insisting I do actual work and study, crap. Besides who is to say that valid answers would help the music anyway. |
03 Dec 17 - 03:36 PM (#3892081) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: GUEST,Ebor Fiddler Which one of you will admit to playing an instrument while riding a bike in heavy traffic then? Sounds like a self-cancelling proposition to me! |
04 Dec 17 - 09:14 AM (#3892188) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Marje I definitely don't shut my eyes when dancing, no matter how hard I'm concentrating! Marje |
05 Dec 17 - 03:02 PM (#3892286) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Tattie Bogle Now is it just pure coincidence that while this thread has been running, our ceilidh band has been contacted by a university student who is researching how playing music might help prevent the onset of dementia? I am totally sure it does: that and singing too, remembering all those song words, which button does what on my accordion, and so on! Think it's QED already! (Btw, most in our band are 70+ : average age comfortably brought down by one 40+yr old!) |
05 Dec 17 - 03:33 PM (#3892292) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Donuel It's better than coincidence, it is serendipity. As for dementia, the positive possibility may be that a well organized holographic storage of memory, owes a debt to music education. On the other hand the plaque that grows on neuronal dendrites may be the villains. The how and why that happens is in question. I was 65 when I learned to play a fretted instrument for the first time. Old tricks plus new tricks makes for a unique mastery. |
05 Dec 17 - 06:50 PM (#3892316) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Mr Red who is to say that valid answers would help the music anyway methinks 'tis a personal approach. As an engineer I find knowing some of the mechanisms helps improve the result. Speaking as a bodhran player, he says, lobbing a feed line. An example is a friend who struggles with her TV when things are new or there is a problem. To her, despite my best efforts, the TV is a TV. I have to remind her, without much success, to state what is switched on. Is it the TV that is purely a monitor, the PVR which can receive terrestrial broadcasts, the YouView box that can get terrestrial &/or broadband service, or the HDMI splitter. I gave up trying to educate her, but diagnostic over the phone is a nightmare! Computer problems usually end with "I'm coming over". |
06 Dec 17 - 09:35 AM (#3892420) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Donuel Classically funny. Understanding always helps. Sometimes you have to add something new to get a good grasp of the issue. If all you have is an egg and a fish hook and line to grab the egg you're gonna hafta glue some handles on the egg before you can lift it. To grasp the brain we can measure such handles as electricity, chemical messengers and even light. What if pathways of messages use a means other from what we already know? There is talk that certain structures suggest a quantum component to brain communication. Nano cone like structures are being investigated. |
06 Dec 17 - 09:50 AM (#3892423) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Donuel The cone like structures I mention are actually more tubular but small beyond belief. This is where - resonance - may play a remarkable role in the mystery of consciousness, like music. Does this have a ring of truth to anyone? |
06 Dec 17 - 10:40 AM (#3892435) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Dave the Gnome Which one of you will admit to playing an instrument while riding a bike in heavy traffic then? The bell and the horn feature extensively in cycling :-) DtG |
07 Dec 17 - 03:42 AM (#3892548) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: BobL Not extensively enough on the byways round here - pedestrians need 360-degree vision. |
07 Dec 17 - 04:06 AM (#3892550) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Mr Red There is talk that certain structures suggest a quantum component to brain communication Current thinking has smell as a quantum component. The justification for this is that molecules with quite different constituents can have similar smells, and it is the resonant frequency/harmonics that match. European robins navigate with a magnetic sensor in one eye, reckoned to be quantum in its mechanism. And why do aggressive robins try to peck the eyes of their rivals? I wonder if analysis shows they target just the left (I think). We are coming round to correlating some of these phenomena. DtG LOL. Now gizza a tune will you. Harry Hill has a Xyhornophone type array of honking horns he plays. |
08 Dec 17 - 12:57 PM (#3892837) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Donuel In lay terms I suspect there is a small amount of freedom from the confines of linear time on a quantum level. In other words human consciousness can look forward and backward in time. This really helps when driving even if it is only a second. This may not be unique to humans. Dolphin consciousness is processing much more information than vision and sound and smell. They have larger brains than us possibly because they need to process not just 3D vision but also 3D X-ray like internal vision converted from sound pressure waves. They can see inside us. What music do Dolphins like? Would we like it not knowing the imagery it describes? |
09 Dec 17 - 05:50 AM (#3892939) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: JHW and of course dolphins have the sense just to muck about in the water and have a good time - or was that whales |
09 Dec 17 - 08:24 PM (#3893085) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Gallus Moll not sure if this contribution is appropriate to the discussion -- but I have always preferred to learn by ear, whether a song, tune, poem, script, speech. I find that if I learn from the printed page then I am dependent on it, and if I 'lose' one word or starting phrase of a section or verse - I am stuffed. When I learn by ear - usually by closing my eyes and allowing the sound to wash over me a number of times, not really concentrating of what the words or notes are, just getting the feel of the music, rhythm, the story -- and yes, I see it, either as a series of pictures or as a video. I find that I rarely stumble, my brain seems to find the way through the piece and it just flows without conscious thought. - You have to feel confident in this, not worry about whether it will come or not- but it generally seems to work! Fingers find the notes unconsciously, moth articulates the words from - somewhere, expressing the emotions and events of the song or story. A side effect of this type of learning is that when I am at my creative writing group, and we 'zone out' for a few minutes then are given a topic or stimulus word and have immediately to write for a set length of time -- I never have a problem, always produce a 5 minute or 12 minute of 20 minute piece - and always totally surprise myself as I have no idea what I am going to write, my hand just pushes the pencil and out it flows -- no mind map or structured plan! |
09 Dec 17 - 08:26 PM (#3893086) Subject: RE: Your brain and playing music From: Gallus Moll mouth not moth! |