Ongoing History: Getting in the musical zone
We’ve all had the experience of being in The Zone, times when we’re so deep into whatever we’re doing the world around us just disappears. Some people call this super-focused attention and enjoyment “flow.” Neuroscientists are really, really interested in how and why our brains enter this state.
One way they’ve been studying flow is by observing musicians as they improvise. These players, through practice and experience, can just “let it go,” allowing for specialized brain networks to operate without a lot of conscious thought. Wiring up these musicians to EEG machines, researchers discovered that the flow state lives in the left hemisphere of the brain in regions that deal with auditory processing and tactile senses. When activated, other parts of the brain that deal with conscious control dial down, allowing for intuition and feel to take over.
More work needs to be done, but this is another example of how music can help unravel the mysteries of that squishy stuff in our skulls.
