Are you left brained or right brained?

Draft Guitar · #1 02-22-2022, 01:23 PM

As the title asks, which hemisphere of the brain to do believe dominates your thought process:

Left brained - more scientific in nature

Right brained - more artistic in nature

Based on your response, do you feel that being one or the other has hindered your guitar playing or helped with your guitar playing?

Me, I'm definitely left brained. I do feel that this has negatively impacted my playing ability. I tend to struggle with music theory, playing by ear, and my ability to explore the fretboard in a more creative way. I am able to work through all of this, but I feel like it takes me longer than some others who are likely right brained.

Rev Roy · #2 02-22-2022, 02:00 PM

Right brain for sure. Helped me make a living as a writer (fiction, poetry, journalism…and ultimately sermons). Also helped me perform my material in bookstores, bars and pulpits. And prompted me to select learning guitar as the first thing to tackle on my bucket list when I retired. I love a goal that challenges me artistically…and my guitars do that daily.

mr. beaumont · #3 02-22-2022, 02:04 PM

I think the concept has actually been proven a myth, but I've taken tests/surveys and I always come up as stereotypically right brain, which, seeing that my chosen career is a visual artist/teacher/musician, I suppose it makes sense. But I think a lot of my sloppiness/disorganization/aloofness/daydreaming is more attributable to an adult form of ADD...certainly if they had been regularly diagnosing kids as having ADD back when I was a kid, I would have been.

I try not to put too much stock in anything "helping" or "hurting" my playing ability though, other than the amount of work I put in.

lowrider · #4 02-22-2022, 02:07 PM

I'm a ''baby boomer''. I'm used to having everything I want. I must be both left and right brained!

llew · #5 02-22-2022, 02:07 PM

You left out the third option...no brained! Most days I feel like the "Scarecrow" from the Wizard of Oz!
I'm mostly self taught with little theory and when the creative side is working and I manage to pull something together I've been working on I'm thrilled. But then I wanna know why it worked so well and why I didn't see it before. So maybe stuck in the middle somewhere but venturing back and forth between left and right.

reeve21 · #6 02-22-2022, 02:10 PM

Left. I'm not a creative person, even though I enjoy trying. Analytical and administrative tasks come easier to me.

I just took one of those online tests for the first time, it confirmed that I am 63 per cent left and 37 per cent right brained. I'm glad to have an excuse for my lack of creativity!

LuckyDan · #7 02-22-2022, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Draft Guitar

I'm definitely left brained. I do feel that this has negatively impacted my playing ability. I tend to struggle with music theory, playing by ear, and my ability to explore the fretboard in a more creative way. I am able to work through all of this, but I feel like it takes me longer than some others who are likely right brained.

Theory though is very technical. The usual gripe from people who are strictly by ear players against formal music training and theory is that they fear it will inhibit their creativity.

Draft Guitar · #8 02-22-2022, 02:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuckyDan

Theory though is very technical. The usual gripe from people who are strictly by ear players against formal music training and theory is that they fear it will inhibit their creativity.

I think you are right, but correlating music theory to mathematics is very abstract, at least for me. I think that there are areas of music theory where the origin can't necessarily be defined or explained. At least nobody was ever able to explain it to me, the response was mostly "because that is the way it is." That is what drove me away from dedicating the time to learn music theory.

I have come across people who would describe themselves as right brained (creative and artistic) who picked it up really quickly. I think they were able to more easily able to accept "that's just the way it is" and move on. In this instance, I have been jealous of them.

Draft Guitar · #9 02-22-2022, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by reeve21

Left. I'm not a creative person, even though I enjoy trying. Analytical and administrative tasks come easier to me.

I enjoy trying to be creative too. I've recently changed my practice habits to focus on new "original" songs. One of those is very dissonant and if anyone heard it they would say "what the heck are you doing" but for some reason it intrigues me.

fazool · #10 02-22-2022, 02:19 PM

Yes - this has been largely proven a silly psychology myth.

You can be predisposed toward one thing or another but the hemisphere of your brain doesn't matter. But, we call it that as a label so that's fine.

I took test and was exactly 50/50 even split.

As for learning music formally, music theory is more closely related to mathematics than it is to art. Music uses symbols and patterns to represent abstract ideas including time and feeling.

kurth · #11 02-22-2022, 02:23 PM

things are such, I gotta use whichever side that's working at the moment.

Mark Stone · #12 02-22-2022, 02:27 PM

If the right-brain left-brain thing is true, I'm definitely both. I love to write & play music on my guitars, but I do very thorough architectural research on early 1900s buildings in the Southwest for a number of non-profit historical organizations (see my website https://www.sketchclub.net/ if you like building history). Part of me is whimsical and creative; but I'm extremely organized and analytical.

Gordon Currie · #13 02-22-2022, 02:29 PM

Is scatter-brained an option?

I've been drawn to creative pursuits since early childhood, and explored many of them deeply.

At the same time, I have a lifelong fascination with how things work, technology and science. I am a born researcher and was reading before I started school.

My experience of playing guitar indicates that BOTH modes contribute significantly to a complete musical life.

(I agree that this concept has been all but disproved, and consider left/right brain more as styles or approaches to learning and comprehension.)

mr. beaumont · #14 02-22-2022, 02:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuckyDan

Theory though is very technical. The usual gripe from people who are strictly by ear players against formal music training and theory is that they fear it will inhibit their creativity.

It doesn't have to be though...guitar's a lousy instrument to learn theory on, though.

The second part, about knowledge inhibiting creativity, is horsepuckey.

When theory/knowledge hurts folks is when they don't actually know it--they know OF it, and then they try to cram it in to fit everything they do, like it's a guide or a rule. Theory only explains, never prescribes.

At any rate--music is definitely a "full brain" activity!

Draft Guitar · #15 02-22-2022, 02:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Stone

If the right-brain left-brain thing is true, I'm definitely both. I love to write & play music on my guitars, but I do very thorough architectural research on early 1900s buildings in the Southwest for a number of non-profit historical organizations (see my website https://www.sketchclub.net/ if you like building history). Part of me is whimsical and creative; but I'm extremely organized and analytical.

That reminds me of when I was in college for engineering and I had to take an elective that was not an engineering course my first semester. An advisor recommended signing up for "A History of Architecture." We had to develop a sketch book focusing on buildings on campus. When I turned my sketch book in for the first time I received very negative feedback. I drew buildings with a straight edge with roughly proportional measurements. The feedback said that I was supposed to "do a quick, rough sketch not develop design plans." I didn't really know how to do what they were asking! It was the hardest class I ever took in college, even compared to thermodynamics.