This doesn't surprise me. Neuroscientists have known for a long time that people who think musically are spatial thinkers. The difference between spatial and non-spatial thinkers is, of course, based on the ability to perceive the world differently and navigate that difference successfully. If you've ever seen someone playing music and that person seems to "go away" or claims that something comes over them and all of a sudden it's "just the music coming through me", you've witnessed these people mentally leaving this physical reality and traversing a realm where shapes have sounds and distance is measured in half notes.
I've written about Gerhardt and studying jazz guitar with him, and that sometimes he'll go away and I'm doing all I can to keep up. I started playing clarinet when I was a kid and playing music has come and gone in my life over the years. Now it's back. Every once in a while I'll sit at our piano and just start playing. Susan will come in, wait until I'm back in my body and say, "That was beautiful. What was it?"
I'll answer "Dang, didn't you record it?"
In Gaelic, this spatial thinking is called "Bhlas" and pronounced "vlas". You have the bhlas when you stop playing brilliant technically and start making and repeating brilliant mistakes. You make these mistakes because you're moving through a space that's defined differently. They're called "mistakes" because they don't fit what you were taught to play but in fact, they sound good.
Couple of times over the past few weeks I've sat with my guitar and just played to discover myself walking in a land I'd never felt before, a geometry of music that is easy to understand only if you're willing to let go enough to get there.
You know, I was going to link this back to some NextStage research or an article I'd published. But hey, if you don't mind, I think I'll just go play...
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
I'll be speaking at the San Francisco April '07 Emetrics Summit on Quantifying and Optimizing the Human Side of Online Marketing on May 7, 2007. Come on by and say hello.
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