I’m fascinated by the idea of tensegrity. It is the design concept of “floating compression” or “tensional integrity” where the force is distributed in such a way that a structure is stable even without any clear supports. For example, check out the table in this video, where the top half is floating over the bottom half, connected only by wires, but not apparently “held up” in any way.
Tensegrity design requires all elements to be working together to achieve this effortless-seeming functionality.
And that’s where the parallel to choral ensemble work comes in. Surely effective choirs exhibit the same kind of tensegrity. They achieve structural integrity only when each member contributes to hold up a musical structure that they couldn’t hold up individually.
When it works, it does seem effortless. Like the most beautiful architecture, ensemble music seems to float, because of the underlying structural integrity.