
The brains of jazz and classical pianists work differently - dnetesn
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-01-miles-davis-mozart-brains-jazz.html
======
asdffdsa321
I really dislike these kinds of headlines not because they are obvious (jazz
and classical require different kinds of thinking), but because they make it
easy to jump to the conclusion that the ability to play classical or jazz or
xyz is dependent on the physical nature of the brain. From there all sorts of
erroneous arguments stem from the "fact" that "oh I'm just not wired to play
xyz"instead of the reality that it takes consistent work in a style to
understand that style better. Basically the whole nature vs nurture argument,
except that people tend to worry about nature rather than work on nurture.

~~~
hmahncke
It seems likely (to me, as a neuroscientist who studies learning and brain
plasticity) that the ability to play classical or jazz or xyz (at very high
levels) is dependent on the physical nature of the brain. But you get the
brain you build through practice (nurture), not the brain you were born with
(nature). The consistent work in a style to understand that style better is
what wires a person's brain to play xyz.

But I agree that the article could be written to point out that nurture, not
nature, is the cause of these neurobiological observations.

~~~
tsumnia
Would you happen to have any literature on practice in Computer Science? I've
read through most of Ericsson's work on deliberate practice but would love to
find more. My PhD research is on examining the benefit of different CS
exercises used for teaching

~~~
Darmani
Woah, please share. I'm really interested in seeing your research.

~~~
tsumnia
I'm still very new into my research but I have a link to my current research
platform in my profile.

------
stuffedBelly
> For them it is about playing pieces perfectly regarding their technique and
> adding personal expression. Therefore, the choice of fingering is crucial.
> Jazz pianists, on the other hand, concentrate on the "What". They are always
> prepared to improvise and adapt their playing to create unexpected harmonies

I minored in music at college and studied both jazz and classical
composition/theories. One key takeaway I had from my education is that notes
that may considered to be dissonant in classical music are in many cases
acceptable in jazz, given the chordal context and how a player chooses to
resolve it as progression goes.

I'd even expand a bit further and say that not only musician's brains work
differently, but also brain activities of the audiences might differ when
listening to jazz and classical pieces. Typically a classical audience might
be a bit uncomfortable hearing a dissonant note and treat it as a "wrong note"
while a jazz audience might think a dissonant note as being temporarily "out
of box" to create tension and expect it to be resolved later.

~~~
beat
(Improvising musician porkpie hat on)

 _All_ music based on western harmony is about dissonance. Or more to the
point, the movement of dissonance to consonance, tension to resolution. I once
had an excellent lesson that explained it to me. Movement around the Circle of
Fifths is a measure of increasing tension - each step becoming increasingly
dissonant, until you hit the halfway point (the tritone) and start resolving
back toward consonance.

So even a simple fifth is "dissonant". It creates tension and demands
resolution. It's not perceived as "dissonant" because it is "normal". It's
only when you push out of the listener's comfort zones that it becomes weird
and wrong. In other words, the perception of dissonance isn't musical, it's
cultural.

Jazz music pushes harmonic dissonance a lot farther than "classical" does, so
jazz listeners are much more accustomed to it. It doesn't sound wrong to hear
tritones, or minor seconds, or diminished and altered triads, or stacked
fourths. Dissonance is welcomed and encouraged. Even resolutions are often
decorated with dissonance.

~~~
yesenadam
>Jazz music pushes harmonic dissonance a lot farther than "classical" does

Not sure why you say that. Except you're imagining Mozart vs free jazz or
something. Both musics have pushed dissonance pretty much all the way.

By "a simple fifth" do you mean e.g. the note G in the key of C major?
(depends what harmony exactly) or C and G played together with no harmony,
or..

And when you say a simple fifth is "dissonant", do you mean it's dissonant, or
"dissonant" (i.e. not dissonant)? So, theoretically dissonant, but not really?

I once lived with someone who listened to no 15 (I think it was) of Messiaen's
_20 Glimpses of the Infant Jesus_ constantly. It's very slow, nothing but
super-weird chords. After a few minutes there's a major triad, which sounds
_sooo_ weird, like a super-weird chord. So.. that makes "the perception of
dissonance isn't musical, it's cultural" not sound exactly right either.

