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Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

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Re: Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

#81

Post by agumonkey »

criddell wrote: post #79
agumonkey wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had piano lessons for a year at 14. Stopped (learned nothing except 2 or 3 children melodies, and few ideas that I forgot in a week). Then started again around 19, drumsticks and bass. As I said I was almost dead wrong for 6 years. With mostly regressions. All instruments are different though. Guitars require quite a large amount of time to adapt your left hand (neck). It's easy to never make progress there. Bass g…

I do have a metronome and I when I use it, I pretty reliably rage quit about 4 minutes later. One thing that I think music teachers would probably frown on is that I picked up Rocksmith and made more progress with that than practicing chord changes, scales, and Hal Leonard songs. The score for being on time on the right note with the software always adding a few more notes than I can play works really well for me. Pl…

Dude, do whatever works. Don't dismiss advices, try them, revisit them from time to time but walk your own path, shamelessly.

For me a metronome is not a source of frustration, it probably calibrate my sense of time and is like a wingman for locking into place. Usually it makes warm up efficient, and when my hands are loose I can just walk the neck as I feel.

I've heard the RockSmith critics. I can understand but I felt it's not a bad step, although it's quite incomparable from making your instrument sing. Kinda like driving a car vs Gran Turismo.

Re: Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

#82

Post by CuriouslyC »

braythwayt wrote: post #26
agumonkey wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cute quote. I started thinking I disagreed but I confused calculus with counting/algebra .. A whole chunk of classical music is "integer" like (algebra). Jazz/Swing adds flips music around syncopation which is a massive change in mental representation. It's the difference between Harryhausen and Star Wars stop motion (or more recently keyframe tweening and Mitsuo Iso odd time animation). Macro vs Micro. And .. it ali…

This is a thread around drumming, but there is also the mathematics of intervals, harmonies, dissonance, resolution... Music is not _like_ mathematics, music _is_ mathematics, it’s just a different way of expressing it.

Could you elaborate please? To me, music is entirely a subjective aesthetic experience which leverages our shared history to elicit certain emotional responses. I view mathematics as the opposite of that, being objective, where everything is derived from explicitly stated axioms.

I can understand if you say that music (in general, or at least in the west) conforms to a system of patterns and relationships, but I question whether those patterns and relationships are integral to the experience of music. I suspect that they are more a result of our expectations than a fundamental property of music.

Re: Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

#83

Post by Fricken »

nether wrote: post #55
Fricken wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started running a couple months ago, I do my best thinking now while running out in nature (running in the city is not as good, too many interruptions). I've set my day up so I can go straight to the computer after I run without changing out of my running clothes or doing a bunch of transitional tasks, because that time is cognitively valuable. I'm full of ideas and want to get them down before they fade. Running t…

Why did you stop climbing?

Tendonitis

Re: Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

#84

Post by agumonkey »

spangry wrote: post #38
20161112 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would learning drumming help unlock these patterns? I signed up for lessons yesterday :)

Piano's another good one if you're looking for something more melodic. Although I think drumming is where it's at if you'd find value in the social aspects of music (it's harder to play piano in a band). Now that I think about it, drumming and piano have a couple of things in common, even though they're vastly different instruments. Both require 'synchronising' the left and right sides of your body (and also, presuma…

Any favorite piano player / band / album / theme that tickle your syncopation senses ?

Re: Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

#85

Post by timbowhite »

zw123456 wrote: post #71
timbowhite wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I notice how much more clearly I can think after. If the run is more strenuous, do you still see the same effect? For me, a 3 miler at a relaxed pace definitely helps me be more focused afterwards. But if I'm going full tilt up and down hills, or running longer distances, I find myself mentally exhausted afterwards. My theory is that this is due to my mind constantly battling itself on these kind of runs ("THIS HUR…

Good point, if I push myself too far then I end up focusing too much on the push. But on the other hand if I don't push at least part of the time, the end feeling is not as rewarding.

Sure. The other thing I've noticed is that I tend to be more aggressive during strenuous runs. For instance, if a car doesn't yield to me at a crosswalk I'll probably yell out something, whereas I normally would ignore it.

