Neuroscience of Musical Improvisation

Abstract

One of the most remarkable abilities of the human brain is to create. Creativity is the cornerstone of human culture, and is the core cognitive capacity that has enabled music throughout history. Much of the act of creating new music, such as in music composition, is an effortful process that requires prolonged persistence, motivation, and dedication. However, other aspects of musical creativity, such as musical improvisation, have an appearance of spontaneity and automaticity, and appear to depend on states of flow that seize the improviser as they encounter musical ideas and produce novel musical output seemingly in real time.How is this real-time creativity possible: how does the brain tackle the problem of musical improvisation, and how does it accomplish this feat? Can improvisation be learned, and if so, how?