In this theses Oskar Nöbbelin explores new ways of finding inspiration for writing modern jazz using recordings of vocal improvisations made by non-musicians and finding ways to incorporate their outsider perspective into his own music.

The text follows the process and difficulties collecting these recordings. Initially failing at street interviews and later finding success with friends and acquaintances, and even recordings of himself as a child. It then moves on to the compositional work of processing the recordings into a finished product using an array of compositional tools, some of which acquired through an interview with saxophonist and composer Nils Berg, going through each song one by one.

Lastly, he reflects on how working with the non-musicians’ improvisations and the compositional tools affected the music that was written and concludes that inspiration might not be as important as he first thought going into the project.