Here is Chapter 6 from my recent book, B Sharp!

6

Embrace the Lazy Brain

Humans have had naturally lazy brains from the earliest beginnings. This is fortunate, as it proved to be an important survival trait. In modern times it remains a key to helping expand the mind. Consider that we constantly strive to figure out better and faster ways to do more complex things, and with less energy. Perhaps it’s just so we can spend more time hanging out under a shady tree in the cool summer air — which just happens to be when many great ideas originate. Let’s embrace some important lazy strategies for more music benefits.

Our highly efficient brain only seems lazy, yet it’s sad how harmful social stigmas can infect our behavior. A text from the 1500s suggesting we should put our nose to the grindstone was surely not meant to be taken literally. This was followed by Ben Franklin’s no pain no gain mantra and came long before Jane Fonda’s more is better. Actually, the notion of “less is best” is not laziness, but rather a great way to learn more music faster while having fun.

A healthy obsession for passion is what can prevent the common problem of burnout, poor learning, overtraining, or other brain-body breakdowns very common in virtually all fields, including music.

Case Study: She began piano lessons for the love of music. Hour-long weekly sessions were followed by repetitive daily practices. Seven years later — and still unable to play anything other than scales and easy songbook pieces — she quit out of frustration and developed a dislike of music. 

The conclusion of this case is in the next chapter, but first there are important details about shortcuts in learning to play music. Here is an opportunity to play and create with purpose and pleasure, and, whether beginner or most gifted, improve while building a better brain and body.

To be effectively lazy we need to know the natural shortcuts. One we already possess is biofeedback.

Music is Biofeedback

Early human brains relied on their built-in neural system of biofeedback. It’s defined as a natural mind-body mechanism with benefits that can improve physical and mental-emotional health. Like music, biofeedback is a natural capability all humans possess — an instinctive hardwiring for survival and adaptation. Early examples include sensing uncomfortable temperatures leading to the use of clothing, shelter, and fire, and walking on rough surfaces leading to wearing protective footwear. Today, natural biofeedback remains essential for mind-body interactions — including the use of brain areas once thought not consciously controlled.

While usually considered separate, music and biofeedback both can influence the same biologic parts of us, a reason each can successfully treat the same health conditions. The nature of music and how we use it, including all the different approaches described in this book, employs natural biofeedback.

Clinically, biofeedback has been part of my career from the start, developing approaches for heart-rate exercise monitoring, physiotherapy, stress regulation, and others. Traditional biofeedback tools such as EMG (electromyographic) for muscles and EEG (electroencephalographic) for the brain were incorporated and combined into manual versions utilized in assessment and therapy. This included the use of music listening during biofeedback.

An important music-biofeedback connection is both the conscious and subconscious synchronization of natural biorhythms to those in music, called entrainment. It’s bidirectional: Music affects the brain to influence nerves and hormones, triggering muscles and movements that feed back to the brain. These effects are powerful even for those musically untrained. 

Biofeedback also allows us to learn music in natural ways.

At some point in their lives, most people have played or sang at least some music — maybe minimally, or not for decades, but the experience is still in the brain for better or worse. While many millions have studied at least one instrument no matter how minimal, unfortunately most have given it up out of boredom, confusion, and the lack of fun and playfulness.

The act of learning itself can help promote creativity and build a better brain. So, learning more aspects of music, no matter your level even if you’ve never done it, is discussed in this book. It’s much easier than you think.

Think about a young two-year old banging on the piano to create what is believed to be great music — it is, and they need a rousing applause (while parents practice restraint). Even a short single session is a powerful way to light up a child’s brain. Adult brains work the same way. What separates good musicians from the great ones? A more creative brain. Regardless of where we are in relation to our musical capabilities, we can still progress further.

Learning Creative Shortcuts

We can benefit from shortcuts by enlisting our conscious and subconscious minds to learn. The brain uses the same neural networks for both, which have their own goals yet act like our behavioral assistants. (While best understood holistically as one, conscious and subconscious descriptions are often separated in this book for convenience.)

Most of our music, creativity, memory, learning, dreaming, and other features exists in our subconsciousness, which, like sprouting seeds, enables us to consciously express our art. Continuously active, our subconscious is always learning and participating like autopilot in our daily activities, such as when performing a well-known piece of music or while driving, so we can multitask without effort or focus. 

One learning shortcut involves letting the brain be free to follow its passions, like the young child banging on the piano.

Learning itself promotes dual actions. We initially obtain brain-wide benefits, and afterwards learn what was initially intended. Just working on a short simple piano piece is therapeutic, then we learn the song. But without enjoyment it can be frustrating and unsuccessful. The story of Australian piano prodigy David Helfgott is another example of how traumatic early training almost destroyed his magnificent musical brain (as is loosely portrayed in the movie “Shine”).

