Jazz mind

What do you see when you slide a jazz musician inside an MRI scanner?

Which areas of their brain sparkle when they start improvising on a keyboard? Which areas quieten down?

It’s the areas of the brain associated with focused attention, inhibition and self-censoring that slow down. It’s as if the brain turns off its own ability to criticize itself.

While improvising, jazz musicians do the opposite of consciously identifying errors and correcting them.

They roll with them. They fuse them into something new.

They don’t look for what’s right or what’s wrong.

They go with the flow.