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Self-Organization and Semiosis in Jazz Improvisation
Article in International Journal of Signs and Semiotic Systems · June 2014

DOI: 10.4018/IJSSS.2014070102
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12 International Journal of Signs and Semiotic Systems, 3(2), 12-25, July-December 2014
Self-Organization and Semiosis

in Jazz Improvisation
Ashley Walton, Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA
Michael J. Richardson, Department of Psychology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH,
USA
Anthony Chemero, Departments of Philosophy and Psychology, University of Cincinnati,
Cincinnati, OH, USA
ABSTRACT
The complex systems principle of self-organization provides a new way of understanding the behavioral dynamics
behind the emergent, spontaneous exchanges of musical performance. In biological self-organization, energy
is expended in the form of work which operates to maintain order in a system, collectively constraining the
possible behaviors the components of the system can exhibit. When two self-organized systems become closely
coupled they form a synergistic, teleodynamic system, such that in a circularly causal manner each system’s
work helps to maintain and self-sustain one another’s behavioral dynamics. The semiotic exchange between
two improvising jazz musicians can also be understood as forming a synergistic, teleodynamic system, with
musicians expending energy in the form of musical ‘work’ that operates to mutually constrain the semiotic
form of their own and their co-musicians playing behavior. In more specific terms, the two musicians form a
higher-order autopoietic system that both creates and maintains the collective order of the co-playing musicians
via the nonlinear, self-organizing dynamics that characterize non-equilibrium dissipative systems. Here the
authors introduce this self-organization framework and describe its implications for developing new theories
of musical semiotics that adequately address the spontaneous and emergent nature of improvised musical
performances. The authors also describe how corresponding methods of non-linear time series analyses can
provide the tools necessary for explicating the dynamical processes that shape such complex social exchanges.
Keywords: Embodiment, Improvisation, Non-Linear Time Series Analysis, Self-Organization, Semiotics,

Thermodynamics
SELF-ORGANIZATION AND nearly every discussion of self-organization

WORK IN BIOLOGICAL invents its own terminology, which can lead
SYSTEMS to significant confusion. Here, we will mostly
follow the conception of self-organization de-
In this paper, we attempt to understand semiosis veloped by Terrence Deacon in his 2012 book,
in terms of self-organization. Unfortunately, Incomplete Nature. We will, however, avoid
DOI: 10.4018/IJSSS.2014070102
Copyright © 2014, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
International Journal of Signs and Semiotic Systems, 3(2), 12-25, July-December 2014 13
his idiosyncratic terminology as much as pos- the many other examples of spontaneous order
sible. Our aim, and Deacon’s, is to show how described in the literature on self-organization
we might account for meaning, starting from and complexity. (Note that Deacon calls these
thermodynamics. systems ‘morphodynamic’; most everyone
Everything in nature, and presumably else calls them ‘self-organizing’ or ‘complex’
everything in the universe, follows the laws or ‘dissipative’.)
of thermodynamics. According to the second A common question that is asked by
law of thermodynamics, closed physical sys- those who initially learn of the second law of
tems will tend toward an equilibrium state thermodynamics is: how can there be so much
that is maximally disordered. This law can be biological order on Earth (i.e., humans, animals,
understood using two intuitive examples: food plants, etc…) if all systems evolve towards an
coloring that enters a glass of water as a single, equilibrium state that is maximally disordered
highly ordered droplet gradually spreads to (i.e., has maximum entropy)? Isn’t this order in
color the entire glass; the carbon dioxide that violation of the second law of thermodynam-
animals exhale does not hang around their faces, ics? The short answer is no. This is because the
but dissipates through the entire room. For earth and all biological systems are not closed
order or organization to be maintained—that systems, but rather are open to a flow of en-
is, for a system to remain at a non-equilibrium ergy. Indeed, the Earth’s surface is constantly
state—energy must be expended or dissipated. bombarded with energy from the Sun, with this
For instance, take the vortex that forms when constant influx of energy keeping the surface of
a toilet is flushed. The order that characterizes the Earth in a non-equilibrium state, enabling
the water vortex only lasts until the potential ordered phenomena such as bacteria, oak trees,
energy from the water in the tank is expended. and Elvis impersonators. However, it is impor-
Expending energy to maintain the vortex, or tant to keep in mind that self-organizing systems
to maintain any organization for that matter, such as these are always temporary, and use up
reflects work (in the technical sense used in the energy and dissipate the constraints that en-
physics). What this energy expended as work able their existence over time (sometimes on a
does is both order and constrain the possible short or sometimes on a long time-scale). The
ways in which the components of a system can vortex dissipates the potential energy; trees use
behave, so that, to continue with our example, up the nutrients in the soil; Elvis impersonators
almost all of the water molecules move in eat all the cheeseburgers; and so on.
a helical pattern instead of any of the other Sometimes, as is the case with all living
possible ways they might move. In open non- things, multiple non-equilibrium dissipative
equilibrium systems, therefore, when work is self-organizing systems maintain one another’s
being done, energy is being expended, and this constraints. The paradigmatic case of this, dis-
energy dissipation creates constraints on the cussed in detail by Maturana and Varela (1980,
components of the system that last only as long 1987) is the cell. The self-organizing network of
as work is being done to keep these constraints reactions that are the cell’s metabolism, among
in place. The constraints allow for organization other things, maintain and repair the cell wall.
to exist, including the kind of self-organization At the same time, the cell’s wall is a selectively
one sees in the vortex in a flushing toilet and in permeable boundary around the metabolism,
maintaining chemical concentrations at the et al 2007; Anderson, Richardson, and Chemero

