In another departure from my usual video of the month, here is a really cool video that demonstrates differences in brain activity between improvising music and playing music from memory:

I first came across this video on Sean Dricoll’s Blog: So Much Sound. Sean’s comments on this video are worth a read.

Okay, this isn’t my typical video of the month, but it is very cool, nevertheless. In this video Bobby McFerrin (of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” fame) demonstrates to an audience (without speaking a word) how the pentatonic scale is universal and highly intuitive, if not instinctive.

Edit: For those of you who may not know, the pentatonic scale is a five note scale which corresponds to the intervals between the black keys on a piano. It is usually the first (and sometimes only) scale that we guitarists learn.