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This space began as a course assignment. The goal was to create a place to collect inspiration for future design work. It has evolved into a place I can share general resources and inspiration.

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A sad truth about productivity aspirations: Sometimes, maintaining a system that's supposed to make your life easier can feel like the hardest part. Even the best-designed calendar app doesn't actually work if you have to force yourself to use it; eventually, updating it becomes just another unchecked item on the to-dolist.

Which is why I'm both intrigued by and a little wary of the bullet journal, a diary/calendar/to-do list/planner system that, over the past several months, has rocketed to popularity, become an Instagram star, and developed its own cult following. It's been described as " a powerful productivity tool," " better than any app," " a modern Filofax," and " KonMari for your racing thoughts"; the bullet-journal website is dotted with effusive testimonials from users about how it's changed theirlives.

And yet all of this feels kind of counterintuitive, once you understand how the bullet journal actually works. "The thing I've noticed is that the complexity of the system is inversely related to the number of people who will adopt it," says behavioral neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, author of The Organized Mindand the forthcoming book A Field Guide to Lies. Put another way: The more complicated the system, the less likely it is that people will actually stick to it - "and the bullet system is complex." The basic building blocks of a bullet journal are called "modules": a "future log" of big-picture planning, a monthly log that functions as a calendar and shorter-term task list, and a daily log for more fine-grained scheduling, all held together by an index page and a system of symbols to indicate notes, reminders, and appointments. Here's a video that breaks itdown:

And users haven't just embraced the complexity. Some have taken it upon themselves to add more layers, customizing their bullet journals with all kinds of extras: goal charts, weekly emotion logs, baby tracking, and even the weather forecast. Search for bullet-journal photos on social media and you'll find yourself staring at a gorgeous wall of productivityporn.

So what's the draw? In part, Levitin says, a bullet journal is appealing because it makes it easy to accomplish what he calls "externalizing yourmemory."

"In other words, don't just try to keep track of things in your head. Somehow get what's in your head out there in the world, whether that means writing it down in a journal or on little three-by-five index cards, covering your desk and your fridge and your walls with Post-its, or making voice memos," he says. "Some ways of doing that are more elaborate than others, but anything that gets it out of the head is a good thing." There's no one gold standard when it comes to organization, he explains, "but there are some general principles that an effective system would follow," and externalizing is high on thelist.

The reason: Your mind is precious real estate - most people can only pay attention to three or four things at a time - and transferring your to-dos frees up space for other, more immediate needs. "If you're at work and you've got these voices in your head like, 'Don't forget to pick up the dry-cleaning,' and 'We need some milk,' and 'I have to pay this bill today,' and 'I have to call back Aunt Tilly,' that's four things ... you're already at your peak and you're not even doing your work," saysLevitin.

Seems reasonable. But externalizing isn't a unique feature of the bullet journal - it's the point of pretty much any organizational system, including Post-it wallpaper. The bullet pulls ahead for some people, though, with its all-encompassing nature. It's sort of a spin on environmental cuing, or the concept of placing reminders where you'll encounter them organically (like placing an umbrella by the door before you go to bed, for example, if you know it's going to rain the next day). Put your whole life - your work to-dos, your social calendar, your grocery list - in one place, and the odds are higher that you'll open the notebook for one thing and end up seeing a reminder for somethingelse.

In that way, some people may see the bullet journal as simpler and more helpful than keeping separate systems for separate purposes. And devotees insist that it really is simple, once you get the hang of it. But its relative complexity may actually be the key to its effectiveness: Unlike a numbered list on lined paper or an empty, premade calendar grid, the bullet journal forces you to do more than just write. It requires chart-drawing and symbol-making, and - as a quick Instagram search for #bulletjournal or #bujo will demonstrate - also leaves room for illustrations and color-coding and other forms of productive beautification. (Creator Ryder Carroll has declared that "you can use it as easily for a sketchbook as you can for a math book or a shopping list.") It is, in other words, a cornucopia of motor and cognitive tasks, some more demanding than others, that collectively help to relieve your brain from the stress of doing any one thing for toolong.

The key is in the diversity: Balancing deliberate activities with more mindless ones, Levitin explains, helps you to mentally refresh. "We should make time and space to alternate" between focus and "mind-wandering attentional mode," he says. "The research tells us that if you can take time off from your workflow and let your mind wander - maybe doodle, listen to music, draw pictures, just stare out the window - those periods of inactivity are actually essential to having productive periods ofactivity."

