Creativity Quote by Jan Garbarek

Garbarek’s line reads like a musician’s shrug, but it’s really a philosophy of making art under uncertainty: you don’t wait for certainty, you move as if you’ve earned it. “If you feel” is doing quiet work here. He’s not talking about knowing the key like a theory exercise; he’s talking about sensing it, that half-instinct musicians develop when harmony becomes a kind of weather. The phrase “right key” isn’t just technical, either. It’s permission. Once you believe you’re in the right tonal world, you’re free to start speaking.

The second clause is where the subtext lives: “you try to make some phrase or sound that will fit.” Try. Some. Fit. It’s modest language for a practice that’s actually high-stakes, especially in improvisation. Garbarek came up through jazz and the ECM ecosystem, where space, restraint, and tonal clarity are treated like moral virtues. In that context, “fit” doesn’t mean “blend in” so much as “click into place” - the way a single, cold saxophone note can suddenly make a whole ensemble sound inevitable.

There’s also a gentle resistance to romantic myths of inspiration. He frames creativity as problem-solving with feeling, not divine lightning. Find the key, then craft a phrase that belongs there. The intent is practical, but the worldview is bigger: art is less about declaring yourself and more about listening hard enough to discover what the moment will tolerate, then saying it anyway.