This week’s copywriting commission had me exploring the inner workings of the human mind, and specifically how art and creativity fires our grey matter.

It started when I found this amazing piece of research, which shows that the brain responds 10x more powerfully to original art than it does to printed reproductions. The same study also found that one famous artwork produced a really strong response in the precuneus region of the brain – that’s the bit that deals with our memories and our sense of self. What it tells us is that art isn’t a simple process where the brain interprets visual clues and spits out a reaction. Instead, it’s multi-sensory, tactile and completely unique to every individual. Which is pretty cool.

During my research I also discovered that the brain is a bit like a muscle. The more we work it, the bigger it gets. (I imagine a neuroscientist wouldn’t love that simplified summary, but I promise my article is more intellectual than this blog!) Studies show that artists, writers, musicians etc have more grey matter in the corresponding areas of their brain than non-artists.

Tinkling the ivories, turning the air blue

This makes sense to me as I’ve recently rediscovered piano. When I was about six I remember watching my granddad play piano and thinking he was a virtuoso. Turns out he actually had a ‘player piano’ – a very clever bit of kit that plays for you if you pump the pedals! All the same, I was desperate to learn and spent the next 10 years frustrating my very patient teacher. Like any petulant teenager, I quit piano in a huff round about the time I discovered alcopops and boys… bad call.

My Dad recently sold my late grandparents’ house and gave me a special gift to remember them by: a lovely little digital Yamaha.

It was pretty intimidating sitting at a piano again after the best part of two decades, but to my amazement it all came flooding back. I mean, I’ve still turned the air blue numerous times, but the ability seems to have remained buried somewhere in my brain, and my fingers remembered many of the notes that my brain had long forgotten. What’s surprised me even more is I suddenly feel more creative, and more motivated generally with writing and life. This must be similar to the endorphins people feel when they pump iron at that gym place I am so adept at avoiding.

Multitasking

There’s an interesting contrast too with the brain as it ages. My kids are both learning guitar and managing to read music astonishingly quickly. Young minds are in a constant state of growth, development, learning and fine-tuning. New neural pathways are forming all the time. They’re also adept at consuming vast quantities of information and sifting through it with ease.

Our house has been smit with a tummy bug this week and my kids are off school. Over the course of the week I’ve watched my daughter reading a novel at the same time as streaming a TV comedy and chatting to her friends on her phone. My son has built Minecraft worlds and recorded then edited videos for YouTube (he lives in vain hope that I will let him post them). It really bugs me when I hear people suggest that ‘the youth of today’ have ruined their brains with technology. It’s evolution in action – their brains are just wired differently.

Their language is constantly evolving too, and my own multitasking efforts today involved attempting to research another article while my eight-year-old gave me a pop quiz on the exact meaning of skibidi, rizzler and gyatt.

It’s been a heck of a week. And in a not-unrelated vein, next week I’m excited to launch a summer programme I’ve developed with Focus North, which aims to inspire local young people to pursue career options in our area.

Watch out for details coming soon. It’s totally lit, bruh.