The flexibility of a blank notebook, Levitin adds, can also help get your juices flowing more than would tapping everything out on a screen. "When you've got a piece of paper in front of you, it sort of encourages you to expand your visual field and expand your imagination," he says. You can build on ideas, or experiment with different ways of representing them on the page. Past research has suggested, for example, that you may retain information better if you write it by hand rather than type it out; one study published earlier this year took the idea a step further, finding that drawing the things you need to remember may be even more effective than writing themdown.

It's more time-consuming than an iCal, but that's kind of the point: "You can reduce the amount of things you have to do by transferring things by hand," Carroll has explained. "If a task isn't worth the time to rewrite it, it's probably not important. Spend time with things that are important and be mindful of how you spend yourtime."

As Levitin stressed multiple times, the bullet journal won't work for everyone; there is no organizational system on earth that will. Part of its appeal, though, may stem from the way it plays to the workings of the brain - a fact that makes the system seem a little less daunting (at least in one disorganized writer's opinion). And, at the very least, it's a great excuse to buy a newnotebook.

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The Bullet Journal Works Because It Soothes Your Panicky Mind

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A sad truth about productivity aspirations: Sometimes, maintaining a system that's supposed to make your life easier can feel like the hardest part. Even the best-designed calendar app doesn't actually work if you have to force yourself to use it; eventually, updating it becomes just another unchecked item on the to-dolist.

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I related to this so much

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Inside the mind of a master procrastinator

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Tim Urban knows that procrastination doesn’t make sense, but he’s never been able to shake his habit of waiting until the last minute to get things done. In this hilarious and insightful talk, Urban takes us on a journey through YouTube binges, Wikipedia rabbit holes and bouts of staring out the window -- and encourages us to think harder about what we’re really procrastinating on, before we run out of time.

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Design by David Korins

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I had the honor of performing with Tim many years ago when he came and performed as a soloist with the Symphony I was performing in. He’s done some Amazing things since then and I just discovered this Ted Talk.

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Tim Fain: How Virtual Reality Can Help Make Our Stories (and Music!) | Tim Fain | TEDxHieronymusPark

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Explore this photo album by Melissa Eagan on Flickr!

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Picassohead self portrait

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Too many deadlines, demanding clients, no cohesive vision and even too much coffee can leave you feeling overwhelmed and uninspired. It's not always easy to deliver creativity on demand so we've put list together that's designed to get your creative juices flowing. Here's eight constructive ways to find inspiration for your graphics.

But, first:

Before you begin getting creative, make sure you know the purpose of the graphic. Consider:

What's the goal of the graphic? What does it need to achieve?

What's the message and how is it being delivered?

What platform will the graphic be displayed on? Is it printed or online?

Who is the audience?

What's the brand? Are there any style guides or restrictions?

These considerations will streamline the creative process by setting a framework to design within. Eliminating possibilities and options can make a job less daunting without restricting the creative process.

01. Find inspiration on social media

That's right, we're encouraging you to stop what you're doing and head on over to the dark side (just make sure you come back!) and are the two biggest and fastest growing imaged-based social media platforms and are great sources for finding inspiration online. Packed with stunning photography and design, they are easy-as-pie to navigate and search. Whether it's inspiration for a logo design, a blog graphic or a color scheme, Pinterest and Tumbler are lots of satisfying visual treats.

And don't forget to set up your own Pinterest and/or Tumblr account to store and refer back to the graphics you love best.

02. Flip through the pages of a magazine

Design-related magazines - in print and online - are fantastic for visual inspiration. Highlighting the best of the best in the industry, the glossy pages or smart graphics are sure to leave you motivated and in awe. Flip through print magazines surveying the layout, color palettes and fonts, etc, and pull out the pages that particularly inspire you. Keep a file or scrapbook that you can easily refer back to - it's like Pinterest or Tumblr for the real world.

And if you're online, here are 42 free online magazines to explore; or check out this shortlist of virtual magazines:

03. Collect inspiration

So, with those first two categories being said, one of the best things you can do is to start collecting things you've read, seen, or listened to that you found interesting or inspiring. Bookmark websites to refer back to; pin images to a Pinterest board; follow designers on Instagram or Behance; and pull out pages from a magazine. Creating a collection of images and designs will provide you with a reference source for future projects. Tools like and even Google Drive can also be a good way to capture things you find online.

