Started by Coach Sommer, November 4, 2011 · 13 Replies · 3,621 Views
An excellent video presentation by a prominent neuroscientist whose primary premise is that we possess a brain for one reason and one reason only; to produce adaptable and complex movements.
Sounds eerily similiar to the definition of gymnastics. 8)
Yours in Fitness,
Coach Sommer
This was a very interesting presentation. Thank Coach!
P.S. This video shows that all movement is controlled by the brain (obviously), but then why do you only show Yang Wei's torso on your book and site, and not his head! Without his head he wouldn't be anything! :wink:
One of my favorite subjects, we've just begun to scratch the surface.
One excellent book on how the mind creates these movement maps is 'The Body Has a Mind of It's Own' Blakeslee
I remember a related study (can't find it right now, I'll post it later when I find it) in relation to piano playing.
The study was performed on a number of pianists, some professional and other amateurs. It found that the speed and agility of the fingers of the pianist improved only a few percentage points from consistent and rigorous drilling, but correlated by a substantially greater degree to the intelligence of the pianist, roughly measured in this study by his profession. Thus, an engineer was capable of playing by far faster than a garbage man.
Vasily Safonov, who was the teacher of many great virtuosi, has a method exactly dedicated to brain exercises rather than rapid key drilling on the piano. Their function is exactly to produce true finger independence while reducing signal interference (noise). An example of one is to hold the base C triad on the piano with all 10 fingers (left hand an octave lower than the right), depress the keys, and then play contrary motion parallel thirds. It becomes immediately obvious that the limitation is the brain's tendency to "cross wires" and be unable to isolate the intended fingers.
I've found these brain exercises to be more helpful than any others on the piano. Mr. Wolports points about Bayesian Filtering explain very well why this method works!
Thank again coach. 
A wonderful amount of information in this piece, i just found myself getting slightly confused. From what i did understand though, i enjoyed it
azey47 said:I remember a related study (can't find it right now, I'll post it later when I find it) in relation to piano playing.The study was performed on a number of pianists, some professional and other amateurs. It found that the speed and agility of the fingers of the pianist improved only a few percentage points from consistent and rigorous drilling, but correlated by a substantially greater degree to the intelligence of the pianist, roughly measured in this study by his profession. Thus, an engineer was capable of playing by far faster than a garbage man.
Vasily Safonov, who was the teacher of many great virtuosi, has a method exactly dedicated to brain exercises rather than rapid key drilling on the piano. Their function is exactly to produce true finger independence while reducing signal interference (noise). An example of one is to hold the base C triad on the piano with all 10 fingers (left hand an octave lower than the right), depress the keys, and then play contrary motion parallel thirds. It becomes immediately obvious that the limitation is the brain's tendency to "cross wires" and be unable to isolate the intended fingers.
I've found these brain exercises to be more helpful than any others on the piano. Mr. Wolports points about Bayesian Filtering explain very well why this method works!
Thank again coach.
I'd love to see this study when you can find the reference. Piano and gymnastics: my two favorite things 
Absolutely! I'll ask my piano teacher, he's the one who told me about it
what a coincidence!..
i decided to check out TED today and saw this video a couple of hours before coach posted it... :shock:
a lot of information, like IJL, i myself had a bit of a hard time understanding the whole video...
the part about the escalating experiment was very interesting 
Here are the links for what I mentioned above:
Kochevitsky's Discussion of Oscar Raif's Experiments:
http://books.google.com/books?id=uFEhs1 ... no&f=false
I have a copy of Kochevitsky's book copied form the library, but unfortunately not the bibliography (stupid I know :cry: ). I'll see if I can find the original study, but I'm afraid it's going to be in German.
Vasily Safonov's Piano Technique Method: http://books.google.com/books?id=sgc4AQ ... &q&f=false
Safonov's Technique Method is really useful, and I have personally found it much more useful than Hanon or Czerny.
Links, please.azey47 said:I remember a related study (can't find it right now, I'll post it later when I find it) in relation to piano playing.The study was performed on a number of pianists, some professional and other amateurs. It found that the speed and agility of the fingers of the pianist improved only a few percentage points from consistent and rigorous drilling, but correlated by a substantially greater degree to the intelligence of the pianist, roughly measured in this study by his profession. Thus, an engineer was capable of playing by far faster than a garbage man.
Vasily Safonov, who was the teacher of many great virtuosi, has a method exactly dedicated to brain exercises rather than rapid key drilling on the piano. Their function is exactly to produce true finger independence while reducing signal interference (noise). An example of one is to hold the base C triad on the piano with all 10 fingers (left hand an octave lower than the right), depress the keys, and then play contrary motion parallel thirds. It becomes immediately obvious that the limitation is the brain's tendency to "cross wires" and be unable to isolate the intended fingers.
I've found these brain exercises to be more helpful than any others on the piano. Mr. Wolports points about Bayesian Filtering explain very well why this method works!
Thank again coach.
Black Dragon said:Links, please.azey47 said:I remember a related study (can't find it right now, I'll post it later when I find it) in relation to piano playing.The study was performed on a number of pianists, some professional and other amateurs. It found that the speed and agility of the fingers of the pianist improved only a few percentage points from consistent and rigorous drilling, but correlated by a substantially greater degree to the intelligence of the pianist, roughly measured in this study by his profession. Thus, an engineer was capable of playing by far faster than a garbage man.
Vasily Safonov, who was the teacher of many great virtuosi, has a method exactly dedicated to brain exercises rather than rapid key drilling on the piano. Their function is exactly to produce true finger independence while reducing signal interference (noise). An example of one is to hold the base C triad on the piano with all 10 fingers (left hand an octave lower than the right), depress the keys, and then play contrary motion parallel thirds. It becomes immediately obvious that the limitation is the brain's tendency to "cross wires" and be unable to isolate the intended fingers.
I've found these brain exercises to be more helpful than any others on the piano. Mr. Wolports points about Bayesian Filtering explain very well why this method works!
Thank again coach.
Edited the post above with one link to add the other
Scientists will continue create absurd theories like this until they are convinced that brain (body) and mind (spirit) are distinct things, or never. :roll:
Very interesting talk. Gives me much to think about. I think he may be over-extending himself a bit though.
What about single cell organisms such as bacteria? They don't have nervous systems, but yet they move.
Also, wouldn't his theory predict that brain size is positively correlated with movement ability? Are humans the best movers?
I think a big part of what our bigger brains allow us to do is make more use of our inferior movement (group hunting strategy, trap setting) and have more complex social relations. I'd like to here more about how he thinks movement is related to our social complexity. From the little he said about it I'm not yet convinced.
One part I really loved about the presentation was when he related movement with Bayes theorem.
awesome informative video.. except for the fact that its making me procrastinate studying for exams