from thoughts at a jazz bar: how many musicians does it take to play jazz? one common canvas but many distinct jazz musicians and instruments and styles and preferences how do you merge these into a coherent musical artifact on the fly? how can jazz sound so good because of the improvisation between the musical minds of many, without them planning it all out meticulously beforehand and not suffer from the chaos but thrive on it?

what would it be like if software was built like jazz? a collective improvisation where the direction of creation is a symphony of ideas that layer and enrichen each other iteratively vs being planned top down software that feels more whimsical and rich- an end result that is unpredictable and surprising yet utilises efficiently the unique skillset of its creators and becomes something that couldn't have existed without this unique set of people? software that feels like it has been ingrained with the soul and intent and thought process of the people who created it.

some principles: / questions?

1. do musicians speak out loud to themselves and each other to verbalise what music they want to play?

not all creation and collaboration can be done via being communicated through words alone- and so why do we assume this of code which is the digital fabric of this expansive digital world. it can start as any number of musicians, but during the peak of the performance when you feel it, i believe what remains of those many musicians has merged into a single collective entity- for there is only one song that is playing.

over the past couple of months we've been experimenting with the question, what happens when you write software like you're playing jazz? what if instead of sending long messages of a spec you want, you leave it up to the other person(s) to interpret and embrace viscerally your intent and to continue and improvise upon it? in the lack of explicit written communication, you realise it has all already been told to you in plain sight.

not all art cannot be communicated through words alone. jazz musicians implicitly communicate their intentions through the flow of the music they play. and the musicians around them adapt to whatever changes are thrown in. in the same way, jazz coding does not come with a set of instructions for what you are going to build, or discussion about what to do. people throw their creativity in, and it is up to others to feel the flow of where they are trying to go. in fact i believe art is inherently done through higher bandwidth communication.

2. have fun

jazz coded software is not built with utility in mind. there is no set purpose or goal to your creations. there are no metrics by which you will be judged. it is software created for its own sake.

c. break the rules

why would u do this?

uhh why not lmao