Sync or Swarm: Improvising Music in a Complex Age (review)

At once theoretical, practical, pedagogical, musical, and even autobiographical, Sync or Swarm is an attempt to blend contemporary science and psychology with the critical study of musical improvisation. For those who are not musically oriented, this text might seem intimidating at first given its expansive musical vocabulary, from the Phrygian mode to phase transition, and the range of musical references, from Anthony Braxton to Arnold Schoenberg. For those who are not scientifically oriented, it can have the same effect, utilizing an array of theories including chaos theory, cybernetics, evolutionary theory, systems theory, and cognitive science. Yet his style is most often clear and didactic while at the same time rigorous and complex. As Borgo's first book, it is a remarkable attempt to bridge the gap between the humanities and the sciences (often an improvisatory act in its own right), especially given that music is vastly under-theorized in the humanities itself. It would therefore be of interest to not only musical theorists and scientists, but to those in psychology, literary theory, cultural studies, comparative media studies, and anyone interested in the philosophy of creativity.

An Assistant Professor of music in the Critical Studies and Experimental Practices Program at UCSD, Borgo is also a very talented and prolific saxophonist and composer; the book itself comes with a CD that features Borgo's ensemble "Surrealestate" along with Evan Parker, George Lewis, and the Sam Rivers Trio, and serves as a reference point for certain sections of the book. The predominate musical genres that are analyzed are jazz and experimental (particularly the music of Evan Parker), and it is perhaps Borgo's own practice as a musician that lends the book its most astonishing qualities: a sweeping knowledge of jazz, improvisatory, and experimental music, discrete attention to the numerous nuances that are involved in improvising music, an unabashed enthusiasm for the ways in which various developments in cognitive neuroscience or the mathematics of chaos theory can help us understand music in its most complex dynamics, and a deep concern for pedagogical issues.

The title of Sync or Swarm is at once a play on "sink or swim," a pedagogical method for teaching improvised music borrowed from George Lewis, and also a reference to "the delicate and exquisite dynamics that can emerge in complex systems, but only under certain conditions that require intense communication and cooperation and a shared history of interactions" (9). In my mind, the most impressive chapter is actually the last chapter, which deals specifically with pedagogical issues that directly concern the teaching of musical improvisation in the classroom; it is remarkable given that Borgo's pedagogical concerns deal with the philosophy of creativity, knowledge acquisition, and the relationship between knowing and doing in such a way as to be relevant, if not pertinent, to nearly any teacher in nearly any field. Here, the issues that are raised as the book expands outward in its process come together in a way that is social and psychological, and therefore political. In Borgo's own words, "fostering improvising music has the potential to overcome the inherent problems of a slow-moving traditional hierarchy, providing an effective way to handle unstructured problems, to share knowledge outside of traditional structures, and to inject local knowledge into the system" (194).

Regarding the complex nuances that are drawn out of improvising music, some of the more predominant ones in this book are the relationship between improvisers as a social phenomena, the relationship between improvisation, music, the body, and performance, improvisation and cognition, musical improvisation as communication, the anti-authoritarian character of improvisation, and a particular focus on the concepts of uncertainty, play, unpredictability, and the interplay of turbulence and coherence.

While Sync or Swarm is certainly a work that is accessible to those outside of music or science, it does have certain issues with clarity. There are moments when the various references to several musicians and several scientists cloud the discourse. And while Borgo insists on the...