04. Play

Working online provides designers with an abundance of free and useful tools at their disposal. Some of our favorites include Colour Lovers and , where you can experiment with color palettes, check out the most popular color schemes and see where and how they've been used.

Other fun and useful websites for inspiration include the appropriately named Designspiration and DesignTAXI . And of course, let's not forget itself, where you can drag and drop as well as experiment with colors and fonts.

05. Talk it out

Get talking with other designers and creative-types. Chat about the projects you're working on, what aspects you're finding particularly challenging, brainstorm ideas and discuss sources of inspiration. You might chance upon some great advice, or better yet, a solution because they've 'been there, done that. But no problem if that isn't the case, because just talking through the difficulties of a job can lift the weight from your shoulders, leaving you refreshed and ready to approach a task from a new angle.

06. Make creativity part of your routine

Whether it's writing, drawing, playing music or designing, it's important to set-aside time each day or each week to focus on your creative outlet. Choose a time and place free from distraction and if possible do it at the same time each day. Take 30 minutes before work, or a 20-minute afternoon break, or an hour in front of television in the evening - figuring out what time of day words best for you will help to start a creative routine. And don't forget to switch off the mobile and close all social media tabs for undistracted time.

07. Have a regular 'artist date'

Take inspiration from Julia Cameron who, in her book The Artist's Way , suggests taking a once-weekly, solo expedition to explore something of interest: venture to an art gallery, a music gig, or a sculpture walk. Whatever you choose, and regular 'artist date' can boost inspiration so get in touch with your cultural side.

08. Get some fresh air

Stepping away from the screen, going for walk and getting some fresh air can do wonders for recharging the mind and energy levels. If you're feeling stuck or uninspired, take 5 minutes or 30 minutes to go outside and you'll be surprised with what you might come up.

YOUR TURN

Creativity doesn't always come naturally and it doesn't always come when you most need ahead. Plan ahead by sourcing and collecting inspiration; play and experiment with your own graphics; and treat yourself right with fresh air, fresh conversation and a fresh creativity routine.

Do you have any other tips on how to stay creative? Share your advice below.

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Feeding creativity: How to find inspiration for your graphics - Learn

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Too many deadlines, demanding clients, no cohesive vision and even too much coffee can leave you feeling overwhelmed and uninspired. It's not always easy to deliver creativity on demand so we've put list together that's designed to get your creative juices flowing. Here's eight constructive ways to find inspiration for your graphics.

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Design inspiration comes in all shapes and sizes.

It doesn't matter if you're an illustrator working on a glossy magazine cover or a graphic designer working on a logo mock-up for your client's latest product. The right kind of inspiration will always help you come up with creative and unique ideas for your projects.

But sometimes you need some help getting inspired. Luckily, there are a TON of great resources for design inspiration.
(Our personal favorite is , the ever-updating resource for design inspiration served fresh.)
There are a TON of places to get design inspiration-and that can be overwhelming.

Well, we want to help. That's why we talked to a few professional designers to find out exactly where they go to get inspired.

8 places to go for design inspiration (as suggested by professional designers)

The designers we talked to:

Greg Wilson. An NYC-based graphic and motion designer.

Chad Michael. An award-winning branding, packaging, and product designer.

William Meadows. A creative director and customer-centered design lead for ACC New Zealand.

Between the three of them, they have a few decades worth of design experience and acumen-not to mention an encyclopedic knowledge of the best places for design inspiration.

You might be surprised at how often they go offline for inspiration. Big lesson: Don't be afraid to venture outside away from your computer to get inspired.

With that, let's jump in.

1. Travel

From William:

"I've done a lot of solo traveling (upwards of 60 countries by myself). To me, this is about expanding my 'visual library' but also getting time to challenge some of my deeper rooted assumptions. As a design researcher, one of the key elements is reflecting and knowing yourself. There's no better way to do that than adapting yourself to a new context."

Travel exposes you to new cultures, people, and experiences. It's no wonder professional designers like William use it as a source of design inspiration as well. By immersing yourself in an area that's far from home, you break out of your comfort zone and open your eyes to new possibilities in your creative projects.
Go deeper: How traveling for a year changed a remote worker's life
Tip: Scout for last-minute flight deals and head to a city you've never heard of or planned on visiting for a weekend. Ask locals for restaurant recommendations, take long walks, and keep your headphones in your pocket while you focus on these new surroundings.

