together, perform in public for several hours, with a minimum of discussion or preparation. they perform well enough to satisfy the people who hired them and, quite often, well enough to satisfy themselves. our research is designed to answer an equally simple question: how do they manage to do that?
the simple question has a simple answer: they can play together that way because they all know the same songs--they share a repertoire--so that all that is necessary is for someone to name one of the songs they know in common, perhaps mention a key, and then count off two bars--after which they play as though they had been playing together 