I actually went to a public high school where the headmaster was obsessed with giving children access to musical instruments and music education, it seemed like all the budget went on that. There were 7 brass bands, an orchestra, a big band, tons of rock bands, you name it. And no joke, they actually publicly published the exam results in 2 tables, one for those in a band and one for those that were not, almost as if to prove the benefits, even just the benefits of choosing a disciple alone I suppose not just music. I grew up with that attitude and I thank that man (Bill Anderson) to this day for my music career.

Could’ve watched a 4 hour edit on this subject. Thanks so much for doing this!

I’m a newcomer to your channel, but I have to say… You make some of the highest quality music content available on KZfaq today. You’re entertaining, humble, well-researched & have a great communication style! Thank you for your hard work & I hope your channel continues to grow! You certainly deserve it :)

This is insane, you're pushing the boundaries. Let's push Benn's channel up!

dude your work in this field, and the other video did meditating with the generative patch linked to your gamma readings, is literally the coolest experimentation with sound i've ever seen in my life

Another amazing video Benn. I've been reading about neurofeedback and neuroscience a lot recently, so it's also a timely one. Our two-year-old daughter was born with complete agenesis of the corpus callosum (CACC). Considering that she basically is missing the core network switch of her brain, the fact that she is making great progress when it comes to her milestones is amazing to me, and is a testament to how much neuroplasticity babies and toddlers have. She's fully able to walk and move, manipulate objects (she likes to build stuff with Duplo), and do anything else a two-year-old can do. She's verbally behind the curve a bit now, and she will start up speech therapy again soon, but she does speak a decent amount of words, but no phrases yet, though she understands and reacts to what we say, as well as commands. Seeing how she reacts and dances to music amazes me too. So much of that requires so much intercommunication in both hemispheres of the brain. She's had multiple tests with EEGs by professionals to determine everything from possible sight and hearing issues, to the likelihood of her having seizures, which thankfully has not been an issue. I'll stop rambling now, but as her father, and a musician myself, the convergence of music and neuroscience is definitely something at the forefront of my mind, especially when it comes to any way I could help her in her development. I'd love to have a discussion with a likeminded person like yourself about these things, but I honestly don't even know where I'd start. Thanks for the great video!

This is by far the best youtube channel I stumbled upon during the last year. Thank you for your work and love you're putting into this.

Hey, Benn. I‘ve been a long time follower and great admirer of your musical work. I‘m also a consulting psychologist who also does data science projects (R in my case) and still regard music as my greatest passion, even though I didn’t pursue it professionally in any way. I‘m sharing this to give you context when I state that you‘ve been the one KZfaqr that keeps on amazing me over and over again by the sheer extent of your interests and your no-compromises-attitude regarding your passion for indulging in life as a sum of experiences just waiting to be made. It’s very humbling, very inspiring and feels like a privilege being there at the right time with you sharing these projects of yours. See you soon on Patreon, thank you for making me question my dogma of „impossibilities“ in adult life time after time again. 😊

Wow, this is just next level youtube video making. I'm following your channel for a while now, and into each and every video you make you're so devoted by bringing some kind of " DIY crazy experimentation ". All my respect to you for this "high protein content" you are feeding us with and a big thank for spending all that precious time on generating great content.

I wouldn't mind if you kept talking about this forever 🙂 I find the connection of neurofeedback and music creation extremely interesting and could imagine a future where the brain acts as an instrument without the middlemen, like moving some fingers to push down some keys to create some tone. This could give rise to a whole new genre of music, like electronic music did.

Every time I think about quitting watching KZfaq video’s, Benn pulls me back in with the most inspiring and interesting video’s. This content totally justifies my KZfaq addiction (this and videos of cute animals of course). Thank you so much Benn for enlightening me and so many people out there ❤

This is so incredibly cool. I have ADHD and anxiety. This video is so interesting to me and I really want to see how this could help someone who is also dealing with ADHD. I also really want to see how this could help me deal with my brain. Now just to find an appropriate medical professional

This has literally blown my mind and found it absolutely fascinating. I too have taken SSRI's for a number of years and the idea of been able to "rewire" my brain this way both excites and scares me. This sort of content from you is always a fabulous way to spend time and I'm always in awe as to how much research you must put into all this!

