Soothing the Savage

 

One of the bands I always thought was 'spiritual' was Sunn O))). But the musicians really aren't doing much: The amps, effects, and PA are doing all the work pushing air at high decibel levels, which has a massaging effect on the body.

Playing challenging music will keep your brain busy in other ways than those of the more ruminative kind. Even dancing or getting in rhythmic flows changes the brain state in profound ways. It's not a drug, but its effects are somewhat psychoactive in terms of what neurotransmitters might be doing.

In my experience, playing music and writing words have similar cognitive effects because they freeze time--or rather take the controls of it. While playing music you can't be thinking about other things. When writing words, you are sequencing and cohering thoughts and ideas. Mind-wandering is possible to some degree, and can actually have a positive effect by giving you ideas in the flow of the writing. This is essentially what improvisation in music is, but you have to shorten the time from idea to execution of the ideas, which is a way of cohering them--but only to the degree that it doesn't interfere with the best possible performance.

The hardest thing about being a musician is momentum, both rhythmically, and in a psychological sense for the motivation to stay engaged with it over years and decades—and to see it as an ongoing challenge. Even after 45 years of playing an instrument, I find there are always things that require what I call "maintenance practice" which is a way to use music without invention. Approaching music from the core ideas is invention, and is the easy part because there is little exertion involved.

Exertion is a form of work, and gives the body something to do, or lets the body control the mind.

In the book The Innovation Delusion there is a chapter devoted to the "Maintenance Mindset"

Page 142:

“To understand the maintenance mindset, you should start with a question: What is good and worth preserving? This is the fundamental point of departure from the language of innovation, which asks you to worry about what you need to change, or what will be disrupted. It is a language of fear. Instead, we're asking you to adopt a new habit when you walk around, or think about you work, your community and your personal life. Ask yourself, what is good here? And how can I maintain that goodness? How can I preserve and extend that which is valuable?

First, there is the principle that maintenance sustains success. Maintenance consists of activities that, when done correctly, ensure longevity and sustainability...no innovation can persist without maintenance. Second, there is a principle that maintenance depends on culture and management. Good maintenance is possible only with good planning that takes an organization's pre-existing culture and values into account. The third principle is that maintenance requires constant care. The best maintainers take a nurturing and supportive approach to their work. They are often detail-oriented, creative, and, more than anything else, dedicated to their craft.”

Creativity gets the momentum going, but is typically followed by work to energize the ideas. Innovation isn’t always needed.