I've never been much for theory and scales.
I make documentaries from time to time to remind myself of reality. It's like musicians doing scales to keep their fingers working: when you're in the street, listening to people, you're forced to be in the service of your subject.
I'm not that fluid when it comes to scales and modes. I just pick up the guitar and play. It's all about exploration: just tune the guitar any way you want and start playing.
When I practise scales I will play four notes on one string. If I'm playing a C major scale, starting on F, I'll play the F, G, A, and B on one string and the C will be on the A string, etc, etc. Because I found not only was it good for my hands but it was really good for interconnecting things.
I knew if I wanted to improvise over chord changes, I'd have to figure out all the scales that went with all those chords.
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.
When I close my eyes and think of a writer, I don't imagine him or her as someone who is sitting above me on a pedestal, blindfolded, holding the scales of justice in one hand! No, I see sentences.
As an astronomer, I get to ignore the details of the things that we don't understand. There's a lot of work that we can do on scales that we do understand, and there is actually a finite size that I can associate with a super massive black hole.
Scales always lie. They don't make a scale that ever told the truth about value, about worth, about significance.
There's this idea that because I'm a heavyweight, I'm not supposed to be in condition, that I should take advantage of the fact that I can eat. But I train and eat well, and it shows when I step on the scales.