i would honestly watch 10 hours of you explaining everything you have done on this project in detail. The overlap in interessts is around 90% or so Id guess. Everything in this video (except boxing) is what interest me a huge deal. What a wonderful video Benn, Thank you

In the early '90s, the band I worked for were interested in the then current 'brain machines' that were niche popular in some circles at the time. These worked on the feedback loop principle, reading brain waves and then triggering light and sound on the user's choice of those frequencies through headphones and a visor. We, with the help of a Japanese friend who had modified such a machine to send it's read output to his Mac instead of the in-built light and sound generators, undertook some experiments. The modified brain machine was reading Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta waves. From the Mac we were able to translate the output data to MIDI streams, which we then sent on to our then new Akai S3000 series samplers, which we had just a few months prior traded in our 1100s for. By setting predefined scales on the samplers, we were able to 'steer' the note streams either up or down, 'playing' the samplers along with some backing rhythms and complimentary chords in the same key. Overall, we had more success than any of us were expecting. Several of us were able to reliably 'steer' the note data streams up or down, and two of us, myself and the leader of the band, were able to also generate null data, stopping the outputs at will, which seemed to shock our Japanese friend. None of the others present were able to do that, himself included.

I don't need an EEG to recognize that Benn Jordan videos stimulate the happiness sector of my brain.

The sequence at 1:50 reminds me so much of that video of Angelo Badalamenti playing Laura’s Theme while in real time describing how David Lynch told him to shape each phrase. Really cool

That ronroco part deeply touched me. What a wonderful instrument. Lovely video as alway Benn!

I've been battling with depression for my entire life, and music is one of the only things that has kept me going and given me some beauty that makes it worth hanging on. I hope some day this will become a mainstream cure. Benn, if I may, what SSRI are you on? I've been wary of medication because of some bad family history with it, but I was surprised to hear you've been using them your whole life.

man, this is remarkable. watched your first video on this subject in awe and been waiting for a follow up whenever it comes to see where this rabbit hole lead you. this was an awesome update. hope to see more and deeper dives in the future and keep following your journey with this research and all the ongoing discoveries. keep it up, never settle. top tier stuff, no questions about that

The generative EEG patch is such a great idea. I have been dealing with tension headaches and anxiety for the past few years and have been considering trying neurofeedback for a hot minute! Having it the form factor of a generative synth would be a blast. Wish it was more accessible though.

Just... incredible stuff. So conceptually fascinating and compelling in your explanation/delivery. Been watching this channel for a while now (as well as being a fan of your music before that) and wanted to let you know you're doing exceptional work.

Neurorack!

This is absolutely fascinating stuff and I'm always shocked by people who aren't intrigued by it. And I've specifically been dreaming of responsive/adaptive music generation, and it seems close enough to touch! The potential of such technologies is severely underappreciated.

I recently got Garmin watch, which among several features measures your stress levels. It seems to think I am most stressed out when I am making music, particularly when i am really digging into an idea. Which is weird because that is usually when I'm having the most fun and getting the most enjoyment from the process. How ever it doesn’t seem to think i am at all stressed when I battling really difficult bosses in Elden Ring or at work building shelves and lugging around SVT 810 cabinets. I find that kind of interesting.

Fucking hell, dude! These keep on getting better and better. I'm going to have to rewatch this tomorrow with sober eyes, but from what I could gather now this is the exact kind of thing that tickles my brain in that most exciting of ways!

This is likely one of the best videos I've seen. That initial animation from your brain improvising over the piano made me shiver. It might be that I feel somehow connected to the emotional significance of your brain firing up like crazy, because it's exactly how it feels when you're "feeling" what you play instead of just playing mechanically. If it adds further significance to my comment, I am one soul in that significant statistic of people who see the video but rarely comment. I can't begin to imagine the effort you put into this, and I am thankful for both your input and to have spent my time watching the whole thing. Please, only stop if it stops feeling meaningful. This is great.

In the 90s, I had an idea to take the EKG sensors that I took home from my emergency to visits (due to severe anxiety) and connect them to my head to make music. My dad gave me a bunch of his electronics books, including one about 4 inches thick full of schematics. One was for an EKG machine. Having electronics experience, I figured I had all I needed to make this come true, and then I could use it on stage like a mind-controlled theramin. Well, I'm lazy and constantly distracted so I never get many of my goals accomplished or even started. The great thing here is that you did this, which relieves my sense that I still need to do it myself. I still have a bunch of those sensors stuck on my SBK rack case-they've been there for decades. Guess they are just decorations now.

