The Sonophilian

“To survive we need food, sex, and creativity - and you need the last one to get either of the first two, so we know which is most important!” 

To foster creativity, we need to promote a culture of play beyond childhood, beyond a place of leisure. In our society this is undoubtedly a tricky proposition, but one that Ralph Talmont believes is essential for innovation and problem-solving on a global level.

Meet the first-ever recipient of the Sonophilia Foundation Summer Scholarship for Outstanding Young Scientists in Creativity Research Hannah Merseal. Improvisation, particularly in musical composition, is the heart and soul of her research focus. 

As a neuroscience and creativity scholar at Roger Beaty's Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Lab at Penn State University, Hannah studies the cognitive mechanisms and neuroimaging methods of music production and cognition. Having recently concluded the second year of her PhD program at Penn State and with a BA in music and psychology from Wheaton College, she explores how improvising jazz musicians can integrate complex cognitive processes, like memory retrieval, motor planning, idea evaluation, and coordination with other players on the stage during a performance. 

“Improvisation is creativity at its peak. I think what sets this apart from other domains of creativity research is that this is all happening in real-time. In areas like writing or the visual arts, a person can go back and edit their ideas, but in improvisation, the audience is right there. There's no time to change your mind because the processes of idea generation and evaluation are happening simultaneously.”

Listen to Prof. Adam Green, the president of the Society for Neuroscience of Creativity, as he talks about the new methods and developments in neuroimaging technologies as well as in neuroscience that might be of help to more people to reach new heights in their creative abilities and to unleash their creative potential.

Learning is a lifelong process. This mantra encapsulates the essence of what makes or breaks a young business. After all, arrogance begets ignorance. The founder and CEO of Silicon Castles, Andreas Spechtler is a Sonophilian by heart and an advisor for startups by nature.

Where do creative ideas come from? How does the brain piece together information in new ways to solve problems? What brain regions and networks are involved in our ability to come up with new ideas?

In the Sonophilia Foundation’s goal to answer such perplexing questions and make the study of creativity a tangible science, our partnership with Penn State University introduced us to a valuable addition to the Sonophilian family. Roger Beaty is an assistant professor of psychology at Penn State and the principal director of the Cognitive Neuroscience of Creativity Lab.

Sometimes, it’s the opportunities that jump out at us unexpectedly that tend to have the most impact on our lifelong paths. Stefan Beckers, the chief program engineer at Ford Motor Company, is a strong advocate for bringing more creative and critical thinking into all realms of life.

“Music and creativity – especially music – is just the language which allows us to express things in a logic way, in an immediate way,” Walter told Sonophilia. “We don't find the words for it. I'd rather express myself with sound and music than with words. I think creativity is a need. We need to express ourselves. And we’ve always had that need.” 

Billy Andrews is the Sonophilia Pioneer! He is a Gold-status singer who has held hits in Germany's Top 10 Charts and sold over 200,000 albums. As one of the most innovative musicians of his generation Billy Andrews creatively connects the worlds of artificial intelligence and 3D printing, classical and rock music. 

Culture is to knowledge as creativity is to joy. There is a human side to every creative endeavor. The trick is to locate it, to make creativity indispensable to our very being. Franziska Wizany, the cultural advisor at Saxon Mozart Society, formerly the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg – the birthplace of Mozart – doesn't take for granted what it takes to bring forth the man behind the music. And we're not just talking about Mozart here.

Man and machine. Artist and computer. Analog and digital. Where is the point of intersection between these elements and how do they coalesce? Polish-born and Berlin-based painter Roman Lipski has made it his life’s work to redefine what it means to be an artist.