2. Take walks

From Greg:

"As a creative, it is so easy to get lost in your head. For me, I go on walks or bike rides to clear my head and soak in my environment. I find inspiration everywhere from tags and murals to weird cars to nature and architecture."
Go deeper: What's your creative ritual?
Sometimes the best way to get inspired creatively is to leave the office and simply go on a walk. This isn't just conjectured either-a 2014 study by Stanford University found that walking boosted creative output by 60%.

Tip: Think about how you can start incorporating mindful walks throughout your creative process. Force yourself to take regular stretching and movement breaks, especially on stressful days.

3. Hit up antique stores and estate sales-or Etsy

From Chad:

"I'm always looking and searching for little hidden gems at these places as you never know what you might find. It is a more personal experience than doing internet research, as the items you find while hunting have most likely not ever been on the internet, because they have been collecting dust in someone's home for decades."

Antique stores contain a wealth of unique items that are sure to spark your imagination. You can find items from decades ago complete with old typography, illustrations, and designs.

Tip: Come with a project or theme in mind. When you're open to inspiration for a specific idea, you'll find your mind making all kinds of connections.

From Chad:

" Etsy is a great one to find packaging pieces that the world has forgotten about and that many have not yet seen. Finding inspiration that is old yet new to the eyes can really get the inspiration moving. I typically search for antique packaging, ephemera, and do prop hunting for the studio's product photoshoots."

Etsy is a popular eCommerce platform catered to handmade and artisan items. As such, it's chock full of fun curios and items you can scroll through for your design inspiration.

Go deeper: A while back, we chatted with two of Etsy's product designers on the importance of data-driven design at the company.

4. Chat up family, friends, and coworkers

From Greg:

"I am so lucky to work in an industry with little egos. Everyone wants to help one another and just make dope stuff. The friends and coworkers I have known are probably the most immediate source of inspiration. Some people I like include Dan Covert, Joyce N. Ho, and Irene Feleo."

From William:
Go deeper: 5 steps to modern mentorship
"As I've gotten older, I find I really curate my friends, my media, and the social experiences I 'consume.' This is great for my tastes, but bad for my perspectives as a design researcher. I find one of the best things to call up for a reality check is my experiences growing up with my uncles drinking beer and shooting fireworks, the weird malls my mom would take me to clothes shopping as a kid, the smell and feel of your grandparents' house, and knocking over trash cans at night with my marauding teenage friends. Those are the things of real, non-curated people. The struggles and just realness of family [and friends] help make designing for people a reality, not just a fancy tagline."

There's no denying that the people you surround yourself with have an undeniable and deep impact on who you become. One study from Gallup found that people with friends in their work or industry were 700% more likely to be engaged in their work when compared to their friendless counterparts. That's why any aspiring creative should work on building and fostering a network of supportive people if they want to find success.

Tip: Don't have pals in your industry? Make some. Find networking events in your neighborhood on Meetup or Dribbble, or go to (cooler, objectively more fun) creative talks like Creative Mornings or Think&Drink. Also, don't forget that it's 2019 and friends don't have to hang IRL- industry Slack groups are great ways to make connections from your couch.

5. Motionographers

From Greg:

" Motionographer is the go-to, cream-of-the-crop for the animation industry. Everything from stellar client work to innovative personal projects are posted here. This place has been a constant inspo page when I was starting out in motion design a few years ago and it was invaluable for learning."

Motionographer (pronounced like "oceanographer") gives motion designers inspiration by showcasing the work of established and up-and-coming motion designers, sharing helpful articles on design, and featuring commentary on industry topics.

Tip: Even if you're not a motion designer, take advantage of resources like Motionographer to show you what other designers are working on. An inspiring project is an inspiring project, after all-the medium isn't what's most important.

Go deeper: Our 18 best posts on animation.

6. Pinterest
Go deeper: How Pinterest designs with culture in mind.
From Chad:

"The depth that Pinterest possesses is limitless. It is a daily source for me especially during the research period of a project where you can find incredibly unique design, illustration, photography, and references. It can be quite a rabbit hole."

Pinterest is a free social media platform that allows users to curate images and videos onto digital Pinterest boards. This makes it a great source of design inspiration you can use for your next project. It's also a fantastic way to create a mood board.