It demands resolution? In what way? Like what? You need to hear a root note
after it?

>It doesn't sound wrong to hear tritones

Like in a G7 chord?

>or stacked fourths

The jazz originators of this called it a Ravel voicing.

~~~
beat
I put "classical" in quotes for a reason - I meant baroque/romantic kinds of
classical music. Mozart, if you will. Listen to Charles Ives, and you'll hear
dissonance as challenging as anything in jazz.

And yes, theoretical vs actual dissonance. All note combinations but unison
are dissonant to some degree. C and G, played together, are more dissonant
than C and C, but not as dissonant as, say, C and B together (which is also
why there's some piquant clanginess in a maj7 chord, despite its lush sound).

Also yes, in the right harmonic context, a major triad can sound really weird.
But being major isn't itself proof against dissonance. If you're in D major, a
D# major triad is going to sound very dissonant. "Perception of dissonance is
cultural" is a generalization, I'll admit, but it's a good one. What sounds
terrible to ears accustomed to Pachabel is merely juicy to ears that dig
Ellington.

------
dharma1
No huge surprises here - classical training focuses on playing a piece exactly
as the notation goes + personality on tone, emphasis of notes, tempo. When
playing a classical piece (in typical classical training) you don't generally
start dicking around reharmonising it, changing voicings or playing an
improvised solo.

Jazz charts (and training focus) looks very different - basic chord structure
and the main melody is written down, everything else is up to you - chord
voicings, on-the-fly reharmonisation, improvised solos. It's a different type
of training and thinking.

Of course these are the "textbook" or cliche interpretations of classical and
jazz music. Classical and jazz are very broad, ultimately meaningless terms,
and many musicians have experience playing a wide variety of music.

~~~
uf
I think you are oversimplifying this.

Many classically trained pianists are excellent at improvisation. Wagner,
Beethoven, Mozart were respected pianists. Wagner wrote the Hollander by
improvising on the piano reciting the lyrics. Beethoven was feared by other
pianists for his level of skill at improvisation. Mozart improvised most of
his piano sonatas as far as I remember.

Gould made a recording of Strauss songs I think. The singer said in an
interview, that Gould just started to improvise in Strauss' style and
harmonics (Strauss is pretty damn difficult).

Contemporary pianists often know both. Anecdotal evidence: A colleague of mine
from music university studied classical piano and was a regular at jazz clubs
in Dusseldorf.

It is very interesting to see differences in brain structure from classical to
jazz pianists. Maybe a hint at how (muscle-)memory and motion planning is
stored? A hint at how volatile brain structure is? It would be interesting to
see, if e.g. a classically trained pianist switching to jazz exclusively also
has a significant restructuring of his brain.

Edit: Now that I've read the article and the abstract of the paper (the paper
is behind Elsevier's paywall), I understand that jazz pianists are quicker at
planning new movements (a.k.a. Chord progressions) with the downside of making
making more mistakes, while classically trained pianists are slower here, but
faster at recognizing and repeating unlearned ("unusual") finger movements.

Would be interesting to see a comparison to pianists doing both jazz and
classical music.

~~~
uf
And as my top poster dharma noted: Jazz and "classical music" share many
similarities. Definitely true. Think of Scriabin piano somata No 5 written in
1907. Or even go back to Beethoven No 32, 2nd movement.

~~~
ta76567656
When I first heard that Beethoven part you're referring to, I literally got up
to check what CD I had in the player:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCgwYl-W4ts&t=14m22s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCgwYl-W4ts&t=14m22s)

------
hathawsh
I especially appreciate pianists who seem to bridge this divide. Jon Schmidt
of the Piano Guys seems to be able to fluidly combine classical style and jazz
improvisation in the same song. Check this out:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZPSV78iQxg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZPSV78iQxg)

I saw them perform the song live and he (they) really did switch styles
without missing a beat.

~~~
joebergeron
If anyone is interested in exploring this style of music in more depth, I
recommend looking into "Third Stream" music. It's meant to be a sort of fluid
combination of both jazz and classical styles, and is often pretty
interesting. There's a whole lot of things that third stream music /isn't/
(and famously, a list that attempts to define the genre in terms of what it's
/not/ supposed to be), and as such, many people who try to write third
streammusic end up creating music that's a lot less subtle.

It's not really my cup of tea (more of a jazz guy), probably because there
isn't a huge repertoire of third stream music out there, but it's definitely
worth checking out if you think you might be interested.

------
hprotagonist
Famously, violinists have over-represented left hand non-thumb fingers in
right motor cortex:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18028115](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18028115)

Plasticity is normal.

