A Comparison Of Hip-Hop Music And Jazz Improvisation

Have you ever wondered how musicians can come up with melodies, rhythms, chords, and riffs off-the-top of their heads? Well, this type of spontaneous idea is called improvisation. Improvisation is the creative activity of an “in the moment” musical composition. Basically, it’s a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing where musicians simply make up a rhythm or melody without even thinking about it. Whatever or however a musician is feeling he could incorporate that feeling into a musical thought. But how does this imagination come about? Is there some type of magical feeling that comes over the musician? How can the mind create something on command? Scientists have been baffled at the way the brain acts during musical improvisation. William James

He thought since there had never been a scientific study on hip-hop, he thought he would create one. He created a hip-hop experiment that was similar to the jazz improv experiment in 2008. He thinks that hip-hop serves the same social purpose that jazz did. Dr. Limb started off this experiment with having a freestyle rapper come in and memorize a verse that he created. Now the rappers have cue words pop up during the experiment where while they are improvising, they could make up their own verse. This was different than the activation pattern in jazz because the research shows when a rapper is free styling, language areas light up. Not only do those areas light up but the visual part of the brain has now been lit up. Why? When you freestyle a rap versus memorized rap you will have major visual areas lighting up. You will also have major cerebellum activity going on, which controls your motor

Well, since I do play the saxophone, I could use this knowledge for when I’m up late one day I decide to pull out my instrument. I could play random, out-of-the-blue material that happens to be jazz music. Knowing all the research that I have found on this particular study I could help someone else understand Charles Limb’s study of how the brain functions and music creativity and what is going on inside the human brain when improv is being played. When I play jazz music at church, event, or at home I can fully realize what is going on in the brain. Limb’s study of free style rap and improv, I could explain to another local rapper what goes on in the brain when they free