Might be due to both the mental anguish and the "heightened acuity in preparation for the kill" you mentioned :)

Re: Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

#86

Post by pizza »

Houshalter wrote: post #57

There was an interesting study that looked at Facebook likes and personality types of a large number of people. They found the pages/interests that were the most heavily correlated with each of the major personality dimensions. It's really interesting and you can see the whole chart twoard the bottom of this article: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/this-algorithm-knows-you-... Emotional stability was highly correl…

I gotta say I laughed out loud when I saw the mention of The Velvet Underground. It also reminded me of this aside Lou Reed spoke before performing a song;

> This is a song about the sorrows of the contemporary world, of which I know we all know so well. At least, I read about it all the time. It's like, one day – this is when I was in college, right? – and I woke up, 6:30 in the morning because I get up early, and I put on the radio, and they said, y'know, 'So-and-so truck driver today ran over his baby son's head and it burst like a watermelon.' And then they said, 'It's 22 degrees out.' So I figured, on all levels, there was no reason ever to go out again. I stayed indoors for about eight months. Also passed with honors in Kierkegaard – that's 'cause I understand, y'know, the existential leap. Anyone who lies in bed at 6:30 in the morning listening to that has to. Anyway, after that communism was the only answer for me, I felt. And if you can't be a communist and make money, then you have to be a rock & roll singer. At least in Hoboken ... So anyway, this is a song called 'I Can't Stand it Anymore.'"

Re: Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

#87

Post by devdad »

SFJulie wrote: post #28

/me is often downvoted : I should not be then. I play bass, and can run 15km in one hour without breaking too much of a sweat. Humm ... better means nothing... Yet another whizz bang science that is void of any sense. But it is nice to have ego boosting article.

So you're sub40ish at 10k and lands at 60ish at 15k. If true, that's impressive.

Re: Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

#88

Post by woutervegter »

if you really want to improve your brain during exercise, try dancing like jazz/modern/lyric/ballet/street. A nearly common characteristic of dancing people I know is that their mind is quite bright

some arguments: http://neuro.hms.harvard.edu/harvard-mahoney-neuroscience-in...

Re: Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

#89

Post by edejong »

agumonkey wrote: post #23
braythwayt wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Music is the pleasure the human soul experiences from counting without being aware that it is counting.” -- German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (1646-1716), who co-discovered calculus

Cute quote. I started thinking I disagreed but I confused calculus with counting/algebra .. A whole chunk of classical music is "integer" like (algebra). Jazz/Swing adds flips music around syncopation which is a massive change in mental representation. It's the difference between Harryhausen and Star Wars stop motion (or more recently keyframe tweening and Mitsuo Iso odd time animation). Macro vs Micro. And .. it ali…

I understand your reasoning, but it is based on incorrect assumptions.

The first assumption you make is that we actually know how pre-18th century music sounded like. We have guesses, some better than others, but we know that we are likely wrong.

The second assumption is based on the idea that music somehow improves in complexity and quality. We have many scores that have survived the test of time, but these provide a huge selection bias. Only scores that were popular, widely copied and preserved due to timelessness are currently available. Musical ideas that could not be expressed using the scoring techniques didn't survive. Nor did musical ideas that didn't mesh with following eras. Therefor, what we see is a pattern of scores that are popular (of low complexity), easy to write (of low complexity) and similar to following eras (of lower or equal complexity). See the selection bias?

Lastly, and more concretely: 18th century musicians didn't suddenly start caring about bending time. They started caring about sharing musical ideas outside of their direct sphere of influence (printing press), so they understood the need to add extra markings on sheet music, such as rubato and accelerando.

And saying you try to understand jazz is akin to saying you try to understand philosophy. It cannot be done, too much has been written and one cannot understand all standpoints simultaneously. Try to understand a specific era, like Bebop, or a specific musician, like Chick Corea.

Re: Runners’ brains may be more connected, research shows

#90

Post by thisone »

maroonblazer wrote: post #80
zw123456 wrote: post #59

I have been a runner for just about my whole life (ran track in HS) is started listening to music when the small mp3 players first came out and I noticed that it seemed to interfere with my "runners high" a little bit. I know this is tied to beta endorphins but I also think there is a Zen like aspect. So I stopped using the player and instead just let my mind run free too. My theory is that running can also unlock a…

I had the exact same experience. Listening to music or podcasts - even ones I was deeply interested in - diminished the feeling I got while running and the post-run high. It's also why I don't like running with other people. Even if they don't want to talk I'm distracted by their presence, making sure our pace is similar, etc.

Times like these i feel like the only runner who doesn't experience any sort of clarity of mind or runner's high.

I run five days a week. After a hard run i feel tired. If i made a good time with a low heart rate, i feel slightly happy about it. I don't feel anything i could ever describe as a runner's high, and never have on any type of run.

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