This is your brain on improvisation

I'm your host Casey Finney and this is Creative Conversation, a fast company podcast. It may come as no surprise that improvisation is seen as some kind of holy grail for creativity and in many ways that's not too off the mark. Whether it's comedians, musicians, writers, the act of creating something new and interesting out of next to nothing is quite remarkable. But what exactly is going on inside an improvising brain and how can we apply that kind of creativity in our everyday life? My name is Charles Lim. I'm the French-Isoui professor of Odeaux-Larongology, head next surgery at the University of California, San Francisco, where I run the Coquit implant programs and the Sound of Music perception lab as well as being the chief of autology, neuroatology and skull-based surgery. He's also a jazz exophonist. One of the key tenants of jazz is improvisation, right? Making the music on paper to elevate it in unexpected heights. So Dr. Lim became curious, what do the brains of jazz musicians look like as they're creating their art on the fly? Using an FMI machine, Dr. Lim found that activity in the medial prefrontal cortex shot up while activity in the lateral prefrontal cortex plummeted. In short, and for all the laypeople out there including myself, that means that the area of the brain responsible for self-monitoring shut off while the area for self-expression lit up during improvisation. But how does that play out when you're not stuck in an FMI machine? I think when you're learning an instrument and playing a score, for example, sheet music, you're so concerned with playing things correctly and following this kind of roadmap that's in front of you that that really becomes the task. It's almost like an obstacle course. It's like, how well can you do this task? And I kind of felt like that process was very rule oriented. It was very particular, very specific. And in a way, there was no real freedom in any of it. And then when I would switch to playing something that was primarily improvisation, I kind of felt myself in a way, suspending all of those concerns. And then trying to instead think about, well, who am I, right? Who am I, music week? Is there a way for me to represent myself what I think, what I feel, what I care about in the notes I'm wearing a shoes? And when you're first doing it, it feels very clumsy. And then I think what happens is, as you get more technique and you get more comfortable and maybe as you get older, it starts to feel more authentic. And then you start to believe that you're actually representing yourself musically. And at some point, you feel like, ah, not only am I coming up with something new, I like what I'm playing. And then I think that I think that I think that I'm going to be able to do it. And then I think that I'm going to be able to do it. Yes, now I think that's exactly right. So when you are doing something that is, you know, as I say, a very complex memorized task and their whole focus is on getting it right, I think a whole different set of brain mechanisms coming to play that are immediately by the prefrontal cortex, which is this kind of effortful planning and conscious self-evaluation of the accuracy or appropriateness of your output. And so constantly your brain is checking itself, like, was that right? Was that right? I'm doing this right? And there's a sort of like template that you're trying to adhere to, this ideal template, and then a comparison with what's actually going on versus that template. And so that process, I think, has its very own distinct neural signature. And then when you switch, when you start improvising, at least on the basis of some of the science experiments we've done, most of the very high level players, I'm talking about professional musicians, we see a generalized shutdown of a lot of these conscious self-monitoring areas when they start improvising. And that's saying that the brain turns off. I'm saying that they're less active during improvisation than during memorization, what we call as a relative deactivation. It's actually lower than compared to baseline rest period. So there's this idea that the amount of blood flow that's going to these areas of the brain during these creative times, or these sort of flow states, if you will, have a relative shutdown of these conscious self-monitoring effortful planning areas of the brain. And I think that's sort of, in a way, the letting go. Subjectively, I think that's the kind of neural correlate of this letting go. A big part of improvisation, really, the only part that matters in some regard, is letting go of your inhibitions. But that's like telling someone who's not the best swimmer in the world to just get over it and jump into the deep end anyway. It's easier said than done. So how do you make it easy so you can actually do it? Professional jazz musician might have a few pointers, more on that after the break. Hey, so we're back talking about the link between improvisation and creativity. We know that when we're improvising, there's some kind of dissonance in the areas of our brain that are responsible for self-monitoring and self-expression. And what that basically boils down to is us becoming less inhibited, which is harder than it seems at times. Just ask New York-based jazz pianist and composer Lawrence Fields. You know, I feel like it kind of happens in stages. I feel like it's not like one day you wake up and you're like, "This is it today." I'm letting go. I'm in my space. I have no fear. I'm ready to go. You know what I mean? So it's like you kind of go a little bit, you know, it's like doing anything. Like if you're a kid and you're learning to ride a bike, you're not going to instantly be two or three friends. First you're like, "Can I stay balanced?" And maybe you have a parent to be like, "Yeah, you can do it. Maybe you fall a couple of times or something. You figure it out." And then you're like, "Okay, I'm balanced now. Can I go fast?" So yeah, I feel like it's a continual process. And the thing about it that's interesting is that you never really know where your limit is in any specific area. And so you can get over one fear and then end up confronting another fear and you feel like you're back at