Does it seem like everyone’s talking about ‘flow’, all of a sudden?
Maybe because many people are. Flow has been shown to help those experiencing it become effortlessly absorbed in a creative or problem-solving task, and more resistant to distraction, whether that task be writing, playing sport, conducting surgery or making music.
New research is routinely emerging extolling the virtues of the seemingly-elusive mental state, and its enormous potential for creativity and performance.
A recent study out of Drexel University’s Creative Research Lab in Philadelphia, led by Dr. John Kounios, sought to examine the ‘neural and psychological correlates of flow’ in a sample of jazz guitarists.
Some guitarists were very experienced and some less so, with the study looking at what their brains were up to while they improvised.
Study participants were fitted with EEG (electroencephalogram) electrode caps and their brain activity was monitored while performing an improvisation to a pre-determined chord progression, or jazz ‘lead’.
They were then told to self-report their experience of flow. Their performances were subsequently assessed for quality by a panel of musical experts.
According to the study, the participants with the most experience found their flow most easily and also gave the best-rated performances. This was found to be from a combination of established skills and their capacity to ‘let go.’
Similarly, the EEGs of the best-performing improvisers showed reduced activity in the superior frontal gyri of their brains. This region is associated with executive control, or conscious decision-making.
Letting go, in this instance, means a relinquishing of conscious control.
What is flow, and how can it help us
Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi was the psychologist who first identified flow: “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.”
ABC Classic presenter and registered psychologist Greta Bradman breaks down the flow state further:
“Being in flow feels good. You might not even have a sense of time when doing a task, be it washing the dishes or getting into a gnarly work task.
“There’s this real sense of having focus or meeting the world in flow.”
For people working in highly competitive fields where optimised performance is vital, like music performance, being able to tap into tools like flow can make a huge difference for success.
Dr. Steffan Herff, leader of the Sydney Music, Mind and Body Lab at Sydney University, suggests one way flow might help musicians find that cutting edge.
“One component that makes flow so interesting from a cognitive neuroscience and psychology perspective, is that it comes with a ‘loss of self-consciousness’,” he says.
The fears and insecurities that come with performing to an audience are pushed from the forefront of the mind.
“In other words, gone are all these pesky thoughts of self-doubt.”
The benefits of flow for peak creativity
Herff and his team are continually exploring ways to best support musicians both mentally and physically, with techniques such as biofeedback and mental imagery.
Herff says improvising requires a lot of split-second decisions, alongside high-level creative judgements.
By introducing flow into this process, “all the fears, desires, and anxieties that hold you back are gone, whilst at the same time [you’re] able to draw more efficiently from all the hours of practise and experience you have accumulated over the years.”
Pianist, composer and improviser Nat Bartsch first heard about flow in her Honours year at the Victorian College of the Arts.
As an artist with autism and ADHD, Bartsch has learnt to deliberately foster ways of creating time and space to find that flow state.
“What I love about this study is that it dispels the myth that artists must always wait for ‘inspiration to strike’ – to be a professional artist is to be able to switch your creativity on and off, on any given day.”
She agrees that experience makes all the difference, particularly when it comes to letting go.
“If you know who you are on the stage, or at your instrument, it’s easier to let go and trust in what you’ll come up with.”
Finding flow by letting go
The study’s authors explain that flow requires three conditions: “a balance between challenge and skill, clear, proximate goals, and immediate feedback about progress and performance.”
It makes sense, then, that a more experienced player would be able to access these conditions more readily. They’ve had more time to develop skills, set directions for themselves, and form the capacity to critically analyse their own work. And then, let that go.
While flow is not the only way to develop one’s musical improvisation skills, Herff acknowledges that this new research is exciting in showing great potential in helping to clarify the brain processes that determine whether a flow state is achieved.
Kounios is clear that practice makes perfect, but flow is about letting go, leaving those looking to find it with one last piece of advice taken from jazz great Charlie Parker:
“You’ve got to learn your instrument. Then, you practise, practise, practise. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.”