Or to put it in sports terms, as Yogi Berra once said: "you can't think and hit at the same time." As a jazz-adjacent musician, I can confirm that this is very true. When I'm playing at my best,...
The musicians who were experiencing flow while performing showed reduced activity in parts of their frontal lobes, which are known to be involved in executive function or cognitive control. In other words, flow was associated with relaxing conscious control or supervision over other parts of the brain.
Or to put it in sports terms, as Yogi Berra once said: "you can't think and hit at the same time."
As a jazz-adjacent musician, I can confirm that this is very true. When I'm playing at my best, I'm barely thinking about what I'm doing at all. In those moments I'm 100% inside the music, just listening and reacting. Sometimes my conscious mind will be almost turned off, but sometimes I'll be thinking about something completely unrelated while I'm sitting there playing my ass off.
Or to put it in sports terms, as Yogi Berra once said: "you can't think and hit at the same time."
As a jazz-adjacent musician, I can confirm that this is very true. When I'm playing at my best, I'm barely thinking about what I'm doing at all. In those moments I'm 100% inside the music, just listening and reacting. Sometimes my conscious mind will be almost turned off, but sometimes I'll be thinking about something completely unrelated while I'm sitting there playing my ass off.