I'm Adam Manus and I'm Peter Martin and you're listening to the You'll

Hear at podcast. Today we're listening to the You'll Hear It Podcast.

Today we're going to tell you how to develop a single idea into a theme.

We're talking music or life here because I've got a lot of ideas.

We're going to actually talk both, I think.

We're going to talk music because that's anybody, that's all anybody really cares about hearing from us, which is fine.

But I think it's not unlike life and unlike certainly telling stories and stuff, you know, you start with one idea and turn it into a theme.

Yeah, no, we're talking about improv today.

We're talking about getting the most with the least, really.

That's right.

You don't have to play everything you know on every single solo, on every single chorus, on every single gig. You can actually get a lot of mileage out of one little nugget of a musical idea. When it's good, we're doing this because we've done, what are we like 30 episodes in now? We're starting to like need to something out of one idea, because we don't have a whole lot more.

This whole episode is building a theme off of one little idea.

That's right.

Okay, so let's get into it.

So I think the first way that you can develop a simple idea is to start very simple and

very rhythmically.

Okay?

So we're not even thinking about, like, a big, grandiose theme. And this would be the equivalent of you walk into a party. And instead of like coming up and saying, I'm the most interesting man in the world, you just come and say, hiya. Yeah, totally. What's up? You know, something kind of a little bit rhythmic, right? Right. Don't handcuff yourself by coming up with this huge theme. Right. Then you have to, you know, something kind of a little bit rhythmic, right? Don't handcuff yourself by coming up with this huge theme.

Then you have to, you know, remember A, but then B, develop off of, you know, start very, very simply,

rhythmically and harmonically. Right, right. And I mean, it's a fun thing, too, for the audience,

I think, because it's not that people only respond to rhythm, but when you're

starting in improvisation, I think it's often the most accessible way to present something

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