~~~
Meerax
Conservatory grad here. I used to joke with fellow music majors when one of us
would do something particularly clumsy that it was very ironic since we were
essentially majoring in hand-eye coordination. This study is news to me, thank
you for sharing.

~~~
jawilson2
Hmm...but most of the required fine dexterity is in your non-dominant hand. I
wonder if some right-handed brain real estate is being repurposed for your
left hand (if you are a righty).

~~~
hmahncke
Right brain controls left hand (the brain brain is weird that way) so the
dexterity required for fingering in the left hand is governed by plasticity
and over-representation in the right brain.

~~~
jawilson2
Right, but there is also a lot of evidence (or at least it looked like there
would be when I was in the field 5+ years ago), that it isn't that simple, and
there is also considerable ipsilateral motor control in the cortex as well.
This would make sense for activities that require coordination between both
hands, so that, in the motor cortex, we wouldn't have the case where "the
right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing." So, if there is MORE
coordination required than in a typical cortex, maybe non-coordinated tasks
become clumsier? I have no idea. Maybe musical people tend to spend less time
doing non-musical athletic things, and aren't as graceful? Maybe both, or
something else? Sounds like a cool imaging project for a neuroscience or BME
grad student.

------
randomdrake
Study: Musical genre-dependent behavioural and EEG signatures of action
planning. A comparison between classical and jazz pianists

Citation: Bianco, R., Novembre, G., Keller, P.E., Villringer, A., Sammler, D.,
Musical genre-dependent behavioural and EEG signatures of action planning. A
comparison between classical and jazz pianists, NeuroImage (2018).

Link:
[https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.12.058](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.12.058)

DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.12.058

Abstract: It is well established that musical training induces sensorimotor
plasticity. However, there are remarkable differences in how musicians train
for proficient stage performance. The present EEG study outlines for the first
time clear-cut neurobiological differences between classical and jazz
musicians at high and low levels of action planning, revealing genre-specific
cognitive strategies adopted in production. Pianists imitated chord
progressions without sound that were manipulated in terms of harmony and
context length to assess high-level planning of sequence-structure, and in
terms of the manner of playing to assess low-level parameter specification of
single acts. Jazz pianists revised incongruent harmonies faster as revealed by
an earlier reprogramming negativity and beta power decrease, hence
neutralising response costs, albeit at the expense of a higher number of
manner errors. Classical pianists in turn experienced more conflict during
incongruent harmony, as shown by theta power increase, but were more ready to
implement the required manner of playing, as indicated by higher accuracy and
beta power decrease. These findings demonstrate that specific demands and
action focus of training lead to differential weighting of hierarchical action
planning. This suggests different enduring markers impressed in the brain when
a musician practices one or the other style.

Highlights:

• Real-time imitation of piano chord sequences with unexpected harmony or
manner.

• Genre-specific strategies at high (harmony) and low (manner) levels of
planning.

• Jazz pianists revised harmony faster (earlier negativity) at the cost of
manner.

• Classical pianists had conflict in harmony (frontal theta) but excelled in
manner.

• Focus of practice may cause enduring brain marks at different action control
levels.

------
tunesmith
My college degree was in classical piano, while I've mostly emphasized pop and
jazz since then. I honestly don't really understand the study they're writing
about here, but I have to say I don't really identify with Keith Jarret's
quote here. Jazz is just another way to do music and it requires a different
way of thinking, but I've never really looked at it as requiring any kind of
"rewiring" or context shift.

In general when playing classical I miss the playfulness and individuality of
jazz, and when playing lead sheets I miss the narrative sweep of classical
music. At least with my pop songwriting I can try to bring in a little of
both.

