This is a comment I posted on Jazz Times in response to an article by Bela Fleck:
BF: "There's a lot of psychological stuff that goes into this."
This is something I've been wondering about for about 50 years. Why are musicians so invested in their own versions of what's happening, musically? One guy is thinking it's "doot do do doot doot do," and another guy thinks it's "do doot do doot doot do", and they're becoming belligerent and irrational over their own understanding of it. They're just notes, and they're not going to hurt anybody!! Why come so unglued? I'm the same way, and I view my own frustration as a sign of mental instability, to some degree.
Now I'm learning about the brain/music connection, and I think I'm finally getting it figured out. Last weekend I was listening to CBC Radio 2, and there was an article I half-caught, concerning the high percentage of certifiable craziness that was inherent in the greatest composers. I'd like to see a study of which category each of them would have been assigned to by today's mental health specialists. Would they be bi-polar, psychotic, schizophrenic, or merely neurotic? Schumann died in a mental institution. The list they reeled off was impressive.
This bit of information in conjunction with the new research on the chemical nature of our emotions, are getting to the nub of the question. Whenever we experience an emotion, the brain emits specific chemicals which are received by all of the cells in our bodies. Each and every cell has a special receptor which receives its own specific chemical. It's like the chemical is the key, and the receptor is the keyhole. The good chemicals, i.e. the ones that make us feel pleasure, are the same chemicals as those prescribed by psychiatrists, and also, they're the same as the ones you can buy in the streets. Of course, it's healthier to create your own chemicals, and you can't really overdose on your own production of seratonin, dopamine, and the like. These days, though, if you're not producing your own set of happy chemicals, you can be prescribed Prozac or whatnot, and often you can regain mental health. But it's now believed that if the great composers were alive in today's world, they wouldn't have produced their musical wonderments. The reason for this is that they were treating their own mental disorders with their MUSIC and their COMPOSITION! We've always been aware that there is a connection between music and our emotions. You couldn't have a good movie without the music. It's the music that gets to the core of the feelings the actors are portraying, more even than the words they utter. We all understand that. But to think that the composers were self-medicating, well, to me that points to the fact that it's also central to our core, to our mental health, and to our overall well-being. So when you feel like ripping someone's eyes out because they're not playing their 16th notes evenly, think of the chemicals. It's really quite astounding.
By the way, if you've ever seen the DVD of Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer on the road together (Obstinato), you can witness two of the planet's most evolved musicians becoming mental over their conflicting musical concepts. It can reduce even them to the level of mortal humans.
BF: "There's a lot of psychological stuff that goes into this."
This is something I've been wondering about for about 50 years. Why are musicians so invested in their own versions of what's happening, musically? One guy is thinking it's "doot do do doot doot do," and another guy thinks it's "do doot do doot doot do", and they're becoming belligerent and irrational over their own understanding of it. They're just notes, and they're not going to hurt anybody!! Why come so unglued? I'm the same way, and I view my own frustration as a sign of mental instability, to some degree.
Now I'm learning about the brain/music connection, and I think I'm finally getting it figured out. Last weekend I was listening to CBC Radio 2, and there was an article I half-caught, concerning the high percentage of certifiable craziness that was inherent in the greatest composers. I'd like to see a study of which category each of them would have been assigned to by today's mental health specialists. Would they be bi-polar, psychotic, schizophrenic, or merely neurotic? Schumann died in a mental institution. The list they reeled off was impressive.
This bit of information in conjunction with the new research on the chemical nature of our emotions, are getting to the nub of the question. Whenever we experience an emotion, the brain emits specific chemicals which are received by all of the cells in our bodies. Each and every cell has a special receptor which receives its own specific chemical. It's like the chemical is the key, and the receptor is the keyhole. The good chemicals, i.e. the ones that make us feel pleasure, are the same chemicals as those prescribed by psychiatrists, and also, they're the same as the ones you can buy in the streets. Of course, it's healthier to create your own chemicals, and you can't really overdose on your own production of seratonin, dopamine, and the like. These days, though, if you're not producing your own set of happy chemicals, you can be prescribed Prozac or whatnot, and often you can regain mental health. But it's now believed that if the great composers were alive in today's world, they wouldn't have produced their musical wonderments. The reason for this is that they were treating their own mental disorders with their MUSIC and their COMPOSITION! We've always been aware that there is a connection between music and our emotions. You couldn't have a good movie without the music. It's the music that gets to the core of the feelings the actors are portraying, more even than the words they utter. We all understand that. But to think that the composers were self-medicating, well, to me that points to the fact that it's also central to our core, to our mental health, and to our overall well-being. So when you feel like ripping someone's eyes out because they're not playing their 16th notes evenly, think of the chemicals. It's really quite astounding.
By the way, if you've ever seen the DVD of Bela Fleck and Edgar Meyer on the road together (Obstinato), you can witness two of the planet's most evolved musicians becoming mental over their conflicting musical concepts. It can reduce even them to the level of mortal humans.
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