84: Henrik Jensen and David Dolan

We have a very special show today, returning to the show the master classical improviser Professor David Dolan, from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Also joining the program is Professor Henrik Jensen, from the Department of Mathematics at the Imperial College of London. He leads the Centre for Complexity Science, which engages in a range of research into the applied and fundamental aspects of complexity science.

For today’s show, we’ll be diving into the fascinating collaborative research that my two guests have doing for the last 10 years, involving studying the brain with improvised and non-improvised music and how it functions during each activity, quantifying improvisatory behavior, improvisation and communication between brains.

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1:13 How did you come up with the idea of the project? 2:35 Talking about levels of synchronization 4:43 Deriving information from the EEGs 7:01 Were the musicians from Guildhall? 7:36 Talking about the instrumentation of the players 7:51 Did you need a harmonic player like a harpist to provide structure? 8:55 Talking about the selection of the music 10:55 Million dollar question: Is the brain radically different between improvising and non-improvising musicians? 13:09 What does the index mean? 14:06 Talking about the Strict phase and the Let Go phase 17:02 In the Strict phase, was the music sight read or memorized? 18:12 How is memory different between the two phases? 19:11 Talking about sustained attention 22:58 Is the brain being used more when improvising or less, is the brain more relaxed during improvising? 25:46 Discussing levels of comfort and familiarity with improvisation? 27:20 The difference in brain function in the speed of the improvisation 31:26 What is happening when the brain is undergoing a “magic moment”? 32:39 Did you tell the audience that the improvisation was a secret? 33:07 Talking about the listener’s experience during improvisation and non-improvisation 34:42 The Let Go portion had more interest in the listeners 35:29 If you could re-do the experiment with unlimited funding, what would you do? 36:48 If you had told the audience there was improvisation, would it have affected their answers? 38:19 Is the idea that Strict a left brain thing and Let Go a right brain thing a myth? 39:52 Is it just more fun to improvise? 41:53 What can you recommend people check out to follow up on this research? 45:21 Any other key takeaways from this research that we should mention? 46:30 What hypotheses do you suspect are the possible conclusions of this research? 49:37 Wrapping Up