So, essentially my contribution was to introduce repetition into Western music as the main ingredient without any melody over it, without anything just repeated patterns, musical patterns.
The music has gotten thick. Guys give me tunes and they're full of chords. I can't play them...I think a movement in jazz is beginning away from the conventional string of chords, and a return to emphasis on melodic rather than harmonic variation. There will be fewer chords but infinite possibilities as to what to do with them.
Your solos should be as interesting as any other part of the song.
There are certain choices you make as a songwriter, based on vowel sounds and melody and chord changes.
I often use triadic arpeggio forms within my riffs and solos as a tool to create rich-sounding, poly-chordal sounds.
I'm trying to play tunes in a new way, using all the same scales, harmonies, structures, but twist everything a little bit so that it comes out sounding different.
In some types of music I'm working out all the chords one bar at a time - the whole structure, because it's about that. And there are other pieces which are really about - okay, the melody is going to start here and play through to here.
Jazz is such a living art form. It happens right in the moment. You weave a story by changing certain elements and components.
Adding instruments to parts of a song and having them somehow find a pocket. That to me was a huge lesson. Like, there's more than 808s in the universe.
Anything that broadens your musicality always moves the way you write drum or guitar parts.
Sometimes it's cool to play major third and minor third diads back-to-back, or a minor third followed by a root/fifth diad - whatever combo sounds good.
