Synthetic Seeds

Like a good upbringing, the strength of an idea is good "parentage".

The strength of an idea is its ability to be both transformed and expanded, yet retain its main "blueprint". This is how jazz developed--from a continuous transformation of seed ideas. The blueprint for jazz is chords and melody.

When I was first learning to play jazz, I primarily used fake books, in particular, The Real Book, an "illegal" fake book. Even today, the way I work is to make one of these blueprints at some point in the process. Artists also do this: the sculptor Tony Smith was known to make drawings of sculptures after the models were made, or even after the works were installed. Even if the idea has no seed, an "artificial" seed can be made. Many things we see may seem unique and novel, but there may have been an influential progenitor, that by its appearance, would have nothing in common, but gave rise to its existence.

You don't have to necessarily have a plan or have a seed in an organic sense. You can draw one up later, and connect the outcome with the plan you made. The operative bromide is "shoot the arrow and paint the target", or build the building, draw the plans, then make more buildings from the plans, or "make it 'til you can fake it."

A seed is essentially a container of instructions.