Been, thanks to YT for put you in my path. I am working and learning about Music for Mental Health for around 7 years...and I started because I wanted to help myself. Thank you for this video! IS PURE GOLD!!! Hope to connect with you soon! CHARANGO!!!! is so beautiful!

I'm so happy to see you've done another video on this (and again it's so well explained and edited).Like a lot of people, I've always wondered what it would be like to just be able to create music with your mind, (and it looks like you're the furthest along to accomplishing this), but I'd never considered the potential downsides and genuine damage such a persuit could entail. Either way your approach to musical neurofeedback seems totally comprehensive and very astute, considered and sensible. You seem like the ideal candidate to be researching this and I wish you the greatest success and I hope one day to even just have your musical pitch meditation tool.

the studies that say musicians are smarter did not account for bass players 😎🎸

The most interesting video I've seen on youtube in a while. This should be in the trending section. Amazing work.

Dude, I can't put into words... but you are an inspiration

I didn't find this 'too new agey' at all, watching your content(and really enjoying said content) is usually very inspiring and on some weird level, I feel less alone as a person. The eeg stuff is very fascinating, and the part where you couldn't fake happy was...well, awesome. Being on the autism spectrum, being fake or acting out social constructs is very difficult for me, but that eeg thing? You literally have to 'know thyself' and/or cope with that reality, that honesty, there is no fake it til you make it. You deal with what is and adjust, and that's everyday of my life. Your videos just keep getting better, man...thanks for doing what you do.

I think you're one of the coolest musicians doing stuff on the internet man. A friend of mine recently made me realize you were the man behind the Flashbulb, and I already thought you sounded cool, but being able to see a bit more of the actual person confirms my thoughts aha. Damn. This video also make me think about EMDR and its use of binaural sounds and eyes movements. I know the talking part to a therapist aspect of it is important, but I wonder, if a self made patch could help people actually reprogram neuron paths. I'm not a specialist nor do I know if emdr is proven to work but yeah I think it's interesting. Self use of technology and music to heal, it's awesome.

I have been binging your channel all weekend. The level of research, citations, alternate viewpoints all combined with your insane experience is truly next level. Also love the variability in content as well. Heading over to Patreon. Appreciate you!

I love your obsessions and this particular rabbit hole of neutral feedback is absolutely fascinating. Anytime Benn, anytime.

Honestly how did KZfaq algo take this long to recommend your channel to me. I've only watched 2 of your vids, and you've BLOWN MY MIND on both. Loving the details you go into and you're checking all the boxes for all my rabbit hole endeavours. Thank you! Patreon here I come!! Lol

GREAT topic! I'm a muscian. I'm also an Autistic-Savant, with an IQ that's....well, uh, lets just say I'm "very clever". Music saved me from recurrent bouts of crippling anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. It was hellish. So I bought my first real guitar in 2015, and started playing it daily. For 5 years. Enjoying every single minute of it. I'm always happy when I have a guitar in my hands. Turns out autism and the love of routine and repetitive solitariy behavions (stimming) made learning to play the guitar easy. This ease led to resentment of my abilities, which always puzzled me. You see, for me, music is prayer. When I play, I'm praying to take away the pain and suffering for everyone listening - if only for a little while. To my astonishment, these prayers are always answered. Music is the only way for me to connect with most people. Autism locks me in and shuts me out. It blinds me to the unspoken, cues that govern typical social settings. I still need human connection, same as anyone. Learning to play music gave me a new language! It's a universal language that crosses cultural boundies. I've mastered playing to the point that I can communicate my deepest emotions to anyone willing to listen to me play. It's miraculous!. Check out my YT channel if you doubt me, or if you just wanna hear some really good music. Like! Comment! Subscribe!....lol - this self promotion stuff is awkward, but it's the only way my prayers are gonna get heard and answered... ;-)

