Definitely this. It may be counter-productive to over-analyse these things too, at least beyond a point. I ran myself into a bit of a dead end with jazz piano

Definitely this. It may be counter-productive to over-analyse these things too, at least beyond a point. I ran myself into a bit of a dead end with jazz piano trying to be ever more inventive when it comes to harmony. I probably thought about it too much. The result was that I ended up pursuing it to its conclusion as far as my abilities went and then feeling like I had nothing left to do but flog a dead horse with the same improvisational tricks. Then I got tired and rusty. (Any tips from musician hacker types here on how to get past this kind of 'improvisor's block' ?) I guess my advice with hindsight would be: trying to get better by being cleverer with harmony hits a dead end. Instead try to get to a point where you can feel harmony in a textural way. Theory can help with that, but a little of it goes a long way, try to get as much as you can just from playing and listening. Watch out though as it's easy to get stuck in a feedback loop doing that which converges on a local optimum that bores you. Seek input into the loop which is outside your improvisatory comfort zone. And not necessarily in the sense of technically harder -- just different. The best stuff I've been able to play has been when I'm in a state of mind when I'm able to play texturally without thinking very much about what I'm playing, but it's quite rare these days.