Einstein considered playing an acoustic instrument not just an important hobby but perceived it as vital to how he approached life. He used this perception to intuitively develop a process that leveraged his ability of playing an instrument into a cognitive tool for his work. Einstein did this by playing the violin or piano if he was stuck on a physics problem. Then afterward he would go back to working on physics. This process was not done for rest and relaxation but to stimulate his creativity. 
 

Instead of striving to continually increase academic knowledge, Einstein discovered that this process of playing an instrument was the most direct path to access his imagination. That’s why he said: "The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." At that time, Einstein’s heavy reliance on playing an instrument was not understood. But now his process can be explained because it’s becoming recognized that the strongest way to stimulate creativity is through art and music. Both are connected because they are the exact same vehicle but in different form; art is frozen music and music is liquid art. Within this vehicle, the use of physical motor skills alongside a cognitive purpose results in a tangible self-reinforcing creativity loop. That’s why creative acts of expressing art and music can continually stimulate more creativity. But the increased physical and cognitive engagement correlating to playing an acoustic instrument makes it more powerful than art. 

(More information found at Einstein On Creative Thinking - Psychology Today article)

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More importantly, playing an acoustic instrument stimulates creativity the strongest because that action is what induces the strongest emotion. The component of emotion is essential, because it’s the foundational driver behind all creativity. So the more emotion that is induced, the more potential there is to stimulate creativity. 

There are two aspects involved, the physical and the metaphysical, regarding the relationship between acoustic instruments and emotion. The first aspect deals with the physical vibrations of an acoustic instrument being able to interact with matter, which at the quantum level is comprised of the same type of vibrations. Within matter, water is the most diverse forms (being able to transition to a solid or gas), having the greatest vibrational elasticity. As a result, the unique complexity and diversity-depth of the physical vibrations produced by acoustic instruments are able to energize and amplify the quantum vibrations of biological and botanical bodies (i.e. life) because those specific bodies are mainly comprised (75% - 90%) of water. Furthermore, those bodies are also affected to different degrees by different instruments, which produce different complexities of vibrations. Brass instruments produce more complex vibrations than percussion. Woodwinds produce more complex vibrations than brass. Bowed string instruments produce more complex vibrations than woodwinds. 

This brings us to the metaphysical second aspect of emotion. Emotion is induced within the body when the vibrations of acoustic instruments energize and amplify quantum vibrations. To understand this aspect, we need to examine emotion through a new paradigm. Emotion:
 

• Is an independent component of life while being integrated within the functions of life. 
• Drives nearly every action/re-action of life and is the main framework through which life communicates. 
• Empowers the intelligence of the mind with the capability, speed, agility and perception that intelligence can never even come close to duplicating by-itself. 
• Guides the mind to aggregate and connect old information in new ways to create new information, which is the process of creativity and innovation.
• Acts as a beacon, with stronger levels of emotion signaling greater, threats, opportunities and amounts of new information created and/or understood. 
 

While Neuroscience is correct in observing that emotion can be induced by neurochemicals, in most instances emotion is being induced by cognitive and physical interactions between biological bodies. After emotion is induced, it then uses the concurrently produced neurochemicals as a carrier to stay in the body. That’s why an ‘interaction-induced’ emotion continues to stay in your body, connected to neurochemicals, long after the interaction is over. The stronger an emotion that is induced, the heavier the dose of neurochemicals produced, the longer your body is intoxicated with those neurochemicals and therefore the more difficult it is to break free of that emotion. 
 

Emotion can also be induced by vibrations. The ‘vibration-induced’ emotion is elastic and temporary. That’s why even a short segment of acoustic music can take the listener on a rollercoaster of radically different intense emotions that then leave the listener in a neutral state after the music ends. Depending on the characteristic of the vibrations, our minds can discern the type of emotion induced. The fast/high vibrations induce a wide spectrum of positive love-based emotion. The slow/low vibrations induce a wide spectrum of negative fear-based emotion. Music composers have learned how to organize these vibrational spectrums to induce the desired emotion within the listener. Neuroscience has observed this effect but does not yet understand the model behind it. That’s why the current Neuroscience model of the brain/mind dynamic is outdated. Within their model the intense emotion that people experience of; hope to despair, passion to aversion, joy to sorrow, compassion to rage and every emotion in between, is only a chemical by-product of a neurobiological function. This outdated model is no longer adequate or valid. 
 

The main take-away is that emotion is not an incidental by-product. Emotion is an independent component that has a purposeful role within life. (Every religion has its own version of the ‘Holy Ghost’. It’s just explained here through a science-based paradigm). At its core, the interaction of emotion has the effect of being a health and survival mechanism. But at the highest level of sentient life, emotion becomes the foundational driver for creativity and innovation. Hence why Steve Jobs said: “You have to have a lot of passion for what you are doing because it is so hard.” 
 

Yet having emotion when you need it is not controllable because it comes and goes. Even when you have emotion, if it’s working through neurochemicals then it is controlling you. The reality is that there is a binary interaction happening with emotion. You are either using your emotion or emotion is using you. That’s why the controllable action of playing on an acoustic instrument to induce emotion can be the process that empowers an individual to use their emotion as a tool for creativity. Within this process, the elasticity of vibration-induced emotion can then be channeled into anything the mind chooses to focus on. This is the process Einstein used and can be used by everyone who has had music training on an acoustic instrument. 
 

Imagine an analogy where a river is like emotion and crops are like creativity. A river is used to irrigate crops like emotion is used to stimulate creativity. If the river is stronger and bigger, then it can be used to irrigate more crops. In the same way if emotion is stronger and bigger, then it can be used to stimulate more creativity. But the river can only be used productively if it is controlled and funneled to irrigate crops. In the same way, emotion can only be used productively if it is controlled and funneled to stimulate creativity. Consequently, only ‘vibration-induced’ emotion can be induced, controlled and then funneled to stimulate creative thinking.