right levels for the reactions that make up the 2012), and ecosystems (Ulanowicz 2011). In
mechanism. The cell wall and metabolism act so each case, work is done by some components
as to constrain one another. The wall constrains of the system that serves to maintain the con-
the movement of the chemicals inside the cell straints that enable the continuation of other
and in its environment so that the metabolism components and, in a circularly causal man-
continues. At the same time, the metabolism ner, the collective organization of the far-from
repairs breaches in the wall so that the chemicals equilibrium dissipative teleodynamic system
that make up the wall continue as part of the cell that these component systems create.
wall. Maturana and Varela call systems like this For this paper, we will take the relationships
‘autopoietic’ or self-creating/sustaining; Rosen among the parts of teleodynamic systems as a
calls them ‘closed to efficient cause’ (1991, model for semiosis. Participants in semiotic
2000); Swenson and Turvey (1991) call these interaction typically act as both senders and
systems ‘autocatakinetic’; Deacon calls them receivers of signals. Each works to constrain
‘teleodynamic’. the activity of the other, and each allows her
For current purposes, the key feature of activity to be constrained by work of the other.
these autopoietic, self-sustaining systems— In this sense, conversing with another indi-
which we refer to as teleodynamic systems vidual is nonlinear, energy dissipating dance,
(Deacon, 2012) from this point on—is that they in which an actor’s gestures and utterances
enable normativity and function. The work done mutually constrain their future behavior, their
by two (or more) coupled, non-equilibrium co-actors future behavior, and the collective
self-organizing dissipative systems enable the conversational exchange as a whole. To use a
teleodynamic system to exist by maintaining more abstract example of a human (cultural)
the constraints that define the corresponding teleodynamic systems, in writing this article,
order of the component systems. In other we are allowing potential readers to constrain
words, when coupled to form a teleodynamic the signals we produce in that of all the pos-
system, the non-equilibrium self-organizing sible strings of characters we could type, we
component systems function so as to maintain are limiting ourselves to the ones that comprise
one another’s order, as well as the constraints grammatical English. In writing this article, we
that potentiate the teleodynamic system itself. are hoping to have particular effects on readers
Just as closely coupled, self-organizing systems who allow themselves to be constrained by
can compose a teleodynamic system, closely the work we have done in producing this text.
coupled teleodynamic systems can work to Not allowing ourselves to be constrained by
maintain one another’s constraints as when a potential readers, and producing gibberish, is
group of cells form an organ. Maturana and a normative failure on our part; if one assumes
Varela (1987) call this higher-order autopoiesis. that what we have produced is grammatically
Organs and organisms are examples of higher- correct and conceptually coherent (a big if),
order autopoietic systems, as arguably are then failing to understand the text is a norma-
extended organisms (DiPaolo 2008; Thompson tive failure on the part of the reader.
and Stapleton 2008; Chemero 2009; Silberstein In the remainder of this article, we will ap-
and Chemero 2011), social groups (Richardson ply this model of semiosis to jazz improvisation.
Figure 1. Semiological tri-partition from (Reiner, 2000)
We will take improvisers to be teleodynamic meaning it signifies emerges from the act of
systems that temporarily form a higher-order interpretation and response of the receiver. An
teleodynamic system, in which the activity of example of this process would be a musician
each improviser is both constrained by and playing a sequence of notes (poiesis) which
serves to constrain the activity of other impro- results in particular sound waves (traces) that
visers. This improvising collective exists only are heard by a listener as a melody (esthesis).
so long as the individual improvisers work to This model is meant to capture any process of
constrain one another (dissipate energy), and musical creation, another example would be
allow the work of others to constrain them. the act of composing (poiesis) a musical score
(trace) which signifies pitches and durations to
a performing musician (esthesis).
MUSICAL SEMIOTICS
A distinguishing feature of this model is
Musical semiotics considers music production that the trace is always a physical signifier, as
as a system of signs, seeking to understand how opposed to the possibility of a mental signifier