Tip: Build Pinterest into your research phase. Search for key words and ideas from your project and see what the world brings you.

7. Instagram

From Greg:

"This is a given. I try to follow more people who are doing different things unrelated to my field to expand my personal taste. I also try to find IG accounts that post old work from different decades. In my opinion, it's better to pull influence from something that's not currently trending. Two accounts I suggest are @MikeMcQuade and @typegoodness."

Instagram isn't just for sharing pictures of your brunch or that cocktail you had the other night. It's also a great source for design inspiration. You can create your own Instagram account and start saving pictures and videos you like to private collections, or you can simply follow your favorite designers for inspiration.

Tip: Don't just follow designers-follow authors, meme accounts, bakers, and anyone else who's constantly updating with their work. Take inspiration not just for your projects, but for your work as a whole-for who you want to be and what you want to be working on.

Go deeper: Check out these 35 inspiring designers to follow on Instagram.

Need more inspiration? We can help.

If you want even more design inspiration, we got you covered.

In fact, we have an entire section dedicated to inspiration.

A few you might like:

Your design inspiration should be unique to you. That means what works for one designer might not work for you-and vice versa. What matters most is that you find what does work and use it to inspire your awesome creative projects.

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7 surprising sources of design inspiration | Inside Design Blog

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Design inspiration comes in all shapes and sizes. It doesn't matter if you're an illustrator working on a glossy magazine cover or a graphic designer working on a logo mock-up for your client's latest product. The right kind of inspiration will always help you come up with creative and unique ideas for your projects.

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by Oliver Sacks

Hardcover, 400 pages

List Price: $26.00
A Bolt from the Blue: Sudden Musicophilia
Note: There is language in this excerpt that some readers may find offensive.

Tony Cicoria was forty-two, very fit and robust, a former college football player who had become a well-regarded orthopedic surgeon in a small city in upstate New York. He was at a lakeside pavilion for a family gathering one fall afternoon. It was pleasant and breezy, but he noticed a few storm clouds in the distance; it looked like rain.

He went to a pay phone outside the pavilion to make a quick call to his mother (this was in 1994, before the age of cell phones). He still remembers every single second of what happened next: "I was talking to my mother on the phone. There was a little bit of rain, thunder in the distance. My mother hung up. The phone was a foot away from where I was standing when I got struck. I remember a flash of light coming out of the phone. It hit me in the face. Next thing I remember, I was flying backwards."

Then - he seemed to hesitate before telling me this - "I was flying forwards. Bewildered. I looked around. I saw my own body on the ground. I said to myself, 'Oh shit, I'm dead.' I saw people converging on the body. I saw a woman - she had been standing waiting to use the phone right behind me - position herself over my body, give it CPR. . . . I floated up the stairs - my consciousness came with me. I saw my kids, had the realization that they would be okay. Then I was surrounded by a bluish-white light . . . an enormous feeling of well-being and peace. The highest and lowest points of my life raced by me. No emotion associated with these ... pure thought, pure ecstasy. I had the perception of accelerating, being drawn up .. there was speed and direction. Then, as I was saying to myself, 'This is the most glorious feeling I have ever had' - SLAM! I was back."

Dr. Cicoria knew he was back in his own body because he had pain - pain from the burns on his face and his left foot, where the electrical charge had entered and exited his body - and, he realized, "only bodies have pain." He wanted to go back, he wanted to tell the woman to stop giving him CPR, to let him go; but it was too late - he was firmly back among the living. After a minute or two, when he could speak, he said, "It's okay - I'm a doctor!" The woman (she turned out to be an intensive-care-unit nurse) replied, "A few minutes ago, you weren't."

The police came and wanted to call an ambulance, but Cicoria refused, delirious. They took him home instead ("it seemed to take hours"), where he called his own doctor, a cardiologist. The cardiologist, when he saw him, thought Cicoria must have had a brief cardiac arrest, but could find nothing amiss with examination or EKG. "With these things, you're alive or dead," the cardiologist remarked. He did not feel that Dr. Cicoria would suffer any further consequences of this bizarre accident.

Cicoria also consulted a neurologist - he was feeling sluggish (most unusual for him) and having some difficulties with his memory. He found himself forgetting the names of people he knew well. He was examined neurologically, had an EEG and an MRI. Again, nothing seemed amiss.