~~~
dahart
> Jazz is just another way to do music and it requires a different way of
> thinking, but I've never really looked at it as requiring any kind of
> "rewiring" or context shift.

They're using overly dramatic language like "rewiring" to talk about a
different way of thinking. Of course it's a different way of thinking,
classical is performance, and jazz is improv. Nobody would be surprised if
they said that doing dishes vs differentiating polynomials used different
parts of the brain, but somehow it's supposed to be news that classical and
jazz music do.

~~~
cma
>They're using overly dramatic language like "rewiring" to talk about a
different way of thinking.

I don't see the word rewiring or rewire anywhere in the article.

~~~
dahart
Thanks, yes, the article doesn't use that word specifically. I quoted the
parent comment. The article, and especially the headline, does use somewhat
misleading language (as both @tunesmith's comment and the very top comment
here is pointing out, among others) that is trying to imply that the brains of
these two types of musicians is fundamentally different, e.g., "their brains
started to replan the actions faster than classical pianists" and "their
brains showed stronger awareness of the fingering". The language is implying a
rewiring, and objectifying the brains of different musicians as being static
and responsible for the difference, rather than talking about the plasticity
of the human brain and the learned differences between wildly different tasks.

------
itaris
This makes sense, one is far more focused on precise articulation of a
prepared score, while the other is focused (in large part) on improvisation.

~~~
wickawic
I would also say that in Jazz the rhythm of the music plays an outsized role
as compared to classical. If you don’t “swing”* you can’t play with anyone and
certainly can’t play jazz. On the other hand, classical musicians care about
dynamics and tone in a way that doesn’t register wth Jazz musicians. Neither
way is better, but they are almost like opposite approaches to music.

*By swing I mean more than just syncopate with the rest of the band. “To swing” in a jazz context means to be able to play exactly in time with the rest of the band, except when you don’t (but you are in control). A very confused concept, read wikipedia for more info.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_(jazz_performance_styl...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_\(jazz_performance_style\))

~~~
itaris
Very true that rhythm plays a huge role in jazz.

Although, I'm not sure that I agree that dynamics and tone aren't as important
in jazz.

~~~
beat
Tone isn't _that_ important in jazz. Hence, the importance of the saxophone,
an instrument rightly reviled in classical music for mostly sounding awful.

I'm only half joking here. I'm a guitarist, and was having a conversation with
a trumpet-playing friend once. I was talking about the technical struggle of
legato playing at speed, something hard for trumpet players as well, but easy
for saxophones. My friend was like "Yeah, but they have to play the
saxophone". Few players can get a beautiful sound out of it, and only after
years of struggle. Brass and guitars, on the other hand, have naturally
beautiful tone, and are easy to get to sound nice.

The importance of melody over tone, and the melodic advantages of the
saxophone, explain its popularity in jazz.

~~~
yesenadam
You don't like the sound of saxophones? Wow. Well, everyone has their own
sound on saxophone, 'the sound of saxophones' doesn't mean much.

Not sure why you think trumpet is vastly easier to get a beautiful sound from
than saxophone. That's silly.

The importance of melody over tone? Wow, never heard of that. All you say
sounds like you are judging jazz by classical (I imagine) criteria, and of
course it doesn't do well.

~~~
wickawic
Saxaphone is 'reviled' in classical music because its tone is very crunchy and
uneven compared to most of the other instruments of the band. I think in tone
it is pretty similar to the bassoon, but even a chunky, honky instrument like
the bassoon is very smooth compared to sax. Bassoon 'sings'[1], saxaphone
'yells'[2]. Given that, sax has very little place in a classical setting
because it doesn't have that bell-tone or sine-wave sound that most other
classical instruments try to achieve.

[1] [https://youtu.be/cKBrnjxlKgU?t=34](https://youtu.be/cKBrnjxlKgU?t=34)

[2] [https://youtu.be/pGaUlferotY?t=59](https://youtu.be/pGaUlferotY?t=59)

~~~
cma
Unvarying unvarying belltone or sine wave sound would be more appropriate for
something focused only on melody and not on tone, which is the opposite of
OP's point. Sax tone has a lot of variability and control.

~~~
beat
The melodic advantages of the saxophone are mechanical, not tonal. For
example, to play a scale fragment on saxophone, one need only move fingers,
while continuing to blow, creating a smooth, legato sound that can be done
very fast. Contrast with guitar, where a note must be fretted and then picked,
two separate motions that are difficult to coordinate. Smooth legato playing
at high speed is extremely hard. Trumpets have a similar problem, tonguing
notes to make changes.

And yes, saxophones have a great deal of tonal expressiveness available,
especially once overblowing is brought into play. It's just not _pretty_ tonal
expressiveness, compared to other instruments.