sound events come to signify musical meaning in Peirce’s model. Poiesis is specifically meant
through their relation to possible objects and to designate processes that result in physical
interpretants (Tarasti, 1996). Structural method- embodiments of signs and sign systems. Also
ologies originally formulated for language were emphasized is the importance of how the re-
adapted to provide insight to musical signifi- ceiver interprets, reconstructs and responds to
cation most notably by Ruwet (1967), Nattiez messages. These interpretative processes of
(1990) and Molino (1975). The application of the receiver are understood as active contribu-
Nattiez’s semiological tri-partition by Reiner tors to the meaning and sign behavior in these
(2000) will be the focus here, in understanding musical exchanges.
how musical performance is a system of signs In accounting for the processes of sign
where individual units or “musical events” are generation in musical improvisation, this model
initiated and anchored in time. falls short for two reasons. First, it employs a
In Nattiez’s tri-partition a sender first cre- passive receiver responding to the traces of the
ates a musical signifier, or trace, and that trace is sender. Yet during duets or quartets musicians
then interpreted by a receiver. Poietic processes are simultaneously engaged in both poeisis and
are those in which the sender produces a trace, ethesis, each producing and responding to traces
and esthesic processes are where the receiver of their own performance and those of other
responds to that trace (see Figure 1). The trace musicians without the guide of a musical score.
is the signifier, the component of the sign sys- Not only do sign creation and sign interpretation
tem that refers to something else. The musical processes physically overlap, but both processes
can equally contribute to the creation of meaning musicians influence one another from moment
in a nonlinear and ambiguous way. It is unclear to moment (Sawyer, 1995). Sawyer focuses on
how to distinguish between poiesis and esthesis Peirce’s concept of indexicality, specifically
in spontaneous, improvisatory performances, deictics, where what a sign signifies is depen-
leaving the current semiological model lacking dent on its relationship to the context of use.
in its description of such musical phenomenon. He focuses on how this indexicality constrains
Second, while the importance of the re- the content and structure of future states within
ceiver’s response in constructing the meaning improvisation. A musician’s actions within a
of a musical sign is emphasized, it does not performance contribute to what he calls the
properly capture the role of error and miscom- “evolving emergent” that is the musical output
munication in musical improvisation. Physical of the interaction, which in turn constrains the
occurrences that are mere coincidences, not subsequent performance (Sawyer, 1995, p. 279).
intended to signify, can become actualized Musical improvisation is a continuous process
as a musical sign through the response of the of the generation and transformation of this
receiver. Reiner allows a certain extent of “emergent”: a performer generates musical acts,
discrepancy between the sender’s intention and the responses of other performers determine
and the receiver’s interpretation of a trace, but the extent to which these musical acts enter the
suggests that too much can lead to a break- emergent. And so through these exchanges the
down in communication. Yet it is precisely performers continually construct a new emer-
this error and miscommunication that allows gent that acts to constrain their performance.
for the generation and transformation of new Compared to Nattiez’s semiological par-
musical meanings. Randomness and error can tition, Sawyer’s framework begins to better
result in changes that cause a group to follow address the complexities of improvisational
different trajectories; jazz musician and scholar musical exchanges. It takes into consideration
David Borgo claims error to be “crucial” to the context of action in describing sign genera-
the exploration and discovery of novel musi- tion and provides a model for how musicians
cal expression (Borgo, 2005). What is needed allow their sign creation to be more adver-
is a more detailed account of the interactive tently informed by one another’s interpretive
processes of sign behavior that occur across responses. He also explicitly maps out the way
the timespan of the performance, to account musical events come to signify previous events
for the complex emergence of musical meaning as well as constrain future events in musical
despite the spontaneous and unstructured nature performance.
of improvised musical exchanges. However Sawyer’s approach considers
the performers’ actions in isolation from one