A couple of weeks later, when his energy returned, Dr. Cicoria went back to work. There were still some lingering memory problems - he occasionally forgot the names of rare diseases or surgical procedures - but all his surgical skills were unimpaired. In another two weeks, his memory problems disappeared, and that, he thought, was the end of the matter.

What then happened still fills Cicoria with amazement, even now, a dozen years later. Life had returned to normal, seemingly, when "suddenly, over two or three days, there was this insatiable desire to listen to piano music." This was completely out of keeping with anything in his past. He had had a few piano lessons as a boy, he said, "but no real interest." He did not have a piano in his house. What music he did listen to tended to be rock music.

With this sudden onset of craving for piano music, he began to buy recordings and became especially enamored of a Vladimir Ashkenazy recording of Chopin favorites - the Military Polonaise, the Winter Wind Étude, the Black Key Étude, the A-flat Polonaise, the B-flat Minor Scherzo. "I loved them all," Tony said. "I had the desire to play them. I ordered all the sheet music. At this point, one of our babysitters asked if she could store her piano in our house - so now, just when I craved one, a piano arrived, a nice little upright. It suited me fine. I could hardly read the music, could barely play, but I started to teach myself." It had been more than thirty years since the few piano lessons of his boyhood, and his fingers seemed stiff and awkward.

And then, on the heels of this sudden desire for piano music, Cicoria started to hear music in his head. "The first time," he said, "it was in a dream. I was in a tux, onstage; I was playing something I had written. I woke up, startled, and the music was still in my head. I jumped out of bed, started trying to write down as much of it as I could remember. But I hardly knew how to notate what I heard." This was not too successful - he had never tried to write or notate music before. But whenever he sat down at the piano to work on the Chopin, his own music "would come and take me over. It had a very powerful presence."

I was not quite sure what to make of this peremptory music, which would intrude almost irresistibly and overwhelm him. Was he having musical hallucinations? No, Dr. Cicoria said, they were not hallucinations - "inspiration" was a more apt word. The music was there, deep inside him - or somewhere - and all he had to do was let it come to him. "It's like a frequency, a radio band. If I open myself up, it comes. I want to say, 'It comes from heaven,' as Mozart said."

His music is ceaseless. "It never runs dry," he continued. "If anything, I have to turn it off."

Now he had to wrestle not just with learning to play the Chopin, but to give form to the music continually running in his head, to try it out on the piano, to get it on manuscript paper. "It was a terrible struggle," he said. "I would get up at four in the morning and play till I went to work, and when I got home from work I was at the piano all evening. My wife was not really pleased. I was possessed."

In the third month after being struck by lightning, then, Cicoria - once an easygoing, genial family man, almost indifferent to music - was inspired, even possessed, by music, and scarcely had time for anything else. It began to dawn on him that perhaps he had been "saved" for a special reason. "I came to think," he said, "that the only reason I had been allowed to survive was the music." I asked him whether he had been a religious man before the lightning. He had been raised Catholic, he said, but had never been particularly observant; he had some "unorthodox" beliefs, too, such as in reincarnation.

He himself, he grew to think, had had a sort of reincarnation, had been transformed and given a special gift, a mission, to "tune in" to the music that he called, half metaphorically, "the music from heaven." This came, often, in "an absolute torrent" of notes with no breaks, no rests, between them, and he would have to give it shape and form. (As he said this, I thought of Caedmon, the seventh-century Anglo-Saxon poet, an illiterate goatherd who, it was said, had received the "art of song" in a dream one night, and spent the rest of his life praising God and creation in hymns and poems.)

Cicoria continued to work on his piano playing and his compositions. He got books on notation, and soon realized that he needed a music teacher. He would travel to concerts by his favorite performers but had nothing to do with musical friends in his own town or musical activities there. This was a solitary pursuit, between himself and his muse.

I asked whether he had experienced other changes since the lightning strike - a new appreciation of art, perhaps, different taste in reading, new beliefs? Cicoria said he had become "very spiritual" since his near-death experience. He had started to read every book he could find about near-death experiences and about lightning strikes. And he had got "a whole library on Tesla," as well as anything on the terrible and beautiful power of high-voltage electricity. He felt he could sometimes see "auras" of light or energy around people's bodies - he had never seen this before the lightning bolt.

