In jazz, you do get that right, your players get bored with what's happening. And so on an individual level, they're creatively trying to introduce new components and motifs. But there's something special that happens at the level of the entire system where you put them all together. So for me, I think this really points to the power of complex systems to almost destabilize our received visions of what creativity even is.
If there's one type of music that goes particularly well with complexity science, it's free jazz. The sort of jazz that you get when you put a group of musicians together without a conductor or any written music. But despite this, they still produce incredible music. So how does this group of musicians play so tightly together, whilst creating such dramatic changes to their music?
In this episode, we're joined again by Tyler Marghetis, Assistant Professor of Cognitive and Information Sciences at the University of California, Merced. Tyler is going to return to the concept of tipping points, but this time, he's going to explore tipping points through the context of jazz music. To understand how they occur, he's going to go to one of the most unlikely places for help: the study of ecologies.
Resources and links:
- 'Zadok the Priest' by Handel - Classical (composed) - This piece tips at 01:22
- 'Implosion' by Alex Levine Quartet - Free jazz (improvised) - This piece tips between 00:10 to 00:30, and again between 02:20 to 02:40.
Connect:
This show is produced in collaboration with Wavelength Creative. Visit wavelengthcreative.com for more information.