square one. And so one of the things that's actually really helped me is learning other things. I like the feeling of starting something new because it reminds you what it was like. And a lot of times once you learn something, you forget how bad you were at it. You forget what your fears were. You forget emotionally what it was like for you to start. And so by constantly starting new things, even just things I like, like learning to play a video game or something. And specifically choosing things that I know are challenging for me and overcoming that, that kind of constantly makes me familiar with what it feels like. And so then going back to music, when I do that, it makes me feel more comfortable. Sort of like in stages, opening up to the possibility that I could go another step. What is good improvisation feel like for you? Like when do you feel like you're just on? I mean, it feels amazing when it happens. It's almost like, you know, like when people talk about being in the zone or whatever, almost like, you know, if you had a day and you were bowling at all of a sudden, you're just throwing strikes and whatever. It's really an amazing feeling because you feel perfectly aligned between what you feel and what's coming out of your instrument. And that is really something that's hard to describe, but it just, it feels effortless. And it usually happens during those moments when you're thinking of least. And I think that's another thing that's tricky for people in creative pursuits, is figuring out how to cultivate a space where you're as close to that as possible, as much as possible. That's exactly why I was asking. Because I think that it's, I was going to ask, I mean, is there a way to duplicate that feeling? Like once you've isolated, like this is what it feels like, or is it folly to duplicate that? Because in a way, you're almost like systematizing your creativity, which I think can lead to not being creative. Exactly. How do you reach that point again? Like what is that for you in terms of like you know what good improvisation feels like? You know that you felt, you felt it, you were hot, you were on it. How do you get it again? So this is one of those things where, you know, and this is another thing that's actually kind of helped me to learn in the rest of my life is. There are a lot of things that are not one thing or the other. It's just a great space somewhere in the middle. You know, it's impossible to say, well, it's this, it's this, definitely not. And so we tend to kind of want to fit ourselves into a bag to say, okay, how do I do this? Is it this or it's this? Right. All right, it's the left one. All right, let's go left. And so to be good at a creative pursuit, you really have to be comfortable with hanging in this indeterminate space in the middle. And you know, it's exactly that you have to figure out how to manage something that you can't complete the image. Right. But the key is not giving up on it because you can't completely control it. So you say, okay, well, what can I control? Can I do things to put myself in a space of being comfortable? A lot of that happens in practice. It's kind of like fine tuning your retinas and athlete, right? It's practice is not the same as the game. But eventually you figure out how to practice in a way where you're duplicating some kind of movement or some kind of condition that you're going to find in the actual game. Right. And so I think mentally, it's critically important in practice to be able to manage that. And to figure out for yourself, what are the things that help you to line there? It could just be basic physical stuff like being rested or clearing your mind beforehand. It could be really specific things like envisioning the environment that you're going to be in. for people who have stage fright and things like that, confronting that emotionally. So I think there are a lot of different parts to it. But the key is, again, just learning to say, "Okay, I know I can't completely control this, but let me figure out the part of it that I can control to help myself become from boving in a space." And also, because it's collaborative, it depends on the people you're around. Definitely. You can play with some people and be completely inspired. You can play with other people and be completely uninspired. And it's not because, you know, it's a right or wrong in general. It's just that's what works for you. Of course. And so also, you know, for any great improviser, you'll find that usually they found the group of people that they were really comfortable with who kind of helped them get to that place. And that's actually a really good point that you brought up because in this conversation of improvisation, I think, yes, it's absolutely collaborative. When you're on stage with, you know, your quartet or your sextet, whatever it might be. But I also think that it helps in, say, like an office setting, like where, you know, we always hear about the power of teamwork, which, you know, as cynical as I am, it is true. I mean, I can't do this podcast on my own channel, too, Victoria. That's so nice. But I think that for you, I mean, how has that been navigating that space of knowing where your voice fits in in this larger group, in this larger picture, and letting other people shine, letting you take a message of how, how do you make sure that, because if everybody's improvising, then, you know, it can be kind of like a mess. But it's like everyone talking at the same time. Exactly. So how do you, how do you learn to navigate that? Oh, in improvisation and collaboration. I think a lot of it comes from precedent at the start, you know, it's hard to learn to have a good conversation unless you listen to other people have great conversations. And so I think that's one of the things that's really critical about improvisation, really about anything creative, is how much of it comes from what came before. And so, you know, sometimes when people improvise, they feel like they're under pressure to just make something up. And to be creative in general, you know, a lot of times we feel like we just need to be in a space and spring something forth, you know, and a lot of times when we do whatever our first big creative work is, we