another in response to an ephemeral, disem-
MUSICAL SEMIOTICS
bodied “emergent”. It lacks an account of the
AND IMPROVISATION
full spectrum of coordination and joint actions
Sawyer (1995) developed a semiotic framework essential to musical semiosis, specifically fail-
specifically for musical improvisation. In his ing to capture the way musicians interact with
model each musical event is contingent on each other, how within the exchange they are
the flow of the performance and the way that able to anticipate and generate expectations for
future musical events for each other to actual- relevant factors of the physical context. Given
ize. Still left in question is how to determine that improvising musicians don’t use a musical
what musical signs signify given inevitable score, what are the physical “traces” and how
miscommunications and the overlapping of sign do they come to signify?
creation and interpretation amongst the complex Tarasti (1993) claimed that any attempt to
emergence of improvised performance. Here is apply a semiotic framework to improvisation
where self-organization and the teleodynamic must not only concern itself with a product,
account of emergent behavioral organization object, or text, but the act of improvisation–
can be used to better understand these emergent “the activity itself” (p. 65). To address this
processes of musical sign behavior, and bring to complexity it becomes necessary to distinguish
light new ways to explore how meaning comes between the sonic and kinesthetic dimension of
into existence. these traces, and consider how the processes
of creating sonic events are embodied in the
movements of musicians. The semiological
SELF-ORGANIZATION IN
tri-partition discussed by Reiner focuses on
JAZZ IMPROVISATION
how musical events are anchored in time, but
In a self-organization framework, the system’s the spatiomotor aspects of musical performance
individual components and their composition also contribute to the semiotic exchange as well
are less important; more relevant is how they as the constraints within the self-organizing,
collectively change and how they transform coupled system of two improvising jazz musi-
between states. As with cell walls or the vortex cians.
of a flushing toilet, the organization of change
is determined by the constraints on the system. HOW MUSICAL BODIES
We will consider two improvising musicians as TELL US STORIES
an autopoetic system, their poietic and esthetic
processes not only overlapping, but serving as You immediately think of a sign made with some
constraints on one another. That is, the musicians implement of your hands, and then when you
are themselves teleodynamic systems that when take the implement or your hands away, the
coupled together during musical performance sign remains.– Italo Calvino “A Sign in Space”
constitute a higher-order teleodynamic system
that can then engage in more complex dynamics Musician and scholar Vijay Iyer emphasizes
of sign generation. the importance of how the sonic and kinesthetic
So what do the dynamics of two impro- dimensions interact in musical performance,
vising musicians constraining each another’s claiming “musical bodies tell us stories” (Iyer,
semiosis have in common with flushing toilets 2004, p. 395). A large part of musical compe-
and Elvis impersonators eating cheeseburgers? tence depends on the coordination of fingers,
All necessitate identifying how energy is being limbs, and breathing patterns. Musical events
expended to do the work necessary to constrain are the sonic result of the physical labor of the
and sustain their non-equilibrium organization. body; when a musician plays an instrument,
In musical improvisation the specific question not only do the sonic and kinesthetic both
is how a musical event, or sign is related to contribute to semiosis but also they interact
with one another– the musician’s relationship performers: the bowing, tonguing, and shaping
with the instrument constraining the musical of sound through vibrato or lip trill, the sonic
production. The creation of sonic patterns is results of musicians changing the rate and force
shaped by the relationships between the surface of their movements (Shove & Repp, 1995). The
of instruments and the patterned movements of way these articulatory movements structure
musician’s hands. The physical characteristics the sound is “represented kinematically in the
of instruments structure both the movements of acoustic array and shapes the listener’s percep-
musicians and the structure of resulting music; tion of musical movement” (Shove and Repp,
and similarly instruments can be constructed to 1995, p. 64). Thus the listener’s interpretation
support particular movements of musicians that of musical signs is embodied, the perception of
produce preferred sonic patterns (Bailey, 1995). traces closely linked to the perception of action.
