When I worked at the SFJAZZ Center in San Francisco we began a partnership with neurosurgeon Dr. Charles Limb to study improvisation and the brain. His work on the brain’s response to improvisation is extremely fascinating. You can check out his TED Talk here.

I have been thinking a lot about his work lately and how it influenced the way I teach. I have a degree in jazz and while I don’t have many students that come in and want to sing jazz standards, I do have many students who want to know how to ad lib, riff, or free-style. In this way, I am well equipped to teach them.

Dan Wilson, the songwriter who brought you “Closing Time” by Semi Sonic, and “Someone Like You” by Adele, calls jazz the gateway drug to songwriting. It certainly has shaped the way I create music, and now it shapes the way I teach music. Every circumstance is an opportunity to grow, pivot, or repeat. Sometimes when a student is having a particularly bad day or they haven’t practiced our planned repertoire, I’ll do this improvising exercise with them. I’ve watched it transform and free many a singer.

As Dr. Limb’s research suggests, when you’re improvising, you’re freeing yourself from the thinking/judging part of the brain. As someone who had to fight hard with my mind to overcome the blocks that keep us from complete creative freedom, I can attest to that. The desire to control the outcome is strong in me, and improvisation is one of the most effective ways that I can let that go.

Studies also show that when you improvise with others, the language centers of the brain are lighting up in scans, perhaps suggesting that music is being processed like language. Studies also tell us that music making gives us a boost of oxytocin, also known as the love hormone. There’s so much we don’t know about the brain, but the benefits of expressing yourself with music are becoming more and more apparent.

Perhaps it’s time to start improvising? If you try my exercise out, let me know!