The wiggly wonder of music | Jacob Collier

Elise Hu (0:04)

You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hugh.

The musician and composer, Jacob Collier, has a theory about music and in turn, about life. He calls it the wiggle. And once you hear him explain it, you may start seeing wiggles everywhere.

Jacob Collier (0:25)

Life does not work in straight lines.

Life is full of curveballs, full of ups and downs. And either we yield and we bend and we soften, or we stiffen up and we break.

Elise Hu (0:35)

Jacob starts this talk at the Grand Piano on stage, playing his adaptation of the famous Louis Armstrong song, What a Wonderful World. He then makes a joyful case that the same quality that makes music move us is exactly what helps us move through a rigid world.

Jacob Collier (0:53)

Music is a language you already know.

And there's something deeply powerful that happens when we come together to make it. Something connective, something transformative, something vibrational.

Elise Hu (1:05)

By the end, he might just convince you that you already know how to wiggle. You maybe have just forgotten. That's coming up right after a short break.

And now, our TED Talk of the Day.

Jacob Collier (4:43)

Thank you very much, everybody. Isn't that a beautiful song? I just love it. You know, music is a language you already know. And there's something deeply powerful that happens when we come together to make it. Something connective, something transformative, something vibrational. It's a feeling that moves us. Now, I have a name for this feeling. I call it the wiggle.

Now, what's the difference between a wiggle and a straight line? Well, we all know how a straight line feels, right? Rigid, unyielding, inflexible, linear. Like a Roman road or the hand of a clock. It's set. It's certain. But the wiggle, on the other hand, is soft and flexible and fluid. The wiggle is smooth and constantly in motion, right? So where the straight line is firm and brittle, the wiggle is supple and resilient. Like water, constantly changing shape, but stronger than almost anything. As the great Alan Watts used to say, there are no straight lines in nature.

Now, I've learnt many of the principles of wiggledom through the process of making music, because music is inherently wiggly. Essentially, music is just wiggling air. That's what's going on with music. And as musicians, we are constantly oscillating between different states, right? So high to low, or loud to quiet, right? Thick to thin.

Music is constantly in motion, and everything in music is learnt through play. Now, there are three essential types of wiggle in music that I'd like to talk to you about today. The first is called melody, what we call melody. Now a melody draws a line from one place to another, and tells a story as it goes. So Louis Armstrong walks down the street, right? Looks around and he goes, I see trees are green. Yeah. Not, I see trees are green. Not that. I see trees are green. It's a tree.

I see skies are blue. It's the sky, right? Clouds are white. There's a little cloud up there. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. Is that not the sun going down? It is. A good melody arc tells a story and draws a line that moves this. That's the first kind of wiggle. Now the second kind of wiggle is what they call rhythm. Now rhythm is about time, but it's also about the body. So Louis does not sing this, I see trees of green, red roses too, I see... No, sir. Instead, he goes, I see tree...

Right? Rhythm physically moves the body. And with that motion in play, the melody has something to be in conversation with. And suddenly we have space, and we have form, and we have proportion and dynamics, and that kind of storytelling. It's beautiful. So rhythm moves us and our melody through time. That's the second kind of wiggle. Now, the third kind of wiggle is my personal favorite, and it's what they call harmony. Now, harmony is about relationships. It's the wiggles between the wiggles. And by adding these chords, like combinations of notes, like clusters of notes, we get to take our melody and our rhythm and decide how we want these things to feel. Okay, so with this song, we start home, we begin home, right?

Begin to move.

Somewhere close by, quite warm.

A bit darker is there.

Lightning.

Saddening.

And then something extraordinary happens. Our melody note stays the same. And I think to myself. Right? One melody note. But the chord, which could happily stay here, becomes this. And I think to myself. Did you feel the wiggle? It's special, isn't it? This note just completely changed color.