Some Benefits of Limitations & Rules in the Creative Process

[oblique strategies]

This post: Finishing tracks: Something that helped me
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=203881

Inspired me to post these:


Phil Hansen: Embrace the shake
“Limitations may be the most unlikely of places to harness creativity, but perhaps one of the best ways to get ourselves out of ruts, rethink categories and challenge accepted norms. And instead of telling each other to seize the day, maybe we can remind ourselves every day to seize the limitation.”
https://www.ted.com/talks/phil_hansen_embrace_the_shake


Dave Morris: The Way of Improvisation
"Anything that has rules to it, I consider a game. …There are rules that I am following. And what rules do is they free us up to improvise. By giving ourselves these constrictions that guide our impulses it funnels our creative process into some kind of product. The process of improvisation & those rules help us create something"
http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxVict ... e%20Morris

[sowhoso]

nice thing about rules is, they're made to be broken

[oblique strategies]

Yes: they facilitate it!

[futuremoves]

Good videos, thanks for posting. It's so easy to get dragged into all the technology and "how to" and get distracted from creativity. Thought-provoking stuff.

[Kent_in_CO]

It's paradoxical, but limitations can be awesome. Here's an article I wrote about the same topic: http://sessionville.com/articles/out-of ... creativity

[re:dream]

It's paradoxical, but limitations can be awesome. Here's an article I wrote about the same topic: http://sessionville.com/articles/out-of ... creativity

Thanks for the article, a great read and sound advice.

[Kent_in_CO]

Glad you find it helpful. Heh I need to reapply my own damn advice; been too all-over-the-map lately, coming up with 100 different vibes but not finishing tracks.

[re:dream]

I personally find it goes up and down. Sometimes I can be in Ill Gates style five-minute rule creative hyperfocus. At other times I have to meander and fuck around with textures and soundscapes. Let the fields lie fallow for a bit.

[oblique strategies]

I think another application for structure is when one is uninspired, when the muse has fled. Structure provides a focus for meandering energies. If you're not making progress on your own path you might as well explore a new one.

[musikmachine]

It's paradoxical, but limitations can be awesome. Here's an article I wrote about the same topic: http://sessionville.com/articles/out-of ... creativity

Right down to limiting the time spent each session, i do 2-3 30 minute sessions a day and if if i run out of ideas i stop.

I decide what i'm working on before i start each session as well then cross each thing off when it's done, helps keep me focused and shows clear progress. Still takes longer than i'd like but i'm trying to take it further, next track i will pick out the synths and maybe even the presets but i limit the time i spend browsing sounds now; once i find something i like i go with it.

[Daniel_S]

It's paradoxical, but limitations can be awesome. Here's an article I wrote about the same topic: http://sessionville.com/articles/out-of ... creativity

I found this article very useful as I am too guilty of pissing away hours over the tiniest detail which only ends up neither better or worse than what it started out at.

Last night I applied some of your logic... I had to lay down my arrangement.

I've been just creating clips within Session on my last track for the last couple of weeks and not really getting anywhere in the last 4 days.

So I gave myself a deadline... 30 mins (I was waiting to be picked up to go out), to sketch out an arrangement.

And not only did I get this done but it sounds pretty good to be fair - obviously needs tidying up but was so much more productive than trying to create the perfect arrangement bar by bar, and I left the house feeling pleased with myself instead of leaving the house with my head even more full of unfinished ideas.

Cheers, I will continue with giving myself tasks with deadlines and see where it takes me

[Kent_in_CO]

Right on Daniel...post or a PM a link when you finish!

[re:dream]

So I decided to do a track in one day. Soup to nuts

https://soundcloud.com/re-dreams-workshop/election-day

With a break to go voting, of course.

[oblique strategies]

i limit the time i spend browsing sounds now; once i find something i like i go with it.

Being decisive in a creative process that is often highly subjective can be difficult. Bravo for getting through that blockade!

[musikmachine]

i limit the time i spend browsing sounds now; once i find something i like i go with it.

Being decisive in a creative process that is often highly subjective can be difficult. Bravo for getting through that blockade!

Easier said than done but it's just at that initial phase of getting the track down, treat as a draft i can return to and change, it's kinda liberating.

Anyway it's stuff i've picked up from others, someone by the name of Giorgio Moroder used that phrase and it stuck with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19yXd9t7aO8