~~~
cma
You can still do legato on guitar:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTI2s4svE2s&t=1m24s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTI2s4svE2s&t=1m24s)

~~~
beat
Meh. Legato on guitar comes at a cost of expressiveness and note choice. When
hammer-on and pull-off are your only ways to sound a note, you lose all the
coloration available from dynamics, palm muting, distance from bridge, pick
angle, and the million other little things guitarists do to make a note
special. And note choice? Scales of any substance will force either difficult
position shifts, or legato-breaking string switches.

It can be done, and I certainly do it. But it can't be all that's done, or
your sound falls flat.

------
yesenadam
>half of them were specialized in jazz for at least two years, the other half
were classically trained

 _Two years_ only? Uh..wtf. I didn't read the original paper, but that sounds
ridiculous. Why not compare them with people who'd been playing, nay,
specializing in, classical for 'at least two years'. Oh, because that would be
ridiculous.

~~~
stuffedBelly
If someone is classically trained prior to studying jazz, 2 years is rather
reasonable to pick up given they might already be well versed in basics such
as proficiency in certain instrument(s), fundamental theories, sight reading,
ear training, etc.

~~~
yesenadam
Well, it doesn't sound reasonable to me. 2 years sounds like 'pretty much
total beginner' level. No-one will be a good jazz player after so little time,
and I doubt their brains would be those of jazz musicians with decades of
experience either.

~~~
stuffedBelly
I recently attended a Joey Alexander concert at SFJazz and was amazed how
mature his playing is at his current age, given my standard of 'good musician'
is rather high as a professionally trained jazz musician myself. He started
playing jazz at age of 6 and started performing professionally when he was 9.

I agree that people need SOME time to learn the ropes but with proper
training, 2 years is enough to be good. Note that proper training doesn't mean
practicing certain technique, scale or etude hundreds of times. Nowadays there
are systems designed over the years by schools such as Berklee effective
enough to make someone a good jazz musician within 2 years, similar to many
athlete training systems. No system can make legends, but decent musicians for
sure.

~~~
yesenadam
Nice to at last read someone making sense on this page. :-) Ok, but 1 child
prodigy learning in 3 years (?) hardly disproves my point.

Also, I don't believe in "proper training". I believe in learning from the
recordings of the greats, and from playing music with people. Sounds like
that's how Joey Alexander learnt[0]. I believe that, like many things, jazz
can be learnt but not taught. Someone trained in some system will sound like
the music equivalent of the academic artist - expert at following someone
else's rules, but nowhere as an artist.

[0][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Alexander](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Alexander)

edit: Most people who go to Berklee are already pretty good when they get
there, aren't they? Hardly starting from scratch.

------
djtriptych
This is amazing. I'm a classical guitarist and pianist (not any good, but it's
very clearly the way I'm oriented). Jazz just seems to escape me, although I
work much harder at it.

~~~
dahart
Depends a bit on what you're trying to do, but jazz requires a lot more theory
up front in order to be good at it. It might be extra difficult to approach
jazz as a classical musician, to try and use the same tools and techniques.
There might be ways to think about jazz that make it a lot easier for you, if
you are interested.

One of the things that has really helped me with jazz is going through the
older standards and singing the voice line while comping the chords on the
guitar. Not only is it super fun to play and sing at the same time, but it
gives a much better understanding of why the chords are there and what they're
trying to do.

------
MandieD
“Similar to research in language: To recognise the universal mechanisms of
processing language we also cannot limit our research to German."

