Creativity and personality in classical, jazz and folk musicians

Benedek, Mathias; Borovnjak, Barbara; Neubauer, Aljoscha C.; Kruse-Weber, Silke

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2014.01.064

Cited by 99 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…The findings are in line with current understanding of the attentional demands of creative idea generation and insight, which propose that inhibition of certain regions, particularly in the left hemisphere, allow for "remoter" associates to be selected, as opposed to more local ones [36,43,44]. Increased alpha activity may therefore be the mechanism by which improvisational jazz musicians perform better on DT tasks than musicians from classical and folk genres [52], as performing jazz music tends to require internally-oriented attention to continuously generate and evaluate musical ideas [53]. The extent to which improvisational training can create long-term, and perhaps domain-general improvements in creativity, is worthy of exploration.…”

Section: Creativity As Remote Associationssupporting

confidence: 83%

Creativity comes in waves: an EEG-focused exploration of the creative brain

Stevens

Zabelina

2019

Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences

111

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Electroencephalographic (EEG) methodology in creativity research has been remarkably fruitful, establishing the potential of EEG to illuminate complex and transient creativity-related neural processes. Here we synthesize recent advances in the field, highlighting empirical work on creativity as divergent thinking, remote associations, musical creativity, and visual imagery. There is a general consensus that alpha-band activity plays a key role in the creative process, though other frequency bands, such as theta and gamma also serve critical functions. We further discuss evidence for electrical stimulation (tDCS and tACS) as a tool for improvements in creative thinking. EEG's high temporal resolution is supremely suitable for studying creative cognition, and studies continuing to yield new and exciting evidence regarding the local and global neural processes underlying creativity.

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Section: Creativity As Remote Associationssupporting

confidence: 83%

Creativity comes in waves: an EEG-focused exploration of the creative brain

Stevens

Zabelina

2019

Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences

111

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“…But divergent thinking also predicted improvisation scores, even after controlling for practice hours. The results of this study and other recent work (e.g., Benedek et al, 2014a;Lewis and Lovatt, 2013) point to a potential overlap between the ability to generate creative ideas in general and the ability of jazz musicians to generate novel musical sequences. Pressing (1988) conceptualized improvisation as the interaction between higher-order referent processes and long-term memory.…”

Section: Improvisation and Domain-general Processessupporting

confidence: 62%

The neuroscience of musical improvisation

Beaty

2015

Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews

183

163

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Researchers have recently begun to examine the neural basis of musical improvisation, one of the most complex forms of creative behavior. The emerging field of improvisation neuroscience has implications not only for the study of artistic expertise, but also for understanding the neural underpinnings of domain-general processes such as motor control and language production. This review synthesizes functional magnetic resonance imagining (fMRI) studies of musical improvisation, including vocal and instrumental improvisation, with samples of jazz pianists, classical musicians, freestyle rap artists, and non-musicians. A network of prefrontal brain regions commonly linked to improvisatory behavior is highlighted, including the pre-supplementary motor area, medial prefrontal cortex, inferior frontal gyrus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and dorsal premotor cortex. Activation of premotor and lateral prefrontal regions suggests that a seemingly unconstrained behavior may actually benefit from motor planning and cognitive control. Yet activation of cortical midline regions points to a role of spontaneous cognition characteristic of the default network. Together, such results may reflect cooperation between large-scale brain networks associated with cognitive control and spontaneous thought. The improvisation literature is integrated with Pressing's theoretical model, and discussed within the broader context of research on the brain basis of creative cognition.

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“…Musical specialization may also be related to cognitive abilities. Benedek and coworkers thus report that jazz musicians score higher than classical musicians on test of divergent thinking . Other studies have, for example, found percussionists to outperform nonpercussionist musicians on timing tasks .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Benedek and coworkers thus report that jazz musicians score higher than classical musicians on test of divergent thinking. 33 Other studies have, for example, found percussionists to outperform nonpercussionist musicians on timing tasks. 34 This suggests that differences in the relative strengths of different musical aptitudes (melody, rhythm, etc.)…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Genetic influences on musical specialization: a twin study on choice of instrument and music genre

Mosing

Ullén

2018

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

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Though several studies show that genetic factors influence individual differences in musical engagement, aptitude, and achievement, no study to date has investigated whether specialization among musically active individuals in terms of choice of instrument and genre is heritable. Using a large twin cohort, we explored whether individual differences in instrument choice, instrument category, and the type of music individuals engage in can entirely be explained by the environment or are partly due to genetic influences. About 10,000 Swedish twins answered an extensive questionnaire about music-related traits, including information on the instrument and genre they played. Of those, 1259 same-sex twin pairs reported to either play an instrument or sing. We calculated the odds ratios (ORs) for concordance in music choices (if both twins played) comparing identical and nonidentical twin pairs, with significant ORs indicating that identical twins are more likely to engage in the same type of music-related behavior than are nonidentical twins. The results showed that for almost all music-related variables, the odds were significantly higher for identical twins to play the same musical instrument or music genre, suggesting significant genetic influences on such music specialization. Possible interpretations and implications of the findings are discussed.

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Creativity and personality in classical, jazz and folk musicians

Cited by 99 publications

References 22 publications

Creativity comes in waves: an EEG-focused exploration of the creative brain

Creativity comes in waves: an EEG-focused exploration of the creative brain

The neuroscience of musical improvisation

Genetic influences on musical specialization: a twin study on choice of instrument and music genre

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