[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[april15Bendovr]

I am a jazz fusion drummer and I often use both sides of my brain.

The right side is always arguing with the left.

[I still care]

Whenever I take those “right” sided or “left” sided brain tests, I almost always come out exactly even. And yes, I am a musician.

[weegee]

“more effectively use a creative technique called divergent thinking”

Self-induced schizophrenia? I thought they used drugs to attain that state.

[weegee]

“We studied musicians because creative thinking is part of their daily experience”

They certainly are creative when it comes to fabricating their personal histories and defending their stance as being one of the common men when they earn $50million a year.

[april15Bendovr]

You will also find that many great musicians are ambidextrous.

[John Valentine]

Musicians!

I thought the headline said Mexicans. What a disappointment.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[JewishRighter]

I have solid proof this research is totally wrong:

Bruce Springsteen is a musician and obviously doesn’t use either side of his brain at all.

[Daaave]

Very interesting. Made me think of something.

Ambidexterity is often encouraged in activities requiring a great deal of skill in both hands, such as juggling, swimming, percussion or keyboard music, word processing, surgery, body boxing, and combat.

Ambidexterity

I was a swimmer and drummer through HS and college. When I broke my right index finger I decided to learn to use firearms and knives with either hand.

I never understood keyboard music, even with a piano or organ in the house. I never liked to type either, but since PCs came out sometimes I type for hours at a time.

So there's a scientific reason why we are the way we are? It's not all just chance?

[HawaiianGecko]

  What is new in this article?  I've known this since I was in college 40 years ago and it's why I encouraged all four of my kids to learn to play the piano and another instrument of their choice.  They were still dumb as a post from about 14-18 years of age.  That said, after 30+ years as a professional engineer I haven't noticed any of my non musical peers  having any lesser intelligence.

[Blind Eye Jones]

This research is kind of weird because classical musicians are trained like monkeys to read and play music but are not encouraged to be creative (put aside written music) and jam. They are like plumbers laying pipe and it becomes a matter of being routine, where the training kicks in and that is it. They have to give the conductor what he wants but there is no creativity for most of them. In fact, they are scared of it because what they do well is playing other people's written music. They are never encouraged to create at a young age and are tested only on their playing skills. The ones that do create are the heroic ones or the ones too temperamental not to do otherwise. And some of these musicians have emotional issues or problems so that creating music is their only source of solace, next to consuming copious amounts of drugs and alcohol.

Drummers, believe it or not, are suppose to be the smartest of the lot. Some good books to read about this topic are:

“This is Your Brain on Music” by Daniel Levitin and “Music the Brain and Ecstasy” by Robert Jourdain.

[Clock King]

Drug ‘ll do that to your brain.