16. "Pop is really about melodic phrases that works in repetition..." In response to In response to 13
A jazz-solo can contain literally hundreds of dope phrases; alternatively it may only contain a few but the way the musician gets from "dope phrase A" to "dope phrase B" is appealing in itself.
However, regardless of how dope a phrase/melody-line is, it really must work in repetition to become a great pop-tune (and numerous shitty pop-tunes pretty much proves that!).
Like you can artificially create a pop-tune from a jazz-solo by zeroing in on the "money"-phrases and then repeat them. However, will it work when you cut out all the information contained between? I'm not so sure because the nature of the phrases in a jazz-song is-outside of the theme-not really the same as the phrases in a vocal melody.
It's like a guitar-riff (a riff=a melodic phrase that ideally work in repetition); several of the most famous guitar-riffs ever would have sounded utterly retarded if they were instead sung with lyrics and shit as a topline vocal melody-try "smoke on the water" or "Back in black" for example. They are too choppy whereas phrases in vocal-melodies generally have a more "smooth" feel with stepwise melodic motion along a scale in a pretty even (square?) rhythm as opposed to larger intervals and a more percussive feel.
The phrases in jazz-solos meanwhile has-at least since bebop-taken on a melodic/rhytmic form that is quite different from your regular pop-phrase and in the case of someone like Coltrane for example, it isn't even so much about the strength of the individual phrases IMO as it is about the *combined* impact of them.
Basically, writing a great pop-tune and playing a great (modern) jazz-solo are two different skill-sets that IMO don't have much in common beyond ideally grabbing the listener and thus, it's a bit hard to compare...