The way that birds flock together, the activities of bees in a hive, ant colonies and schools of fish all exhibit swarming behavior that is able to accomplish amazing tasks but is not led by one controlling individual. Even the queen in a beehive is not in control of the behaviors that a collective groups of bees engage in.

David Borgo, a professor at UC San Diego, wrote a book, “Sync or Swarm: Improvising Music in a Complex Age” which was revised in 2022. In that book he talks about how the collaborative mind is active in free improvisation. Trust, empathy and an “egoless state” in which the actions of the individuals and the group cause a musical statement to emerge in the moment may seem to be greater than the individual contributions.

What are all of the active elements that actually cause this phenomena to occur?

According to Keith Sawyer in his book “Group Creativity”, group flow “can inspire individuals to play things that they would not be able to play alone or would not have explored without the inspiration of the group”. In such a case, the total can be greater than the sum of its parts (1+1=3).

I am currently doing a deep dive into researching and understanding this phenomena and I hope to document my findings on this website…