Group behaviours as music

This chapter sets out a framework for thinking about group behaviours in music as a compositional strategy, drawing on research in social psychology and game studies to explore how different aspects of group behaviours can be explicitly explored in musical compositions. Using Forsyth’s (2014) notion of group dynamics as ‘the influential interpersonal processes that occur in and between groups over time’, the chapter considers how behavioural-musical systems use rules to govern interaction between people, how decisions are enacted through the ways players make choices, and how values are suggested by the outcome of these decisions. Forsyth suggests five processes that influence the behaviour of groups: formative, influence, performance, conflict and contextual processes. These are discussed in relation to some of my recent work and the strategies evident in work by others