Christian Scott Quotes

There's only seven chords, so you got to use the same ones over and over. It's all in what you do with them.

I continued studying by myself in the field of jazz with my own technique of improvisation, walking bass lines, rhythms, all kinds of stuff, which I created for myself.

When I listen to my favorite songwriters, they have such simple melodies and chords. I occasionally manage to stop at the right time, but all too often I keep on going until I have way too many notes and words. But that's just what I do.

Even if you're improvising, the fact that beforehand you know certain things will work helps you make those improvisations successful. It really helps to have a certain amount of knowledge about musical structure.

I had no idea what those cords were in the bridge of 'Prisoner In Disguise' when I wrote them. I had to go over to Don Gorman, the piano player, and ask what in the world I was playing.

Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don't fit in a very interesting way.

So I concentrated on the rhythmic side of things, and therefore left a lot of holes. I didn't want to use big pad chords everywhere. All of the songs are built up of small melodies and counter melodies all played very rhythmically.

I'm not interested in possible complexities. I regard song structure as a graph paper.

I could stop and say, Well that was a D minor, G seven, but I really don't want to know that. I just want to know that there's a combination of notes that makes a sound.

As the chord changes go by, I don't so much think about a static chord voicing changing. I just see the notes on the neck change.

I knew if I wanted to improvise over chord changes, I'd have to figure out all the scales that went with all those chords.

A scale is just the notes that are in a chord played one at a time instead of together. That's what has allowed me to go through the possible notes that work with a chord and make choices about which ones I like best. I go through by ear; you can do it by theory too, but the best way is to learn by ear.

I write most of my songs to beats. I play around on guitar, but not enough to where I can compose my own stuff or play solos. I can accompany myself 'cause most songs are, like, four chords.

Philosophically, I think riffs that start with E repeating itself are almost guaranteed to be great.

I had to learn right away how to improvise behind Ornette, which not only meant following him from one key to another and recognizing the different keys, but modulating in a way that the keys flowed in and out of each other, and the new harmonies sounded right.

Well, I tell you... the first chorus, I plays the melody. The second chorus, I plays the melody round the melody, and the third chorus, I routines.

The only thing I don't write is the guitar solos, but even then I might suggest one or two things.

There are certain choices you make as a songwriter, based on vowel sounds and melody and chord changes.

With 'Under the Pressure,' I just found two chords I liked, and built it up, did like a ten-minute drum pattern.

To be honest, I don't have a particular recipe, but I normally start with the chord progression and then I build it from there. I listen to a lot of jazz, so the chords are really important to me.

If the chords change a lot over the course of a song, it's better to stay within the same melodic structure.

I think Beethoven means dissonances to be more stressed than consonances - it's the shock tactician in him.

When I play, I stare at the left hand of whoever is playing lead. And I get to know what people are playing well enough that when they start going somewhere, once they arrive, I'm already there.

So when I started writing my own stuff, it was with a lot of combinations and time changes and power.

I just play music by listening and responding, so I don't know anything about writing songs or arranging and all of this stuff. You know, it's in my head, but I don't know how to get it out.