Podcast Summary: ReThinking — “Permission to play with Jacob Collier”

Host: Adam Grant
Guest: Jacob Collier (Grammy-winning artist, educator, and musical innovator)
Recorded Live at: TED Headquarters, New York City
Release Date: October 28, 2025

Overview

In this dynamic episode, Adam Grant sits down with musical polymath Jacob Collier for a live conversation exploring the liberating power of music, the concept of “permission to play,” why audience participation transforms both art and community, and how embracing our innate “wiggliness” (playfulness, flexibility, and collective joy) can spark connection and creativity in life far beyond the concert stage. Collier leads the audience in communal musical exercises, breaks down musical harmony, and reflects on creativity, culture, education, and the value of moving beyond perfectionism.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Audience Choir & Mass Participation

Timestamps: 02:13 – 06:25

• Origin of Audience Choirs: Collier recounts watching his mother conduct and realizing that “everyone in the world is a musician in a sense... given permission, people want to participate.”
• Inclusivity & Permission: He emphasizes it's not about qualifications but about granting “mass permissioning, mass inclusivity, a radical sense of joy.”
• Making People Feel: Collier invokes how people remember not what you say or do, but “how you make them feel.” Music offers a direct route to that feeling.

Notable Quote:

• “The trick is, you don’t need qualifications. You kind of just need permission. And that always kind of stuck with me.” – Jacob Collier (05:56)

The Wiggle Theory: Rediscovering Playfulness

Timestamps: 06:25 – 08:58

• Wiggletude: Collier introduces his “wiggle theory”—the belief that humans are born to be playful, but society and education straighten us out.
• Music and Movement: He urges a return to our inherent “wiggly” state, arguing music wakes up these emotional channels.

Notable Quote:

• “People are actually born to wiggle and we live in a straight-line world. Music is one of the greatest mechanisms we have of remembering the feeling.” – Jacob Collier (06:49)

Collective Effervescence & Social Connection

Timestamps: 07:32 – 10:24

• Collective Energy: Adam Grant references sociologist Émile Durkheim’s “collective effervescence” and Collier approves, describing music as “a mass remembrance.”
• Norms in Participation: Different cultures and crowds respond uniquely (“quiet and accurate” vs. “loud and inaccurate”), but Collier values “supple” audiences who embrace spontaneity and change.

Notable Quote:

• “Supple is a big word for me... supple people, language, and crafts tend to bend with the weather and pressures—and that makes all the difference.” – Jacob Collier (09:19)

Diversity, Personality, and Creating Culture

Timestamps: 10:24 – 13:42

• Music as Equalizer: Onstage, Collier sees all personality types, from shy observers to outspoken “bloviators,” and says a strong audience needs every type.
• Handling Disruption: He integrates hecklers by incorporating their disruptions into group activities, diffusing tension.

Notable Exchange:

• Adam Grant: “Culture is whether people take ownership over the values and norms when the leader is not in the room.” (12:24)
• Collier shares how audiences self-police: the community shapes itself around shared values of empathy and inclusion, as evidenced by audience members singing together after concerts.

Audience as Co-Creators: Music, Comedy, and Laughter

Timestamps: 13:42 – 17:43

• Parallel with Comedy: Grant suggests having people NOT sing at a concert is like telling people not to laugh at a comedy show, a comparison Collier loves.
• Physical Comedy and Sound: Collier demonstrates playful call-and-response (“whoo!” and animal/forest sounds), showing humor’s role in breaking tension and inviting participation.

Permission to Play vs. Rigid Education

Timestamps: 17:43 – 19:28

• Adults Struggle to Play: Collier suspects adults are “straightened” by rigid education and societal metrics, stifling imagination and willingness to take creative risks.

Notable Quote:

• “Teachers have the power to kind of make or break an imagination... you need people at a certain point to say: This thing you’re doing, Adam, is of value. You should do more of that.” – Jacob Collier (18:32)

Why Group Choirs Go Viral

Timestamps: 19:28 – 20:59

• Yearning for Unity: Collier suggests people “see a part of themselves” in collective experiences. In divisive times, watching strangers work together “hits a nerve.”
• Universal Language of Sound: Grant introduces “vocal bursts”—instinctive, universal sounds expressing emotion. Collier connects these with musical creativity.

The Nature of Harmony: Embracing Dissonance

Timestamps: 22:12 – 26:00

• Unison vs. Harmony: Collier explains that harmony isn’t about everyone doing the same thing, but “the relationship between more than one thing happening at once.”
• Dissonance and Growth: He champions leaning into tension (“dissonance”) rather than always pursuing prettiness (“consonance”), noting it yields richer music and richer life experiences.

Notable Quote:

• “If you control the dissonance, you have way more meaningful harmony than if you just play consonant stuff all the time... Not being afraid of dissonance is essential.” – Jacob Collier (25:15)

Music and Real Life: Emotional Tools and Resetting Tension

Timestamps: 26:00 – 27:17

• Using musical cues (“awww,” singing replies) can reset conversations, diffuse tension, or align people—techniques Grant jokes about employing at home.

The Call of Music: Playing for Its Own Sake

Timestamps: 29:43 – 32:36

• Staying Up Jamming: Collier describes jumping into late-night jam sessions after shows: “Didn’t even cross my mind to go to sleep.”
• Skill vs. Permission: He believes “skill is overrated in general in music—permission is vastly underrated.” Collier credits his drive to “making the right kind of internal weather” to let inspiration through.

