The changes that I notice

I am a fairly rational person in general but as I get more involved in my practice, I find myself changing where my emotional states become more vivid. It is as if art and the narcissism involved with the details in it, makes me more human. The focus turns inward and the responses to life are deeper regardless of the the emotions associated with them. Perhaps some of this also comes from dealing with difficult changes in surroundings and harmonizing with new ideas and people.
A little bit about music as well. Tabla playing is an improvisational art. It requires a great deal of control over spans of time or cycles. This part of music, for now, seems to me to be almost magical. How do you teach someone to control time? How do you learn it? It seems that for now this knowledge is part of what may be called the informal culture of tabla playing. As I develop this sense, maybe I will be able to shed some light on how to bring it into a more technical realm. Most of the tabla artists that have this ability did not acquire it by any kind of technical training but rather acquired it informally, organically. But, that requires years of being lost in the atmosphere of this music and putting that informal work into practice.
Anyways I would love to hear other people's thoughts about any of this or how involvement with art changes them.