The wiggly wonder of music | Jacob Collier

0:03You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. 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. 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. Jacob starts this talk at the grand piano on stage, playing his adaptation of the famous Louis Armstrong song, What a Wonderful World.

0:44He then makes a joyful case that the same quality that makes music move us is exactly what helps us move through a rigid world. 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. 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.

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4:42And now, our TED Talk of the day.

5:01piano plays softly

5:21I see trees Green

5:32Red roses too I see them blue For me and you And I think to myself

5:55What a wonderful world Oh,

6:11the colors of the rainbow So pretty in the sky And also all the faces of people going by. I see friends shaking eyes saying how old do you do? They're really saying I'm alive.

6:56I hear babies crying I watch them grow They'll know much more than I And I know

7:20And I think to myself, what a wonderful

7:59Thank 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.

8:48The 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 learned many of the principles of wiggledom through the process of making music, because music is inherently wiggly. Essentially, music is just wiggling your 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?

9:31Thick to thin. Music is constantly in motion, and everything in music is learned 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 of blue. It's the sky, right? Clouds are white. There's a little cloud up there. The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night.

10:19Is that not the sun going down? It is. A good melody arc tells a story and draws a line that moves us. 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 who green red roses too, I see. No, sir. Instead, he goes, I see trees.

10:48Right? 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, little 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.

11:31Okay, so with this song, we start home. We begin home, right? Begin to move. Somewhere close by, quite warm. A bit of darkness 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. Yeah? Didn't it? That's the power of harmony. So with a chord, I can squint. I can reassure. I can enchant. I can purify, I can terrify.

12:35So that when I get home in the end, it's a little more beautiful because we've traveled somewhere new. Harmony tells an emotional story through tension, release, dissonance and consonance by combining many different notes together. That's the third wiggle. So you may say, but Jacob, why does it make us wiggle so? How do these notes make us feel these things? And I would say, well, because music is about so much more than just notes. Music is about life. In music, we learn that being in harmony with the world doesn't mean everyone's singing the same note at the same time. It's about embracing the dissonance and following the heart to home.

13:13We learn that being in time with the world doesn't have to be stepping into line. It's about motion and knowing when your time is right, leaving space for the rest. We learn that being in tune, it's not about being perfect. It's about following a line and being open to where it might take you. Because here's the truth of it. 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. So when the world feels like a straight line, be a wiggler. It's in your nature, trust me. You already know how to wiggle.

13:51You just need to remember.

14:22Yes, I think to myself

14:32What a wonderful world World, world.

15:03That was Jacob Collier speaking at TED 2026. If you're curious about TED's curation, visit ted.com slash curation guidelines. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is a podcast from TED. This episode was fact-checked by the TED Research Team and produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Lucy Little, Emma Taubner, and Tansika Sungmarnivong. Additional support from Daniela Ballarezzo, Christopher Faze-Bogan, Valentina Bohanini, Ban Ban Chang, Brian Green, and Lainey Lott. Learn more at podcasts.ted.com. I am Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your fee.

15:46Thanks for listening.

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