Up with Inner Picasso, Down with Inner Critic
How creative flow is a brain state you can practise – through improvisation.
"Firefly, automated, extinction, sweet, catastrophe, hill."
The exercise was to come up with six unrelated words – to speak them out loud in quick-fire fashion.
We were a group of about twenty singers on retreat, and we'd already spent a few days learning the basics of Collaborative Vocal Improvisation: coming up with vocal loops, layering them over each other, and adding an improvised melody. We did this using 'vocables': meaningless syllables like 'dat' and 'capi'. Now it was time to bring out the big guns: words.
Sitting cross-legged within a large circle, I listened as one by one my fellow retreat participants scrabbled for their six words. Their speech was punctuated by bursts of collective laughter as the vocabulary shuffled between the sublime, the ridiculous and the taboo. As my turn edged closer, my heart quickened. I hoped desperately that the 'right' words would fall from my lips. Namely, that I would stay within the rule of not using words with a related meaning, that my words wouldn't be too mundane, and that I wouldn't just be trotting out the exact same words that everyone else had already said.
'Avoid mundane' and 'be original' hadn't actually been in the facilitator's instructions. These were just rules my inner perfectionist had unconsciously made up for myself, to hold me to my own exhausting standards. I was a graduate of English language and literature, and an ethical copywriting pro – a large part of my identity and self-esteem was based on my being good with words. The last thing I wanted was to make a hash of this exercise and risk... well, what exactly? At the deepest level I think I feared negative judgments, rejection, and above all feeling unworthy.
My turn came, and I fired off my six words. Had I jumped through the hoop? There wasn't much time to think about it – and that was the point. But apart from repeating a contagious word that someone else had already said, I judged that I'd done OK.
Phew!
There was no time to rest on my laurels though. Our facilitator Briony was just about to crank up the challenge.
How do you do it? The mystery of improv
For our next trick, we were to come up with 'spoken image fragments'. It goes like this: just open your mouth, and start describing something – anything that comes – in full sentences. Something like:
"It feels so good to finally follow the slow and winding river of leisure to its final destination, there in the place where everyone is sighing a huge breath of relief and letting it all hang out."
As much as I was excited to be here at Embercombe, to have this opportunity, it was next-level stressful. The palms of my hands, lying in my lap, were wet with sweat.
My turn came. Bracing myself, I opened my mouth and said something:
"Under a moonlit sky, six silver horses are galloping along a beach, thundering towards their freedom, churning up the sand, throwing it in all directions... they are wild as the wind and nothing can stop them, not even that big black rock in their path..."
(Just for transparency I'm using my artistic licence here because I don't remember what I said. This happened almost eight years ago.)
"I don't think that's exactly it", was the feedback from Briony.
"You need to let go. Follow your train of thought until it disappears and that's it – don't try to revive it. You're doing something different".
But if I wasn't doing it, what was it? How do I do it? I didn't get it.
I now know that 'it' is the brain state of improvisation.
An altered state of mind: your brain and improv
In 2008, researchers Charles Limb and Allen Braun ran a study on the brain activity of Jazz pianists playing in an fMRI scanner. (They used a mini 35-key keyboard that could be rested on the musicians' legs while they were lying down. If you've ever been in an MRI machine you'll know that it would be a challenge to squeeze a grand piano in there.)
Limb and Braun compared the brain activity of the piano players when they were playing a composed piece that they'd pre-learned, versus when they were improvising.
During improvisation, the researchers saw a unique pattern of brain activity, which has been borne out by various other studies since. There was a decrease in activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) – the part of the brain associated with self-awareness and self-consciousness. Basically the DLPFC monitors our behaviour and makes sure it conforms with social norms.
At the same time, the researchers saw increased activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), which is associated with self-expression and internally generated ideas.
Dr Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist who has done a lot to raise public awareness of the results of studies like Limb and Braun's. In her words, what happens during the altered mind state of improvisation is that 'the inner critic must be shut down, and the inner Picasso turned up'.
That brain state is what we call ‘the flow state’. It's similar to what happens in the brain during dreams, daydreaming and some types of meditation. You're in a creative, generative, free flow, where you lose your sense of self and track of time. Your filter for what's normal and acceptable comes off so that you can make new associations – and just as in dreams, not all of it makes perfect sense.
It was that 'letting go' that I was struggling so hard to do in my first, public experience of improvisation with spoken language.
Why we might find improv so challenging
The struggle makes complete sense. For a start, this mental state was unfamiliar, especially in a classroom-style interaction. This was not the way I, or we (if your education was anything like mine) have been trained.
At school I learned that there was a right answer, a correct response, an ideal way to complete the exercise. My task was to quietly work out what that was, and then deliver it. In other words, the polar opposite of what improvisation asks of us. Of course I wrote stories and poems (lots of them) and I daydreamed. But not out loud. Not in front of everyone.
At first I didn't understand what I needed to do to access flow. Then, when I started to get it, I didn't really trust myself to be able to do it.
What if... there's absolutely nothing there. A complete blank.
Also, I found the process of improvising and being witnessed inherently terrifying.
For someone like me, whose body had a vivid memory of being bullied at school, rejected and sneered at by peers, told in multiple ways that who I was was not valued, the last thing I wanted to do was loosen my grip on the filter that kept me socially acceptable.
Although there is some level of monitoring happening during improvisation (the brain seems to toggle between internal thought-processing and external monitoring of 'how I'm doing') the letting go process is significant.
It's not surprising that anxiety shuts the improvisation process down. It can feel too scary to let go.
Eventually though, I got there.
Creativity is a muscle you can train
I got the hang of the spoken image fragments, then started to sing them, then progressed to longer melodies with lyrics. But how exactly is another story (or rather, multiple stories) which, dear reader, I will get to in time.
For now, I'd like to emphasise that creative flow can be practised. It's like a muscle you can exercise. You can get comfortable and familiar with it. And when you do, you'll realise, as I did, that creative ideas for songwriting – or anything else you'd like to create – are always there. They're there in abundance, just waiting to flow through you.
If improvising publicly and performatively sounds terrifying to you (as it was for me), then I'm sure you realise that many of us feel this way – the majority, even. But once you start to do the work to overcome your fear, you'll find wonderful states of being on the other side. Confidence, groundedness, self-acceptance – even self-love and self-delight! Deep connection to other people, and an incredible trust in your ability to respond flexibly to whatever life may throw your way. Improvisation can be a portal to access all of these things, and more.
Collaborative Vocal Improvisation has been for me a profound medicine. That's why I'm so motivated to share it.
Further reading / resources
Video: Heather Berlin on Genius and Creativity, via Big Think
What Time Feels Like When You’re Improvising, by Heather Berlin, via Nautilus
Your story is relatable, and most of all, inspiring! I enjoyed listening to your lovely voice.