Creativity Quote by Lee Ritenour

Ritenour is describing a hierarchy of sound that also doubles as a quiet flex: the “composition” isn’t born from a melody scribbled on paper, but from a physical decision about resonance, tuning, and register. In guitar culture, “very unusual tuning” is code for moving the instrument from tool to engine. You’re not just choosing chords; you’re redesigning the harmonic rules so the music has to follow the guitar’s new gravity. That’s why he calls it “the body” of the piece. The baritone’s lower range supplies weight, inevitability, and a kind of cinematic floor - the part that makes everything else feel anchored even when the harmony gets slippery.

Then he flips the expected prestige ladder. Classical guitar, often treated as the refined, foreground “serious” instrument, is “on top of it” serving the “main rhythm part.” That’s a deliberately modern, studio-minded move: classical tone becomes texture and articulation rather than center-stage virtuosity. The subtext is a producer’s mentality inside a player’s language - arrangement as architecture. One guitar isn’t competing with the other; they’re interlocked, one defining the room, the other furnishing it.

Contextually, this fits Ritenour’s wider lane: jazz-fusion craftsmanship where timbre is composition, and the track’s identity comes from sonics as much as notes. He’s pointing to a method that’s both experimental and pragmatic: start with an unusual foundation, then let a familiar voice deliver the groove people can actually hold onto.