As an American living in Germany who taught English between IT jobs, I’ve come
to describe spoken English as playing jazz, and German as performing classical
music. Sure, you can put some personal touches on spoken German, and new
expressions do crop up, but there’s a lot more latitude for improvisation in
English, and the catchy improvisations are more likely to be picked up by
other English users and become part of the language.

I thought this was my bias as a native speaker of English and very academic
learner of German, but my German colleagues agree with the comparison.

~~~
Stratoscope
> there’s a lot more latitude for improvisation in English

Lately I've been hanging out on the English Language Learners Stack Exchange.
It can be a discouraging place. Too many people answer simple questions with
complicated explanations of English grammar, when the real question they
should answer is "How can I say this the way a native speaker would?"

An example:

[https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/152764/is-this-
sente...](https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/152764/is-this-sentence-
correct-make-vs-made/152787)

OP wanted to know if this sentence was correct:

"Your kindness has (and will continue to) made a difference."

The top-voted answer explains that "This sentence is an attempt at
parallelling, where a sentence branches into two or more parts. In this case,
it also rejoins at the end. The parallelled part must join on to the common
part in the same way." And that's just the beginning. The answer goes on to
explain about "eliminating the duplicated word sequences" and finally arrives
at this sentence:

"Your kindness has made, and will continue to make, a difference."

That's grammatically correct, but hardly any native English speaker would ever
say or write it. In fact, someone commented that the sentence "sounds more
German than English to me."

My zero-rated answer was "I like to find the simplest way to say things. You
can thank a person for their past, present, and future kindness all at once:
'Your kindness always makes a difference!'"

I don't care much about the votes, I'm just a bit sad that so many of the
high-rated answers on ELL seem to answer the technical questions of grammar
instead of helping people sound like native English speakers.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
I suppose in the context of this post it's similar to asking "How can I sound
like Mozart" and expecting an answer along the lines of "press these keys in
this order" rather than any technical information about scales, progressions
and dynamics. The end result may sound the same but there will be no actual
understanding of the "why".

------
ndr
" _When the scientists asked the pianists to play a harmonically unexpected
chord within a standard chord progression..._ "

Can someone ELI5 (and essentially never played) what they mean by
_harmonically unexpected chord within a standard chord progression_?

edit: formatting

~~~
scarecrowbob
Basically there are a finite number of places that you can "go to next" in any
musical context, and some of those destinations are more normal than others.

Like, usually we go to work and then home. But some days we stop by the bar.
Maybe we planned a trip to the zoo and stopped for ice cream afterwards.

That all seems normal-ish to me.

But sometimes it's like, we are on our way to school for the day, but let's
stop off in Times square for 5 min, and then Mount Rushmore, and then a
dentist office in Iowa land on the moon, get a hot dog... and now we are at
school for the morning.

~~~
scarecrowbob
Or like, in folk guitar you might play a C chord, followed by a C chord with a
B as its root, then an Am chord... that happens all the time.

But very rarely would you play a C chord followed by an Eb major chord in folk
music. But if you're playing Jazz, you might be more open to that possibility.

------
maldusiecle
I wonder how this applies to pianists who excel at both classical and jazz--
Keith Jarrett, for example.