don't realize that the reason that it comes so naturally is because you're building on all these things that you saw for your life leading up to that point. And so I think it's important to consistently kind of replenish that, you know, listening to other people and observing how they interact and also taking note of when someone does something that's really supportive, right? You know, so just listening to other people play, listening to musicians and saying, "Oh man, like when this one person did this and this other person did this, that really, it really sort of led to a synergy between what they were doing and it really helped that person get to where they were going." So I think just on the sort of the technical side of it, you know, there's a lot of observation of what this person do to be really supportive and how can I support someone else that way. Then the other side of it is just personality management, you know, like self-reflection, you know? It is, but people play like they are. Yeah. And if you can't manage yourself emotionally, if you have ego issues, you always want to be in the live light, you can't listen to anyone else or make room for anyone else, that's how you're going to play. Can't deem so much. We just turned it to like a self-help podcast. I love it. You were so professional. That was absolutely true. You have to figure out your own hang-ups. It's true. Before you play nights with others. It's true. And I have had nights where you could be, you could be emotionally offered some other reason. Yeah. You know, like some other stuff happened. You have, you know, bond-picked for whatever reason. And it affects your playing because you're like, "Man, I really got to say what I want to say." You know? Like, I want people to notice me tonight. Right. You really have to actually manage that stuff and say, "All right. Like, am I being selfish here? You know, should I take a look at myself and just take a step back and make sure that I'm fitting in to everything, you know?" Now, I'm sure that there might be some people out there who think that they have no aptitude for improvisation at all. You may think it's something for the quote, unquote, creative people and you yourself can't drink from that holy grail of creativity. Well, me and a neuroscientist are here to tell you that you're selling yourself short. Here's Dr. Lim again. Now, you don't have to be a world-class musician to understand this. So for example, everybody knows how to talk, right? And I think there's a big difference. If I told you to memorize this speech and give me that speech perfectly versus just have a conversation, I think you'll see right away, "Oh, that's a different activity." And giving the speech all of a sudden, even though you know how to talk, there's always rules in the way you have to get this right to get that right and you're very concerned about getting it wrong. And that's very different than saying, "You know what? I'm going to forget about the speech, and I'm just going to speak." And so that's why I think what you see called the speakers, people that are reading a memorized thing have a certain lack. It doesn't come across as well. In most cases, somebody who's just speaking naturally. And think about a conversation that you have. I mean, whenever you ever had a scripted conversation, right? Unless you're an actor, just as a patent. And so what you have in conversation is a spontaneously-generated interaction. And so I would say that all of us have experience in everyday life, you know, driving home from work. You know, you're improvising your way home. And so there's a lot of everyday forms of so-called creativity that take place where you're doing problem-solving and situational contextual problem-solving to basically get you through your day. And so I think that the way you can kind of translate that to this feeling of an artistic version of it is to know that artists are not born suddenly improvising high level jazz. They practice. They get there, right? They're taking those same brain correlates that we all use in lower levels of creativity. And they're just refining it. They're training it to the extreme so that they can do very, very complex, amazing things eventually. And to me, that lesson has been critical that every artist that's what we do is talk about the importance of practicing. That just started out happening with us. They had to develop. And in a way, you get more comfortable with the process of being creative by doing it more. And so I think using your creative facilities is the best way to develop them and bring them out. So let's review. Improvisation is something that occurs in our brain when the area that controls self-monitoring shuts down while the area controlling self-expression lights up. Which means that your inhibitions are down and you're able to create and express yourself without fear of being wrong. But as we know, things are far easier said than done. Outside of just telling you to get over it and just do it, try starting a new project. It doesn't have to be a huge endeavor, just any small hobby or exercise that's outside of what you already know. Learning a new skill as small as it is can remind you of what creativity and improvisation feels like when you're two in the weeds with what you're doing already. Also, improvisation requires you to relinquish control and it's not something that's always going to have your desired outcome. You have to be okay with practicing and working in that gray space of uncertainty before you finally reach a state of creative enlightenment. And if you still feel like improvisation is something you can't do, remember that you do it every day from navigating your way to work to having even just a simple conversation. That's improvisation. Start taking notice of those small moments throughout your day and build on them. Find a way to tap into that every day improvisation because even something small could spark major creativity. Thanks for listening to Creative Conversation. Be sure to subscribe to Creative Conversation wherever you listen to your podcasts. And if you like what you're hearing on this podcast, don't forget to rate and review. We always love hearing your feedback. I'm your host KC be finding.