Dream a Little Dream...

Tara Parker-Pope writes in the NY Times about a team of researchers who ponder the question - why do we dream? Some new research may have unlocked a little of this mystery and it leads to some interesting conclusions about how and why we learn. Dreaming may actually result from the brain’s effort to keep learning... even as we sleep!

In a study released by Current Biology, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, volunteers trained visualized their way through a complicated, three-dimensional puzzle. Half the volunteers were allowed to sleep for 90 minutes while the other half stayed awake, reading or relaxing. During their resting period, they were awakened and asked to describe their thoughts or dreams.

After the resting period, the volunteers were asked to again tackle the maze and were graded. Those who napped but didn’t report any 'maze-related' dreams did better but showed only marginal improvement over the non-nappers.

However, a few of the nappers reported dreaming about the maze and showed a startling improvement in their task, cutting completion time in half. The difference in scores before and after sleeping was 10 times higher for the maze dreamers than those who hadn’t dreamed about the task.

Even though the number of 'maze dreamers' was small, researchers noted that the gap in learning was so wide that the finding was statistically significant.

'Notably, the dreamers had all performed poorly on the test prior to dreaming about it. That suggests that struggling with a task might be the trigger that prompts the sleeping brain to focus on the subject and work on getting better', explained the lead author, Robert Stickgold.

'It’s almost as if your brain is rummaging through everything that happened today and deciding that you’re not done with it. The things that really grip you, the ones you decide at an emotional level are really important, those are the ones you dream about. The things you’re obsessed with are the ones that your brain forces you to continue to process.'

Dr. Stickgold continues, 'If you’re a student and you want to do better on the test, you might need to dream about it. The question is, ‘How do I get myself to dream about it?’ The answer is to get excited about it. That seems to be what you dream about.'

We'd love to hear your thoughts and comments about this study and in particular, dreams regarding music or learning music. Maybe this is why passionate music makers often show improvement from week to week with limited practice time?

Read Tara's complete article here.

As you know, we are huge fans of people using technology to advance a cause or to promote great products. Extra kudos go to anyone even remotely associated with music education. The D'Addario Company, suppliers of all sorts of musical accessories, is doing a really nice job of giving users some great web content and using all sorts of media outlets to reach (and maintain) their customers.

As a longtime user of LaVoz reeds, I appreciate the Rico e-mail newsletter with links to the MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and even the Rico Blog pages. There is a ton of content to peruse with a little something for all musicians and enthusiasts regardless of your chosen instrument or genre.

Check out the new reed cases and sax straps (where was this cool stuff when I was in junior high?). Anyway, we hope to lure these guys into advertising at MusickEd.com because we think their products rock and our users would enjoy their online presence...consider this a shameless plug to get the ball rolling!

Paper Raincoat Visits DSM/MusickEd

The Paper Raincoat stopped in to visit us just prior to their appearance at Austin's South by Southwest Festival.
The band is an imaginative collaboration between Brooklyn songwriters Amber Rubarth, Alex Wong, and Kevin Rice. Their songs bring life to a colorful world teeming with compelling characters, dream-like story-lines, and metaphorical narratives. Their debut EP Safe in The Sound is an introduction to a fantasy world drawn from the real experiences of excitement and solitude its creators shared while moving to New York City.

The band plays a blend of 'pop-folk orchestral arrangements, peppered with electronic textures, and overflowing with unforgettable melodies...., catchy and meaningful enough for listeners to relate to whether they knew the back-story or not.'

Their live performances can be quirky, with lots of different sounds, interesting harmonies, and band members often trading instruments. They can be seen in several TV and film placements, most notably, their song Brooklyn Blurs appears in the feature film The Last Song.

The band stopped in to meet with their pal and MusickEd's own Mike Finkel. Though a bit weary from their travels, (some members coming from Los Angeles and others from New York City) they cheerfully rehearsed in Frandsen Hall much to the delight of students at DSM.

CLICK HERE to learn more about their music and future gigs. You can also find them on Facebook and follow their every move onTwitter. Good luck guys - hope to see you back in Dallas soon!

Improvise Like a 7 Year Old?

If you are a musician about to embark on a solo, you might take the advice of psychologist Michael Robinson of North Dakota State University and 'play like a 7year old'. In a recent study (along with partner Darya Zabelina) the scientists assigned 2 groups of undergraduates with specific sets of creative tasks after being given the following instructions. Group 1:

"You are 7 years old. School is canceled, and you have the entire day to yourself. What would you do? Where would you go? Who would you see?"

Group 2 was given the same instructions with the first sentence omitted:

"School is canceled, and you have the entire day to yourself. What would you do? Where would you go? Who would you see?"

The results? Group 2 didn't imagine themselves as 7 year olds but instead came about the assignment from their 'adolescent present' point of view. Group 1 imagined themselves as little kids and scored far higher on the creative tasks. They came up with more ideas that were also more original. 'The effect was especially pronounced among "introverts," who exert more mental energy suppressing their "spontaneous associations".

As writer Jonah Lehrer (a frequent contributor to one of DLP's favorite magazines Wired) writes on his blog, 'One possibility is that we trade away the ingenuity of our youth for executive function. As the brain develops, the pre-frontal cortex expands in density and volume. As a result, we're able to exhibit impulse control and focused attention. The unfortunate side-effect of this cortical growth is an increased ability to repress errant thoughts. While many of these thoughts deserve to be suppressed, it turns out that we also censor the imagination.

We're so scared of saying the wrong thing that we end up saying nothing at all. One interesting line of evidence in support of this speculative theory is that jazz musicians engaged in improvisation selectively "de-activate" their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In other words, they inhibit their inhibitory brain areas, which allows them to create without worrying about what they're creating.'

The November 2006 FastCompany magazine features many great articles about how memories are stored and how technology may become more of a component to recalling them. I wrote the following letter and was published in the January 2007 issue - it reads in part:

As a jazz saxophonist, teacher, and music-learning software developer, I was particularly intrigued by Bradley Rhodes's "Remembrance Agent," Eric Horvitz's "Lifebrowser," and Devon Technologies' DEVONthink. What was left of my hair began to stand on end as I realized these applications come close to mimicking what my brain does as I play music, especially during the improvisation process. Bits and pieces of information (not always musical) fly by instantly and manifest themselves over, through, and around the pre-practiced patterns to create new and sometimes exciting ideas. Of course, the bits of info that are forgotten, along with those that I recall but can only feebly attempt to get out of my saxophone, are often what make each improvisation (hopefully) beautifully different from the others.

Cool new ear training site and app

http://ping.fm/Ro9wA