Sync or Swarm. Improvising Music in a Complex Age

Sync or Swarm provides a fascinating study of musical improvisation, using theories from cultural and cognitive studies and the emerging science of chaos and complexity.

Improvising music involves a leap into the uncharted, but its success relies on abilities honed through experience and on an unwavering commitment to the moment and context of performance. Improvisers synchronize their intentions and actions, all the while maintaining a keen sensitivity to and connection with the evolving group dynamic. At times, performance can evoke a swarmlike quality in which the individual parts are moving in very different ways, yet the musical whole evolves with a collective purpose.

Sync or Swarm provides a fascinating study of musical improvisation, using theories from cultural and cognitive studies and the emerging science of chaos and complexity. David Borgo explores his topic with a systems approach, as individual chapters expand outward in scope: from the perspective of a solo improviser (English saxophonist Evan Parker); to that of a group interacting in performance and over time (the Sam Rivers trio); to the network dynamics that bind together performers, listeners, educators, and promoters into a musical community. Each chapter is paired with a different aspect of the emerging sciences, including perspectives from the study of embodied cognition, nonlinear dynamics, self-organizing systems, social networks, and situated and distributed learning.

Sync or Swarm looks through the lens of contemporary science to illuminate the process and practice of improvising music and explores the ability of improvisation to offer a visceral engagement with these emerging scientific notions, ultimately offering us new ways of engaging with and shaping the discourse that surrounds music in general.

CONTENIDO:

List of Figures
List of Audio Examples
Acknowledgements
Preface
I. The Sound and Science of Surprise
The Age of Complexity
Sync or Swarm
II. Reverence for Uncertainty
Exploring Uncertainty
Performing Uncertainty
Experiencing Uncertainty
Documenting Uncertainty
Evaluating Uncertainty
III. The Embodied Mind
Taking the Note for a Walk
The Body in the Music
It?s a Bit Like Juggling
Thinking about the Laundry
A Chameleon on a Mirror
IV. Rivers of Consciousness
Complexity and Emergence
Time and the Qualia of Experience
The Phase Space of Improvisation
Hues of Melanin
A Delicate Balance
V. The Edge of Chaos
The Turbulent Mirror
Fractal Worlds
Self-Organization
The Rage for Chaos
VI. Sync and Swarm
Coupling and Entrainment
Insect Music
By Lead or By Seed
A Web Without a Spider
VII. Harnessing Complexity
The Map is Not the Territory
Group Creativity
Surrealestate
The Shores of Multiplicity
References
Notes
Index