Tensional Selves in Piano Practice - Mapping Sonic Belonging - SfN 2025 Decolonial Neuroscience Brain Bee

Doctorate in Musical Performance

First-Person Consciousness

"I am living consciousness. I am not just sound or technique: I am the body that tenses itself to exist as someone who plays. Every note I produce is born from an internal decision: to tense or to release, to belong or to resist. Sometimes, my sound is fear. Other times, it is an embrace. When I stop controlling and begin listening, the piano becomes a territory, and I become a sound that belongs."

Introduction: Who Is Playing?

In piano practice, it’s not only the body playing: it’s the "self" that emerges from tensions. We call these configurations Tensional Selves — neuro-affective patterns that shape the body to carry out tasks, confront challenges, and even sustain beliefs.
These selves shape musical performance before a single note is heard.

The Body as a Map of Sonic Belonging

Each body carries history. Each physical tension is memory and expectation. Thus:

• A “performative self” tightens the jaw and accelerates the rhythm;
  
  

• A “careful self” stiffens the fingers and hesitates at the attack;
  
  

• A “fluid self” dissolves into the sound and breathes with the phrase.
  
  

These tensions are interoceptive and proprioceptive configurations — inner states that position the body in time, space, and sound.

Scientific Evidence: EEG, fNIRS, and Belonging

EEG (Electroencephalography)

EEG reveals the deactivation of alertness networks (frontal alpha) and the emergence of sensory attention microstates, showing how different selves arise and dissolve during musical performance.

fNIRS (Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy)

fNIRS measures real-time brain oxygenation. When performers reach a state of sonic belonging, we observe:

• Increased superior parietal activation: body-sound-space integration;
  
  

• Reduced prefrontal activity: less control, more flow;
  
  

• Prefrontal SpO₂ between 92–94% — the Zone 2 range: a physiologically safe state for creative emergence.
  
  

Zone 2: Where the Self Dissolves into the Music

In Zone 2, the body stops bracing itself to react and begins to belong. This requires:

• Releasing interoceptive tensions of control;
  
  

• Welcoming the unpredictable;
  
  

• Accepting silence as part of the sound.
  
  

In piano practice, entering Zone 2 means trusting that the body already knows, that sound can guide, that belonging comes before technique.

Decolonial Insight: Sound Is Not Conquered — It Is Inhabited

Rather than forcing music to obey the body, the decolonial view proposes that the body inhabits music as one returns home.
This means:

• Letting go of the colonial logic of perfection;
  
  

• Embracing sound as an affective territory;
  
  

• Mapping selves not to dominate them but to allow their release into sonic collectivity.
  
  

This is the DANA spirituality: DNA in action, guiding performance not as technique but as embodied meaning.

Conclusion: Mapping to Liberate

Understanding our Tensional Selves is an act of liberation. It is not about eliminating error but about recognizing who is playing.
With EEG, fNIRS, SpO₂, and HRV, we can measure without domination. Evidence-based science can validate what the body already knows: that belonging is more powerful than performance alone.

References (no links)

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• Rosa, R., Spahn, C., & Altenmüller, E. (2020). How Do Musicians Experience Flow?
  
  

• Ferronato, S. B., & Araújo, S. (2021). Fronteiras Entre Corpo e Pensamento
  
  

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• Cionek, J. Original concepts: Zone 2, Fruition, DANA, Apus, Human Quorum Sensing (HQS), Tensional Selves, Damasian Mind