Re-wiring the Brain

Learning a skill, or learning a new language, or a new system of writing, or learning to compose music, feels like re-wiring the brain. It is not the acquisition of information, or learning new facts about things, but more like learning to think in certain way. 

Thinking, abstract thinking in this sense, is itself a re-wiring of the brain. I often conclude of people in my field that they aren't very good thinkers, in that they aren't good at developing new ideas, thinking through connections between things--all the things that make someone "smart."  

When I saw that these processes of learning feel a certain way, I am being very precise about my experience. It is intensely pleasurable to sit down and work out a melodic idea and connect it to others, figure out whether a sequence of chords sounds good or not, satisfies my ear. Then how does it balance with the last section? 

If I can learn something every day then I am an intensely happy person. For example, the other day I learned the term "Mickey Mousing." First I saw it in wikipedia and then in one of Bernstein's lectures on humor and music. I thought that was a brilliant concept. I think I am guilty of it when I set the phrase "ice cakes float downstream" on a series of five descending notes. Hopefully nobody will notice.