Melodic Invention Quotes

It is very rare that I am just coming up with melodies off the top of my head. I usually am responding to something - it could be chains dragging on the floor - but I am usually responding to something.

As far as I'm concerned, the essentials of jazz are: melodic improvisation, melodic invention, swing, and instrumental personality.

I'm more interested in melodic things. I think the biggest challenge when you go to play a solo is trying to invent a melody on the spot.

That makes classical music work, the ability to improvise.

Jazz today, as always in the past, is a matter of thoughtful creation, not mere unaided instinct.

Jazz can be a blank canvas full of possibilities.

Jazz can accommodate so many things. Jazz is like the universe: it's been expanding since its creation, and it's connected to everything.

Melodic invention is one of the surest signs of a divine gift.

In Jazz, improvisation isn't a matter of just making any ol' thing up. Jazz, like any language, has its own grammer and vocabulary. There's no right or wrong, just some choices that are better than others.

It's just that none of us had the wit or talent to make them into songs. We made them into life, which much messier, and more time consuming, and leaves nothing for anybody to whistle.

I really like the complexity of jazz, the emotional depth; I feel like there's no other music that's really as satisfying as jazz.

Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.

This sounds horribly pretentious, but I like to think that if music hadn't existed, I could have invented it.

With the new technology that keeps entering the media, film composers are constantly being placed in new learning situations. Acknowledging this and realizing that one must keep up, I maintain, nonetheless, that the real creative power is in the mind and heart of the composer.

Jazz is such a living art form. It happens right in the moment. You weave a story by changing certain elements and components.

Nothing matches the sheer euphoria of discovering a new melody or a new batch of chords that just come out of nowhere.