Notable Quote:

• “I didn’t have to be good at music to get validation from my family—I just had to be good at being Jacob.” – Jacob Collier (33:11)

Deliberate Play over Practice & Redefining Success

Timestamps: 32:36 – 36:51

• Deliberate Play: Collier sidestepped traditional practice, focusing on immersive, interest-driven exploration—and credits this with preserving his joy and curiosity.
• Refusing to ‘Pick a Lane’: Collier resisted genre constraints, embracing musical hybridity and refusing to let commercial pressures define him.
• Success Beyond Charts: He’s proud to have never charted, yet to be Grammy-nominated, highlighting that popularity is a “poor proxy for impact.”

Notable Quote:

• “To base the quality of your work on the popularity of your work is one of the most base misunderstandings that all of us who make creative work come up against at a certain point.” – Jacob Collier (35:16)

The “Wiggly” World: Nature, Rigidity, and Creativity

Timestamps: 39:30 – 40:13

• Collier observes that “the natural world is constantly wiggly—there aren’t rigid lines in nature,” and that liveliness comes from “the tension between the wiggly and the non-wiggly.”

Being Both Producer and Performer: The Role of Collaboration

Timestamps: 40:16 – 41:53

• Not Always the Main Character: Despite fame, Collier often prefers to be a collaborator or facilitator, helping others shine.
• Community of Inspiration: Even solo albums feel collaborative, as they embody the influence of mentors and friends.

Playful Arranging, Covers, and Trust

Timestamps: 41:53 – 46:13

• Arranging Familiar Songs: Collier demonstrates how creatively subverting expectations in covers (“Flintstones” theme, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”) allows him to build trust with audiences—but only because they know the original.

Memorable Moment:

• Collier leads the audience in a quirky choral rendition of “The Flintstones” (42:34–43:21).

Joy as an Act of Defiance

Timestamps: 46:13 – 48:00

• Defiant Joy: Adam Grant references Bono’s line “joy is an act of defiance.” Collier agrees, defining joy as a state of vitality: something powerful and deeply needed in turbulent times.

Notable Quote:

• "Joy, to me, is about being alive... it’s about vitality... Sometimes that note flips you out of the argument and back into your life again. And that's what it’s all about." – Jacob Collier (47:08)

Fun Lightning Round & Notable Moments

Timestamps: 38:33 – 39:19

• Dinner Guest: Stevie Wonder.
• Worst Advice: “Do the thing that everyone wants me to do.”
• Recent Rethinking: “That high resolution equals clarity. And it doesn't.”
• Verbs vs. Nouns: Adam jokes about Jacob’s devotion to verbs (and Homer Simpson’s wisdom).

Final Thoughts on Creativity, AI, and Chaos

Timestamps: 48:52 – 49:11

• Embracing Chaos: Collier compares creativity to increasing the “Top K” in AI models—embracing more chaos/input for more interesting output.
• Surprising Self-Description: Adam teases: “Jacob Collier saying ‘I am a stochastic parrot’ was not on my bingo card for tonight.”

Selected Notable Quotes (Speaker Attributions & Timestamps)

• On Permission and Playfulness:
  "The trick is, you don’t need qualifications. You kind of just need permission. And that always kind of stuck with me."
  — Jacob Collier (05:56)

• On Wiggletude:
  “People are actually born to wiggle and we live in a straight-line world. Music is one of the greatest mechanisms we have of remembering the feeling.”
  — Jacob Collier (06:49)

• On Cultural Ownership:
  “Culture is whether people take ownership over the values and norms when the leader is not in the room.”
  — Adam Grant (12:24)

• On Supple vs. Brittle:
  “Supple is a big word for me... supple people, language, and crafts tend to bend with the weather and pressures—and that makes all the difference.”
  — Jacob Collier (09:19)

• On Inclusivity in Music:
  “You can’t really sing in that way without listening, without being inclusive, and without having empathy... All these things exist there.”
  — Jacob Collier (12:57)

• On Dissonance:
  “If you control the dissonance, you have way more meaningful harmony than if you just play consonant stuff all the time... Not being afraid of dissonance is essential.”
  — Jacob Collier (25:15)

• On Practice and Childhood:
  “I didn’t have to be good at music to get validation from my family—I just had to be good at being Jacob.”
  — Jacob Collier (33:11)

• On Joy as Vitality:
  “Joy, to me, is about being alive... Sometimes it’s about that single thing, that note that flips you out of the argument and back into your life again.”
  — Jacob Collier (47:08)

Important Timestamps (For Easy Reference)

• Call & Response with Audience: 02:13 – 03:46
• Wiggle Theory & Emotional Impact: 06:25 – 07:31
• Supple/Brittle Audiences: 09:04 – 10:24
• Collective Ownership and Empathy: 12:24 – 13:42
• Physical Comedy in Music: 13:56 – 16:47
• Music & Deliberate Play, Not Practice: 32:36 – 34:06
• Arranging Covers / “Flintstones” Demo: 42:12 – 43:21
• Joy as Defiance: 46:13 – 48:00
• Lightning Round: 38:33 – 39:19

Tone & Language

The episode is buoyant, inviting, philosophical, and playful. Collier balances deep musical insights with humor and humility, while Grant brings curiosity and well-timed psychological context. The live format infuses the episode with warmth and immediacy—audience participation, laughter, and spontaneous music make the listener feel in the room.

Conclusion

This episode is an exuberant celebration of creative permission, communal participation, and embracing both the structured and the “wiggly” in music and in life. Jacob Collier’s insights transcend music, offering practical wisdom about culture, inclusion, taking risks, and the persistent human need for joy and connection. Whether you’re a musician, teacher, or just a curious soul, you’ll walk away inspired to reclaim your own wiggletude.