Do you have a soundtrack to your life?

This morning as I was driving through to Media Village to teach I was listening to John Mayer's new album "Battle Studies" and thinking how much the song "I'm in the war of my life" reminds me of events of the last two months with Courtney's diagnosis, surgery and recovery.

I remember Paulo Nutini's "These streets" had a similar emotional effect when Liam was born and I was driving through to the Pretoria East hospital to see him in the neonatal ICU for three months. Whenever I hear that song the emotion floods back.

When Megan and got married (17 years ago) we had a tape of Van Morrison in the car - the song "Brown eyed girl" was the soundtrack for our honeymoon in the Drakensberg. Such special memories!

A few years ago I was blessed to have a chance to visit Sydney Australia for the Hillsong conference - one of the highlights of my life! That "Hillsong United" album is also so special to me! It can draw me closer to God in just a few bars.

Depeche Mode, Bauhaus, the Clash, the Jam, the Specials, the Sex Pistols... These were the bands of my youth - I still have a few MP3's from these bands on my iPod.

So, I wanted to ask what some of the bands and songs are that have formed the 'Soundtrack to your life'? Leave a comment, share some memories. I'd love to hear about you!

Scanning the brains of jazz musicians.

This research shows that Jazz musicians 'switch off' (or at least slow down) parts of their brains - I know a few first year students who have the capacity to do the same thing! Ha ha.

Seriously, this is quite interesting. Since Jazz requires the capacity to move outside of the confines of what is generally acceptable in the composition music (through the inclusion of 'blue notes', crossing octaves, combining irregular timing etc. in the composition). I'm sure that there are many other things that require a similar capacity (e.g., surgeons who deal with the gore of cutting up a human body, social workers who face the brutality of human frailty and economic subjugation in their clients, sex workers who have to perform unnatural acts for survival, ministers who are constantly faced with crises, deaths, and sorrow, oh and of course Justin Timberlake fans.... say no more).

I thought this was quite interesting.

According to new research, jazz musicians unconsciously switch off regions of the brain involved in self-censorship and firing up the area linked to self-expression. The scientists from Johns Hopkins University and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communications Disorders used fMRI to scan the brains of jazz musicians as they played a specially-designed piano keyboard. From a press release:

The scientists found that a region of the brain known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, a broad portion of the front of the brain that extends to the sides, showed a slowdown in activity during improvisation. This area has been linked to planned actions and self-censoring, such as carefully deciding what words you might say at a job interview. Shutting down this area could lead to lowered inhibitions, Limb suggests.

The researchers also saw increased activity in the medial prefrontal cortex, which sits in the center of the brain’s frontal lobe. This area has been linked with self-expression and activities that convey individuality, such as telling a story about yourself.

“Jazz is often described as being an extremely individualistic art form. You can figure out which jazz musician is playing because one person’s improvisation sounds only like him or her,” says (professor Charles) Limb. “What we think is happening is when you’re telling your own musical story, you’re shutting down impulses that might impede the flow of novel ideas.”

Link to press release, Link to scientific paper in Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE (via Michael Leddy's Orange Crate Art)

Technorati tags: neuroscience, the human brain, control