Some years passed, and Cicoria's new life, his inspiration, never deserted him for a moment. He continued to work full-time as a surgeon, but his heart and mind now centered on music. He got divorced in 2004, and the same year had a fearful motorcycle accident. He had no memory of this, but his Harley was struck by another vehicle, and he was found in a ditch, unconscious and badly injured, with broken bones, a ruptured spleen, a perforated lung, cardiac contusions, and, despite his helmet, head injuries. In spite of all this, he made a complete recovery and was back at work in two months. Neither the accident nor his head injury nor his divorce seemed to have made any difference to his passion for playing and composing music.
Excerpted from Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks Copyright (c) 2007 by Oliver Sacks. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Oliver Sacks Observes the Mind Through Music

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by Oliver Sacks Hardcover, 400 pages List Price: $26.00 A Bolt from the Blue: Sudden Musicophilia Note: There is language in this excerpt that some readers may find offensive. Tony Cicoria was forty-two, very fit and robust, a former college football player who had become a well-regarded orthopedic surgeon in a small city in upstate New York.

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Mr. Rogers' Dartmouth Commencement Speech Is What We All Need Right Now

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A study in The Journal of Neuroscience by Dr. Nina Kraus shows a relationship between neural response consistency and ability to keep a beat. Dr. Kraus' lab, shown here, investigates the neurobiology underlying speech, music, and learning. Credit: Dr. Nina Kraus.

The findings of a Northwestern University study of more than 100 high school students lend proof to the surprising link between music, rhythmic abilities and language skills.

The study-the first to provide biological evidence linking the ability to keep a beat to the neural encoding of speech sounds -has significant implications for reading, according to Nina Kraus, director of Northwestern's Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory.

Previous investigations found a link between reading ability and beat-keeping, says Kraus in a study published in the Sept. 18 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. Previous research has established a link between reading ability and neural response consistency. "By directly linking auditory responses with beat-keeping ability, we have closed the triangle," Kraus says.

The study demonstrates that accurate beat-keeping involves synchronization between the parts of the brain responsible for hearing as well as movement. Where previous research investigations focused on the motor half of the equation, Kraus and co-author Adam Tierney focused on the auditory component.

Because hearing sounds of speech and associating them with the letters comprising written words is crucial to learning to read, the Northwestern researchers reasoned that the association between reading and beat synchronization likely has a common basis in the auditory system.

To investigate the relationship between beat-keeping and auditory processing, 124 Chicago high school students visited Kraus's lab and were given two tests. In the first, they were asked to listen to a metronome and tap their finger along to it on a special tapping pad. Tapping accuracy was computed based on how closely their taps aligned in time to the tick-tock of the metronome.

In a "brainwave test," the students were fitted with electrodes measuring the consistency of their brain response to a repeated syllable. Across the population, the more accurate the adolescents were at tapping along to the beat, the more consistent their brain response was to the speech syllable.

"This is supported biologically," Kraus says. "The brainwaves we measured originate from a biological hub of auditory processing with reciprocal connections with the motor-movement centers. An activity that requires coordination of hearing and movement is likely to rely on solid and accurate communication across brain regions."

Accurate beat-keeping's implications for reading and language skills simply make sense, according to the co-authors. "Rhythm is an integral part of both music and language," Kraus says. "And the rhythm of spoken language is a crucial cue to understanding."

For example, you might slow down your speech or stress one syllable more than another to emphasize a particular point. And minute timing differences distinguish consonants, such as "b" and "p." Hearing that timing distinction is necessary to identify the sounds with the letters that represent them.

"Musicians have highly consistent auditory-neural responses," says Kraus. "It may be that musical training-with its emphasis on rhythmic skills-can exercise the auditory-system, leading to less neural jitter and stronger sound-to-meaning associations that are so essential to learning to read."

Kraus, who is the Knowles Chair in Northwestern's School of Communication and professor of neurobiology in Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, is conducting longitudinal investigations that look directly at the effects of music training by measuring beat synchronization, response consistency, reading and other language skills in children as they progress through music instruction from year to year.

Journal information: Journal of Neuroscience

Provided by Northwestern University

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The importance of keeping a beat: Researchers link ability to keep a beat to reading, language skills

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The findings of a Northwestern University study of more than 100 high school students lend proof to the surprising link between music, rhythmic abilities and language skills. The study-the first to provide biological evidence linking the ability to keep a beat to the neural encoding of speech sounds -has significant implications for reading, according to Nina Kraus, director of Northwestern's Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory.

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