We tend to learn too narrowly, at the insistence of others, without fun, or just enough to the pass the test. Many only memorize the minimum basic chords of a song rather than the full complement of notes that make it so special. Beginning guitarists often learn a C chord, then F and G. Even on the piano this is a great beginning. While one could play many popular songs using these three chords, the brain naturally wants to keep learning, so don’t stop it. Imagine if John Lennon stopped learning early on, or Mozart, Joni Mitchell, or any of the greats? Our brains are much more similar than not if only we keep learning. Passion drives learning to enlist conscious and subconscious shortcuts. It’s like making dinner — we first prepare it, then put it in the oven for a while.

Incubate and Create

As a clinician, one of my first patients was a computer genius who helped develop some early industry breakthroughs. During the consultation, while seeking to uncover sources of work stress, I asked about a typical day. He would arrive and make coffee in the morning, then sit at the computer evaluating his ongoing research. After about 20-30 minutes he would start pacing back and forth in his lab, and often wander outside on the pleasant grounds of the facility. Only occasionally thinking about the computer work, he took in the sights and sounds of his surroundings allowing the brain to drift into a deep reflective, contemplating state, not unlike meditation. It might be an hour and a few sudden insightful “a-ha” moments before he was back to his computer. Soon afterwards, he was wandering the grounds again with the remainder of his day being very similar. My first thought after hearing this description was, I’d like a job like that. 

My patient was encouraging the creative process to flourish by giving the brain, like a computer, the time and space necessary to process all the information. This is called incubation, a form of healthy mind-wandering or daydreaming. This encourages our subconscious mind to further empower creativity.

This natural shortcut is a type of rest period from the intense focus of a project, while searching for an answer, or trying to learn something. It’s our autopilot we all drift into, a shift in consciousness when the brain produces more alpha waves. For this computer scientist, it was much more successful and efficient than sitting at the computer all day working on the same project, which may not let the brain freely wander, especially when interrupted by the physicality of keystrokes, auditory and visual inputs, and other potential interferences reducing success or even impairing the process. Many creative minds throughout history have followed very similar routines. In fact, years later Apple computer founder Steve Jobs became known as a prolific pacer. 

When lazy minds wander

Humans are known to mind-wander up to half our waking hours, with 2000 mind-wandering episodes, give or take, in a typical day. Often interpreted as not paying attention or being interested, even as lazy or aloof, intentionality helps us wander in healthy ways. Pacing can be valuable too.

Pacing helps the brain intentionally incubate, a way to rest the mind while physically wandering. These rest periods away from the brain’s intense focus function best when they are much longer than a focused work session, not unlike a music learning lesson. It can enhance creativity, learning, and memory while building a better brain. 

There are two different kinds of mind-wandering associated with different states of consciousness. 

• Intentional or controlled mind-wandering includes freely moving thoughts while not focused on a task. This healthy form was described above.
• Unintentional or unaware wandering can be unhealthy. It can occur when trying to focus or concentrate on a task but become disengaged from it. It can be induced by boring and unchallenged activities, by audio or visual distractions, and drugs or diet (by altered neurotransmitters). Mind-wandering during focused activities is abnormal, almost always distracting, and unintentional.

Our conscious intentions help us balance when to focus on performing a task and when to wander or incubate.

Music can help encourage healthy mind-wandering during non-focused tasks. This can support free-moving positive thoughts, especially in the form of images from music that can replace negative internal chatter. It works best when listening to the songs we choose. It’s also not necessarily the music being played now, but the lasting lingering beneficial effects of previous listening. 

Sometimes called a subconscious associative process, incubation can allow the subconscious to increase conscious creative thinking. But we don’t always have to be awake. Sleeping also inspires creative insight and promotes better and faster learning.

When my health-related writing began to expand, I suddenly found myself pacing as well, also for longer periods than the time spent physically writing. Sometimes when returning to the desk it was like taking dictation from my brain. In the clinic, pacing between patients or while visiting one became essential to help uncover something unique that required time to further enhance the creative process. When I became a songwriter, pacing was a door to more musical learning and creativity, something that continues today.

The brain loves pacing. It increases its own oxygen-rich circulation, bringing in vital neural nutrients, sends out messages for muscle movement, with returning feedback creating a sort of neurostimulation. Much of our inspiration comes not with pen in hand or fingers on keys but feet on the floor.

In some art forms like Japanese calligraphy a deep alpha state of mental pacing precedes the physical creation. While it only takes a few seconds to express this beautiful character, it could take a prolonged period of preparation, as much time as necessary for the mind to enter a deep meditative enchanted state. Only then does the artist’s brush stroke the paper.

Throughout history, creative explosions have often occurred not while hard at work but when daydreaming, showering, or upon awakening from sleep. Naturally lazy brains help link successful learning and creativity.