There are lots of technical things a person can learn to help them figure out how to play music with other people. However, it is also possible to do this in a much more intuitive way. You need to be confident about your instrument, or your voice first, ideally. Knowing what you can do and how your instrument works gives you a firmer basis for co-creating.
That said, I've run spaces for voices or instruments where people have come along who weren't massively experienced, and that can also work. It depends a lot on the intent - if the aim is to create a trance-like state through ambient percussion, or to play with your voice, then you definitely don't need to be an expert. If you're going to try and pull songs or tunes together, a lot more prior knowledge is required.
I can play or sing from a state of intuition and hyperfocus. This can be a bit intense for the people I'm hyperfocusing on, but as musicians tend to be passionate and bonkers people anyway, it's rare that this bothers anyone. When singing, I try to make sure I'm breathing with the person I'm following. It can also help to breathe with other musicians, but it's less critical.
Then it's a question of being open. I can't do this by thinking consciously about keys, chord structures or the rules of counterpoint. Instead, I let the music flow through me, I hold myself open to whoever is singing or playing with me - and the more people there are, the harder that tends to be. Finding the notes is a process that feels like magic.
How well this works depends a lot on who I'm working with, and this is another uncanny element to the process. I've played and sung with many people over the years, some of whom I knew well, others it was just on-offs in sessions and jamming spaces. Sometimes all I can do is figure out the key and get in for whatever is most logical because nothing happens intuitively. Some people I've been able to build more intuitive relationships with over time. Then there are other people who I could follow anywhere, musically speaking, and where I can respond innovatively and easily to whatever they do. This, as an experience can range from making pretty good music through to things that are profoundly magical experiences.
There are a lot of rational explanations for intuition, around how much information we can take in compared to how little of it we can consciously process. However, those don't really explain experiences like this - if it was simply about what I can take in unconsciously, my ability to respond shouldn't be so musician specific. I can't actually explain how any of this works, but it definitely does, and when it really works it is an incredible, magical thing.
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