Much like the cell wall and its metabolism, the Thompson, Graham and Russo (2005)
musician and instrument form a unity, a synergy, review experimental evidence for the way
in which the instrument constrains the move- visual information influences the perception
ments and breathing of the musician playing of music, examining how facial expressions,
it. The music that results is the product of this body movements and limb gestures are used by
extended human-tool system (Dotov, Nie, and performers to highlight, articulate and clarify
Chemero 2010; Wagman and Chemero 2014). within the musical performance. These bodily
Kinesthetic factors and the structure of the motions function as traces that come to signify
movement patterns can also take priority over meaningful musical events. They consider
sonic attributes of music: a study of tunes per- this “bodily-mediation” to be a form of social
formed on a kalimba, or thumb piano, revealed interaction between performers and listeners
that the tunes could not be categorized according (Thompson, Graham and Russo, 2005). They
to a common melodic structure (Baily, 1985). distinguish between movement patterns neces-
Instead patterns of fingering and the poly- sary to produce music on an instrument, and
rhythms executed by the performers were the the kinesthetics of performance that serve to
most recognizable common factor. Here patterns constrain the perceptual experience of listeners
of movement are not merely incidental to the in a particular way. They call them “affective
way an instrument structures motor behavior, displays”, discussing the way that blues musi-
but constitute an organizational constraint akin cian BB King would shake his head to match
to that of a musical genre. the vibrato of a note, and would open his mouth
Kinesthetic constraints not only affect the during parts he seemed to find more satisfying
ways in which musical signs are generated, to play (Thompson, Graham and Russo, 2005,
but also the way they are interpreted: listeners’ pp. 207-208). They also suggest that musicians
perceptions of sonic events involve an under- may intentionally emphasize the physical effort
standing of bodily motion. Because movement required of musical movement patterns in order
patterns generate sonic structures, “traces” in to change the experience of listeners. Here we
Nattiez’s model are a product of the physical see a distinction between the body movements
constraints on body movements of musicians, that are necessary to musical production, and
and so contribute to the receiver’s sign inter- how musicians can intentionally produce move-
pretation. Listeners hear the “articulators” of ments for affective purposes.
Thus the kinesthetic dimension is crucial ied interaction of musicians both supports and
to addressing the complexities of sign behavior constrains musical exploration by providing a
in improvisatory musical performances. The foundational connection to the sonic, physical,
principles dynamical, self-organization and and temporal structure of the playing environ-
nonlinear dissipative systems provides the lan- ment (Iyer, 2002; Toiviainen & Keller, 2010),
guage with which to describe the way perform- very little research has attempted to examine
ers exploit “the constraints and the allowances the patterns of movement coordination that
of the natural timescales of the body and the emerge between improvising musicians. There
brain as a total physical system” (Iyer, 2008, p. also lacks an understanding of the degree to
276). In live improvisation, participants must which the structural dynamics of inter-musician
simultaneously be both producers and receivers movement coordination relate to the effective
of musical signs, the bodies of the musicians production of the improvisational piece. One
telling stories to their co-improvisers. That is, reason for this lack of research is the challenge
each individual improviser allows her activity of quantifying the highly complex spatiotem-
to be constrained by the sonic and kinesthetic poral patterns of movement coordination that
results of the activities of the other improvis- occur between improvising musicians, which
ers. They form a higher-order teleodynamic typically involve spontaneous, non-stationary
system, the components of which are extended and aperiodic behavioral sequences (Shockley
human-instrument systems that constrain and & Riley, 2015).
are constrained by one another. As we have stated, the behavioral coordina-
tion that occurs between improvising musicians
is best conceptualized as emergent, involving
COORDINATION AND
the spontaneous and continuous self organiza-
NON-LINEAR TIME
tion of the perception and action processes
SERIES METHODS
that support musical play (Keller and Appel,
Understanding how energy is being expended 2010). Quantifying these highly complex spa-
