Some Benefits of Limitations & Rules in the Creative Process

[sowhoso]

make it a rule to limit the time you spend on this forum

[futuremoves]

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.

Nice one!

[futuremoves]

make it a rule to limit the time you spend on this forum

Ha, ha, ha! Yes that might be a very good tip!

[Kent_in_CO]

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.

Cool vibe...especially with the vox helping to make a statement. How is the vibe there now, almost two years after the massacre?

[re:dream]

I am not sure how to answer that question. Marikana has been an indescribable event. It was the moment the dream of the new South Africa died. Remember that more people were killed there than in any other confrontation between the SA government and its people since Sharpeville. So it was a worse massacre than any of the atrocities of the state of Emergency in the 1980s. But government is in denial about it. They fail to see, they refuse to see the enormity of what they did and the enormity of the break of trust it has involved. And there is this weird disjuncture whereby people keep voting from them. People will go out on 'service delivery protests', be shot at by cops with live ammunition, and then go right back and vote them in again. It defies understanding. But we are not allowed to talk politics on this forum, so I will just let the music do the talking

[Victor Lucindo]

I'm finding out that limitations and deadlines can be a blessing to creativity. I just finished a 6 track EP that followed a handful of rules. I could only use the same drum kit and bass patch for all of them, a max. of 2 synths for each track and every sample in a given track had to be from the same source. I gave myself two months to finish the EP. What I found out is that I had to think out of the box to complete the tracks, I couldn't just add a new track with a new sound. It made me find out ways to manipulate the same sources and get new sounds out of them. And in the end, the 6 tracks had an aesthetic character that made them feel like an album without much effort, and at the same time they all sound different. I'm already thinking about new limitations to impose on new work!

[oblique strategies]

That's how most music was recorded throughout history: a select group of timbres & a deadline.

Plus, you stand a better chance of gaining mastery over an instrument by spending time with it.

Another "limitation" that can have a powerful effect on creativity is an impending gig; that will focus you!

[Airyck]

Nice article Kent, always a good reminder.

I live in Denver, CO as well BTW

[Kent_in_CO]

Thanks man. ; ) Awesome to see that you're local...are you gigging around town?

Kent // SEVEN7HWAVE // www.seven7hwave.com