Why we’re still better than robots

Back in March I attended a seminar entitled The Performing Brain. All I knew beforehand was that Dr Milton Mermikides was going to play guitar while we’d watch which parts of his brain were being stimulated. What I didn’t know was that there were going to be talks from UCL professors about the brain and how it allows us to learn complex performance movements.

The talks demonstrated how the brain is formed, basic brain anatomy and a few examples of our brains’ shortcomings. For example, our memory is fallible and unreliable when compared to modern technology, and machines can now beat us at chess, something that was for a long time thought impossible.

The exceptions to this technological takeover of our minds are in performing arts, and not just music and dance. Sportsmen show incredible skill when performing under pressure, reacting to their changing environment in a way that a machine would struggle to do. The comical example given was comparing a skilful footballer to a team of robot footballers.

The human brain has a quality called plasticity, which means that when we repeat actions, the brain learns how to perform them better and better. Practice definitely makes perfect! This learning isn’t instantaneous and takes time and repetition to drill into our brains, and there are good reasons for this. Dystonia is a neurological disorder that manifests itself as unwanted and uncontrolled muscle contraction. For musicians this can take the form of a small tick – for instance bending a finger not in use when playing an instrument – to serious postural problems, like not being able to hold a violin bow comfortably or correctly. Learning, therefore, is slow for a reason.

The music demonstration took the form of Milton playing the guitar while a projection behind him showed which areas of his brain were activated. The pretty lights and beautiful music were lovely; afterwards it was explained that the areas of Milton’s brain being stimulated were not just the ones for movement (the motor cortex) but also the language centres. This wasn’t so much surprising as revelatory: for me, music has always been a way of communicating but I never thought of it as an analogue to language. As a performer I strive to follow the mantra: “Don’t just speak, say something”. This illustration that music is language has only hardened my resolve to follow this mantra.

In a talk given after the main presentation Dr Milton Mermikides spoke about a couple of his guitar heroes, one of whom is Pat Martino. Pat was a child prodigy and was touring America by the time he was a teenager. In his 30s he suffered a brain aneurysm and following surgery to remove a significant portion of his brain he suffered amnesia, which meant he could no longer remember how to play the guitar or anything of his performing career. Amazingly, Pat re-learnt how to play the guitar by listening to his old recordings and also developed new geometric forms of notation.

The brain is a truly amazing piece of machinery, which, with a little patience and a lot of practice, can be trained to perform a variety of tasks. What will you train your brain to do?