and work is being done to constrain and organize tiotemporal patterns is a demanding challenge,
the teleodynamic system of two improvising resulting in a lack of understanding regarding
musicians requires an investigation of the the dynamics essential to these spontaneous
dynamics of how they coordinate with each musical exchanges. Given recent advances in
other during performance. When a jazz trio process-oriented nonlinear time-series methods,
plays an improvisational piece their actions however, it is now possible to objectively de-
become so tightly coordinated and their deci- termine and evaluate the dynamics of complex
sions so seamlessly intertwined that the trio spatiotemporal processes. In particular, cross-
behaves as a single synergistic, teleodynamic recurrence quantification analysis and phase
unit rather than a collection of individuals. This space reconstruction methods are designed
kind of creative expression reflects a cohesive, to pull forward seemingly invisible and non-
yet highly flexible structure of coordination, obvious aspects of the coordinated structure that
yet this cohesive coordination occurs even underlies a complex behavioral pattern (Schmidt
though the musicians’ behaviors are not fully and Richardson, 2008; Riley et al., 2011). With
prescribed in advance. Given that this embod- respect to musical improvisation, nonlinear
time-series methods can be used to uncover the same methods can be used to understand
processes of poiesis and esthesic that support these processes in the sonic dimension by
the behavioral coordination of improvisation, examining the coordination dynamics in
and determine the relationship between traces the auditory structure.
produced by musicians’ body movements and • Principal Component Analysis: PCA is
the sonic traces of the musical outcome. a widely used statistical technique used to
identify covariation within high-dimen-
• Cross-Recurrence Analysis: This form of sional datasets and to remap the data into
recurrence analysis has been extensively a space whose axes (principal components)
applied in examining inter-limb coordina- represent the dataset’s primary dimensions
tion (e.g. Pellecchia et al. 2005; Richardson of variation (Daffertshofer et al., 2004;
et al. 2005; Shockley and Turvey 2005) Forner-Cordero et al., 2005). If the origi-
by embedding each time series into its nal are variables correlated, PCA yields
respective phase space and then computing a dimension reduction—fewer principal
a cross-recurrence plot that displays when components are required to account for
the two time series recur, or visit the same most of the variance in the dataset than
states or sequence of states. Visual inspec- the number of original variables (i.e., di-
tion of the patterns of these recurrence mensional compression). Determine how
plots provides information about the way a many components are required to capture
teleodynamic system changes across time, the variance in a dataset can be used to
in addition to the mathematic quantification quantify the constraints of the coupling
of these patterns using cross-recurrence among musicians’ movement patterns.
quantification analysis (CRQA) (e.g., Web- • 1/f Noise & Adaptive Fractal Analysis:
ber and Zbilut 1994; Zbilut and Webber Data for which variability in the signal is
1992; Zbilut et al. 1998). In addition to self-similar across different time scales are
analyzing the coupled processes of inter- said to demonstrate long-range correla-
limb coordination, CRQA has been used to tions and have a fractal structure (Riley
examine the nonlinear dynamics of weakly & Turvey, 2002). Pink noise (or 1/f noise)
coupled mechanical oscillators (Shockley indicates a fractal process that fluctuates
et al. 2002) and the postural entrainment irregularly, though the fluctuations are cor-
of interacting individuals (Shockley et al. related (in contrast to uncorrelated white
2003) as well as communication between noise). Many methods exist for quantify-
infants and their caregivers (Buder et al., ing 1/f noise from time series; including
2010; Dale & Spivey, 2005). If the kines- spectral analysis, detrended fluctuation
thetics of performance such body sway and analysis, and adaptive fractal analysis
limb movements serve as traces, revealing (DFA; Peng et al., 1994, AFA; Gao et al.,
coordination or call and response patterns in 2010, 2011; Hu et al., 2009; Kuznetsov et
these movements across musicians will al- al., 2012; Riley et al., 2012). The dynam-
low for an understanding of how and when ics of these fluctuations is related to how
these traces are generated through poeisis, rigidly a system is coordinated, indexing
are actualized, and come to signify. The the ability of the system to adapt during per-
formance. Both too much rigidity and loss CONCLUSION

