Re-use ideas

AABA works well as a musical form. I – IV – V works well as a chord progression. The pentatonic scale works as a scale.

Re-using ideas can still generate plenty of new and interesting musical ideas.

Just because it’s an idea that’s been used many times doesn’t mean that all of the ideas have been extracted from it.

It might sound cliche to use specific ideas in specific ways, especially if they are ideas that have been used many many times, but those ideas in different contexts and used in different ways might make for some interesting music.

For example, if we take the “four chord song” I – V – vi – IV might sound a little cliche played with swung 16th notes and in 4/4. What if we play it in 5/4 with swing 8th notes and use slash chords. Instead of D – A – Bm – G we could play D/G – A/D – Bm/E – G/A.

That might make for a more interesting use of that chord progression.

Re-using ideas and putting them in a new context might make for new and interesting ideas.

ISJ