Brilliant ! The ronrocco wins because here you‘re playing it with the lefthand almost exclusively while your righthand has minimal activity. As a Lefty all fine motor movements need to be executed with your left hand. For lefties, fine motor movement executed with the left hand (right brain) makes you feel relaxed, focused and immersed. For a lefty using the right hand for fine motor movement will bring stress and unhappiness (and if done over a extended period of time can ultimately end in mental illness and depression). That’s why left-handed people must write with their left hand.

astonishing. I've been playing bass for 14 years now and 5 years or something ago I did an IQ test in Therapy. The tests I excelled at was a visual puzzle, where you were given a number of basic shapes and then a picture of a complex shape that you then had to recreate using the basic shapes as fast as you could, and one where you had to remember as many words as you could from a big list of words. In other words, the exact categories you just mentioned with the study. Never thought that playing bass, and doing great in these certain tasks had any correlation.

You're even more complete and utterly crazy than I thought. Love it 😍

Late to the party but that brain scan in the start is so interesting. Even when you are just talking you can see Broca's and Wernicke's areas lighting up so clearly.

Sounds so nice as it drifts. You’re next level with this stuff!

"Why musicians is more smarter"... that is a strange way of putting it :) Really enjoy your videos. Thank you.

dude stop being so talented and multifaceted ... nah loving it keep up!

Benn, that was beyond fascinating! Seriously cool :) Thanks so much for all your effort making these wonderful videos.

Having graduated uni with an EEG study on long-term memory search strategies and being an audio and music enthusiast for decades, I enjoyed this one a lot. I even wrote a thesis on the state of the research in BCIs about 15 years ago, so there were so many overlaps with my own experiences that my 🧠 now thinks we are friends 😂

...how a stressful day suddenly turns into a relaxed day when I notice you dropped a new video. Thanks for doing what you do the way you do it! Edit, now deep into the video: Benn, this has got to be the most interesting stuff I've seen on KZfaq in quite some time... just wow!

Fascinating. I am in awe of your brilliance and persistance. Thank you for this. I have believed since 1983 that controlled vibration will someday be capable of healing and balancing everything living in this dimension. Find the right frequency and method of delivery and...seeming miracles.

super interesting addition to your previous video on neuro feedback!

Wild!! As an engineering/music KZfaqr this definitely piques my interest! I wonder how the results would differ if used on someone with ADHD like myself... Seems like it could be a whole different ballgame, as my mind is constantly all over the place. Or even if it could be used to treat those symptoms, similar to what you've done with anxiety and depression! Very cool to ponder.

This is amazing, but I wonder if there are any long term negative impacts mentally that could come from doing this too much or too long. How accurate are the "happy" "focused" and "stressed" readings? I could imagine small inaccuracies could do harm, training your brain to feel and operate in potentially harmful ways without realizing it if those harmful connections are interconnected with the positive ones. I guess all my questions come down to: How can we truly accurately map out the connections that truly are helpful or unhelpful to us, how could we truly objectively even define what "happiness" "Focus" and "Stress" even mean? And less stress sounds good but what if it is important in small doses and you train your brain to not get those small doses? I love this subject by the way, thanks for this amazing video, truly surreal how far technology has come.

youre an incredible person love every video

I love you, Benn Jordan. Thank you for your videos - and for everything else.

Yep, learned to do relaxation meditation back in the 70s. (Nova / Horizon prog on Transcendental Meditation ) Meditate to electronic music WITH NO WORDS! Words part of mind quiet, rest of mind very aware of the body etc.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing! I used an Interaxon Muse -> Max/MSP -> CV Pal/MOTU Ultralite -> Eurorack for a large portion of my college study. Fascinating field and I cant wait to experience what the future brings.

Awesome video. Some of the highest quality content on KZfaq right now.

7:38 - Benn just created a Super Mario Bros. speedrun category: EEG Baseline%

Fascinating. Thanks for the practical content and removing some of the mysterious sci fi from the subject. I, too, will love to see what we learn about all this in the next ten years.

You are making very involved deep videos on very interesting subjects. You really are quite unique with the broadness of your subjects and approch them from many different angles. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas and for putting so much effort into the presentation.

Excited to see a follow up to the first video. I enjoy all your videos but this topic is by far my favorite. Thanks Benn!