of coordination in a system’s performance
represent a loss of complexity. The presence As in musical improvisation, the ability to
of 1/f noise represents a balance between cooperate and coordinate with others is fun-
predictable vs. unpredictable, stable vs. damental to the way we communicate and
adaptable, and random vs. deterministic, generate meaning in our interactions with others.
providing information about the complex- Understanding musicians as a self-organized,
ity of a system’s behavior. With respect to nonlinear dissipative teleodynamic system may
interpersonal coordination, fractal methods allow for a more successful examination of the
can be employed to determine the degree semiosis that emerges from the complex pat-
to which the behavior of two individuals terns of turn-taking manifested in the rhythm,
exhibit correlated levels of complexity musical qualities, and body movements in
(Marmelat & Delignieries, 2012). Deter- improvised performances. By uncovering the
mining whether such complexity matching dynamics of the stability and emergence of these
occurs during musical improvisation and coordination patterns, non-linear methodologies
the degree to which this relates to the ef- investigate the governance of thermodynamic
fective outcome and affective evaluation laws that reign over jazz musicians, flushing
of the performance can enhance our under- toilets, cells, and Elvis impersonators alike.
standing of the interdependence between
the mind-body and ear during human
interaction in musical contexts.
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Self-Organization and Semiosis in Jazz Improvisation

Article in International Journal of Signs and Semiotic Systems · June 2014

Ashley E. Walton Michael J Richardson

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Self-Organization and Semiosis

Keywords: Embodiment, Improvisation, Non-Linear Time Series Analysis, Self-Organization, Semiotics,

SELF-ORGANIZATION AND nearly every discussion of self-organization

maintaining chemical concentrations at the et al 2007; Anderson, Richardson, and Chemero

Figure 1. Semiological tri-partition from (Reiner, 2000)

formance. Both too much rigidity and loss CONCLUSION

REFERENCES DiPaolo, E. (2008). Extended life. Topoi, 28(1), 9–21.

Rosen, R. (1991). Life itself. New York, NY: Colum-

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