~~~
devnonymous
Not sure whether parent is deliberately trolling but literally, the first two
words of the article are Keith Jarrett. The statement describes how it applies
to his music.

~~~
SwellJoe
The mention of Jarrett in the article is what led to me asking throughout the
article, "But what about musicians who are famously accomplished at both?!"
They quoted Jarrett but didn't really expand on it, other than to use it as an
argument from authority in support of what they think their study means about
how the brains of musicians work.

The study included people who aren't at all like Jarrett (they are either/or
musicians, while Jarrett is a both and then some musician), so the quote felt
vaguely forced into place.

------
the_cat_kittles
i feel like you can get a little bit of insight in to this if you arent a
musician: imagine the difference between having a conversation with a friend
(jazz) and reciting a piece of literature (classical). this is a borderline
heinous simplification, but just imagine where your mind goes for each. you
relax and let the thoughts flow in the first, you probably dont think very
tangibly about diction. in the second you focus and probably think about the
actual act of speaking more

------
8bitsrule
To the extent that classical training is about 'flawless performance' and jazz
'training' is about 'fluid improvisation', in my experience these are very
different skills.

The question is: how does such a study decide whether the 'brains ... work
differently' because the tasks are so unalike, or because the brains
themselves are somehow different.

Another question is proficiency: clearly 'virtuoso' pianists are different
from 'amateurs' on both sides of the aisle. Are the brains of the 'virtuosos'
more 'different'?

------
Bizarro
I remember reading a book decades ago about how people that play musical
instruments tend to be good programmers. It might have been Jeff Dunteman's
Assembly Language Step by Step, but not sure.

But that always stuck with me, and makes a lot of sense considering patterns
and preciseness that you need when playing piano or some other instrument.

------
cgy1
Here's a (apocryphal) story about legendary classical pianist Vladimir
Horowitz meeting legendary jazz pianist Art Tatum:

[http://www.classicalmusicblogspot.com/horowitz-and-tatum-
whe...](http://www.classicalmusicblogspot.com/horowitz-and-tatum-when-jazz-
met-classical/)

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dgsb
The piano is an illusion used to make us believe that playing jazz and
classical music is the same activity.

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dharma1
Jazz piano:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8HzMEwobvM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8HzMEwobvM)

Classical piano:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rywN8MoiEk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rywN8MoiEk)

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ramijames
Last night my wife and I were talking and it turns out that my inability to
"get" music comes from me not being able to listen to the music side and the
words side of a song simultaneously. Is there anyone else out there like this?

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bluetwo
I'm going to assume you would find the same difference between bus drivers and
race car drivers. Airline pilots and fighter pilots. Poets and video gamers.
Olympic triathletes and combat soldiers. Yoga practitioners and boxers.

~~~
stuffedBelly
But how they differ could be an interesting subject.

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squarefoot
I don't know how relevant this could be, but anyway, when I was like 11 or 12
there was this school mate of me who was a gifted classical pianist: he
already played concerts at that age and apparently had its future already
planned. Now one thing I recall vividly: at a friends party after playing some
incredible piece of classical music he was asked to play some famous top-chart
pop tunes and he failed completely: he was literally paralyzed for not having
a sheet of what he was asked to play. This reinforced my belief that classical
musicians are trained to be perfect executors but lack a lot in creativity, or
perhaps players with these characteristics are more attracted by the more
formal world of classical schools.

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quadrangle
Bad headline: "Miles Davis is not Mozart"

Besides being trivially true, MOZART WAS A MASTER IMPROVISOR!!

Classical musicians were great improvisors for generations… until the late
19th century boon of the symphony orchestras and all these conservatories
focused on getting musicians to follow the notes perfectly and watch the
conductor and ignore creativity. In the 20th century, improvisation was rubbed
out of classical music.

Today's classical pianists are pathetic improvisors. But don't think Mozart or
Beethoven or Bach etc. were like that. They were much more like the jazz
pianists.

This study is mostly just further proof of the tragic impoverishment of
classical tradition over the last few generations.

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m3kw9
I actually appreciate Jazz more than classical, and I’m sure I can play Jazz
if i put my mind to it. Would that make my brain work differently before I
even play jazz?

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partycoder
Jazz includes a big deal of improvisation (real-time composition within
certain theme) whereas classical music decouples composition from performance.

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llamaz
There is a strong tradition of classical improvisation too - check out Alma
Deutscher's youtube videos

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vixvax
jazz players use more the ear, the classical more the eye

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colordrops
Is no one going to point out the fact that Miles Davis is not a pianist?

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beat
He was a keyboardist, though. His post-1970 live output is filled with him
playing organ, often to set the harmonic context and direction for the rest of
the band, as he was doing full-band improvisation at that point.

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colordrops
OK fair enough, but was he really the right choice for the title of the paper?

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beat
well, how many jazz musicians can most non-jazz people even name? Miles, maybe
Louis Armstrong, maybe Duke Ellington. If they'd said "Cecil Taylor", who'd
have recognized him?

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colordrops
Thelonius Monk, Bill Evans, and Herbie Hancock are all nearly household names.
Yes, not as famous as Miles Davis, but up there.