Fascinating topic! I really love these kinds of videos. The quality of information and the amount of hard work and effort behind your videos do not go unnoticed, not by a long shot. Keep being awesome Benn

This is so cool! Also the music going out of tune with the watch notification is exactly why I don’t wear a smartwatch. I don’t want to fuck up my vibe 😅

the idea that learning a musical instrument makes you smarter checks, I've struggled to play/interact with music for nearly 8 years and despite academic success during that time, thinking through problems feels a lot harder now than it did before. Maybe the problems are harder.

Really neat to see a follow up video for this stuff! The first one is one of the coolest things I've seen on KZfaq.

Insightful. Thanks for the synaptic workout.

This is so cool! I'm glad you shared!

Benn is just a gem of a content creator. Never stop being you. Never compromise.

I love seeing updates to long projects like this.

Loved watching the stress go wild on the drumset because same

TIL that my many years of being a musician have increased my intelligence enough to understand this video about how being a musician increases your intelligence. Thanks for the fascinating video.

Fascinating video, I could have watch so this for a lot longer.

Omg. I'm a musician and a scientist and this video is everything ❤️

Cool :-) I did a BCI-instrument called the subConch back in 2010 using Emotiv - it was an art project where visitors in a gallery could sit down and play it. I was looking into the neurofeedback stuff thinking of doing a project more along those lines too, but I got hit by depression and things kind of stopped moving forward... This video may have re-sparked my interests!

I cannot like this video enough! Well done.

2:23 Goosebumps: Activating ..

this was incredibly fascinating. 10 years or so ago when i was getting into mediatation, i was interested in getting an EEG to 'see' what my calm state looked like vs everyday monkeybrain thoughts. didn't know there were neurofeedback centers, really appreciate the tip. i'm very curious about what a baseline is is it sort of like training your brain to recognize a flow state and hopping back there? i realize a youtube comment section isn't the most idea place to share potentially incredibly personal info like that, but you just kicked open a door i thought i had closed a long time ago!

God damn, this was fascinating. I knew music had a massive effect on my brain, but I didn't know it was so impactful.

watching you play music with a happy meter... made me cry

new favourite channel!

Yes, I have a question, Benn :) Have you had any issues with damage to your hearing, and if so, how have you dealt with it? As a producer with slight hearing loss and tinnitus, I'm really interested to hear more from musicians/producers/engineers about this.

My new favorite channel 😮

I've been a fan of your music content for a long time and just wanted to say thank you this way! Please keep it up. :)

I really love the sound of your drumming

Not going to lie this has been on my radar for the longest time as a research topic of interest in my psychology department at college. I’m still deciding what to choose for a research topic tho but it’s surprising and very humbling to know that I’m not the only one geeking about this subject!

This really reminded me of a video i watched about 5 years ago of musicians who lost limbs/ their musical "interface" and where controlling mix consoles with an eeg. Always wanted to try it, extremely interesting video :)

Just the other day I was sitting in my living room thinking how cool it would be if I could somehow transfer my music idea into a DAW without having to physically input everything. And then this video comes up. Awesome content, especially in regards to training with neurofeedback. Wondering how far this tech will go in the next 10 years or so.

Thank you. Fascinating video ❤

Absolutely fascinating! I am always impressed at your breadth of interest, experience, and knowledge. Such a cool video!

Great video as always, Benn, I really like these indepth explanation videos you make One thing that also might be interesting with EEG to test is the infamous Idoser and their virtual drugs. Do binaural beats really work?

I love your videos so much, nothing puts a bigger smile on my face then the way you present these awesome gems.

This is mind blowing. The generative synth patch is incredibly impressive. Can you imagine trying to play a show with that?

thank you i enjoy your work in general however, this one i enjoyed in a special way thanks again

I died laughing when you listed all the ways that music makes you smarter cause I struggle in all of those areas like reading comprehension, and puzzle solving, Ect 😂. I must have drawn the short straw 😅

F-ing love these videos!

I used to have a chaotic life and life style. When I got my shit together I was concerned I had really screwed up my brain. I swear making tracks with my modular has repaired connections between my synapses.

ive been waiting 3 years for this video

Brain elasticity is kind of a life changing concept when you are aware it exists. Worth reading/watching “The Brain That Changes Itself”.

I'll be honest - right as I'm feeling like your videos are really kicking into high gear... they're over. I personally wouldn't have thought twice about watching a 2-hour version of this. GIVE US THE SNYDER CUT! :)