Musings Regarding Improv

[minstrlmummr]

 I know at least four people   (the ones that leapt to mind are all men) who perform improvisation (in different formats -- one improvises with music) who are also  scientists  of differing types.    They're all very good at it.    

One other performer friend who seldom improvises, described the process by which he methodically vetted every single piece of advice more experienced performers gave him  (with some disastrous performance results, but that didn't seem to bother him at the time).    His exact words were  "I kept a notebook".

So, what 's the deal?

Does the bent for science confer some kind of emotional distance which translates to a kind of fearlessness even if there's no script and there's an expectant audience out there?    

Does it all boil down to this?   
  http://sciencefun.wordpress.com/2007/03/30/the-difference-between-a-scientist-and-a-normal-person/

Comments

[t-bard.livejournal.com]

Some people who are walled from the emotions of others cower away from the world.

Others walk over toes into the limelight.


There are all shades along the autistic spectrum...

So the theory goes: if you are not connecting with people emotionally, you have extra neurons leftover for other functions. Look into orientation programs at MIT some time if you want a sense of what goes out there in the world of uneven profiles.

Improvisation is not socially normal. Something has to drive it to exceed the boundaries of normality. For some it's just raw passion. For others drugs. Sometimes it's anger - a lashing out at the audience. I have scene rock audiences attack singers with fists and bottles. The hubris to grab that mic must come from megalomania or equivalent dysfunction. Healthy people do not suffer to achieve or be subjected to that kind of attention.

Extreme attention to technical detail is one way to avoid confronting the emotional walls of improv. No one says you have to smash into the wall to succeed. You can obliviously walk around it. How many classically trained people do you know who nauseate audiences?

And then too there is healthy improv of a technical kind: people who steep themselves in the aesthetic and are completely comfortable fooling with it publicly. Such people get their groove on - a groove unnatural to the autistic.

When I was young, I associated autism with gross dysfunction. I have come to learn that it is often an attribute of the highest achievers in narrow fields. The blinders keep them on the track, be it quantum physics or French double harpsichord. Geeks in the original sense.

So yes, science is a path to improv. But you wouldn't want to buy the concert album.

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All the world's a stage, and each neurosis a back stage pass.

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