Restrictions will set you free
2008-04-29
A great book called The Listening Book had this wonderful quote:
Restrictions will set you free
Example:
Someone says, "Write me a piece of music. Anything. No restrictions. Go!"
You're stumped. The blank page syndrome.
Instead, someone says, "Write me a piece of music using only a flute, saw, and this broken toy piano. You can only use the notes D, E, and B - but never all 3 at the same time. It has to be in 3/4 time, start quiet, get loud, then get quiet by the end. Go!"
Aha! Now you're cookin'!
Although I can be creative within a frame of restrictions, I'm best without limits. Then it's as easy as tapping the source of all that not yet created music and being like a channel. No blank page syndrome here!
We work usually under both conditions: When we create music for a new Blue Star album, it's the Zen of the blank page that fuels the imagination. When we compose production music for our publisher there is always a stylisty or genre specific frame that we have to stay within.
Isn’t the greatest 'drive worth pursuing’ that from which you will grow and learn the most? If there are no restrictions, there is no challenge - anything or nothing would make the grade. Then why try?
Identifying restrictions as ones to beat and ones to shrug away can be a key to overcoming the most prudent restrictions via personal resource. When we started in '78, not having a 'record making machine' was a restriction we overcame with DIY cassettes. Couldn't afford a mike so I took a speaker out of a set of headphones and wrapped it to a hat rack with an Ace bandage. Couldn't pay to make 1000 pcs. of any one item of merchandise for the band so we learned to silk-screen. Couldn't afford to have someone make a video for us, so we produced a cable-show just to get access to the gear to make band videos. That list goes on forever for most of us in the muse-driven working-class DIY world…
But the neat thing is, all those restrictions that made us do all those things for ourselves, turned into things we could do for others to make money to pay for more gear to overcome bigger restrictions to do more of what it was we wanted to do when we first set out - and have continued since…
Great fortitude is built by overcoming restrictions - IMHO ;-)
I recall the statement from Derek when he wrote that see what is working for you specific. For some people restrictions are the best way to do something, others can be stimulated by braeking the restrictions and come up with something quite different.
Once thia question came to me, create something about the river Styx in music. I started creating some piece of interesting music, becouse there were no restrictions.
So keep in mind see what fits your lifestyle.
On my recent record, I recorded vocals and guitar completely live in the studio. No click tracks. I then added drums, bass, viola, guitars. This forced all the other musicians to really listen. In the end we created this really cool push-pull groove that was loose and very much like what a band sounds like, rather than a clock. The limitation was that I could not deliver the heart and emotion of the tunes with a click track. I ended up with something much more organic than I expected.
Classical music is a good place to look at the history of restriction
From the plainsong of the monestary's, to the work of Bach, through to the various form of the 17th and 18th century including poetry in all it's forms, right up to the use of folk themes by Stravinsky, the birdsong of Messaien, the rigid ideas of Bartok in his string quartets, and the atonality of Schoenberg, creating self imposed restrictions IS classical music.
When form breaks down, one could argue it is not music any more. But the form is as much what you can do as what you can't do. The reason that composers are instantly recognizable is that their audio fingerprint is precise, even when listening to more open and romantic music such as Debussy or Ravel from late 19th C.
The art is in creating restrictions by any means that are unique to yourself, and honing your art on this new planet you have created. All these composers created rules, explored them, and became masters of their own universe.
Unique.
Most unheard composers just wrote what they wanted, or visited other people's restrictions (without of course the experience of the original creator!) and faded into obscurity.
To create rules, shifts and paradigms in music you must be prepared to sound radically different to anything that has gone before.
And this is something many musicians talk about, but never have the guts to go through with - because they want to sound like their favourite composer, band or mixer. Familiarity grounds them like a ball and chain.
Yeah, it's about setting parameters.
Just like Googling something, you need to define and guide the search engine to a set task. Google cant do anything until you have sent specific information.
I'm sure many musicians feel uncomfortable with the idea of "boundaries", and may even get defensive about "interfering with creativity", and whilst I'm probably most comfortable recording when i'm improvising and making it up on the spot, having a starting point provides and earthed perspective, gives you an anchor, and a sense of direction.
It's like getting in your car to drive off. You don't necessarily need to know where exactly your heading (if your more into the journey than the destination), but it's extremely useful if you know where the hell you are to begin with!
smiles to you,
Tania Rose
www.taniarose.blogspot.com
Interesting discussion so far. What I learned from the other comments is that even if I play freely, there are " inner restrictions", something that has become part of my style. I can see that all my lines and micro bendings follow a very strong regime, selfimposed. Thats what creates my sound.
Elizabeth and I recorded an album with just Rhodes Piano and electric guitar.
It is called Zen Blues: http://www.cdbaby.com/bluestarmusic2
The music itself was not planned, but here the restriction was to stick to the piano / guitar format and also to a Zen - like approach with extreme sensitivity for the moment.
People love the album.
I totally agree. Infinite choices overwhelm me.
When I recorded my rock album, I made a conscious decision not to use any keyboards. The rest was easy -- I only had one each: electric and acoustic guitars, bass, a guitar amp.
I never felt limited!
ari
To Julian Moore and fellow readers,
What a great discussion so far. I have left off of work to make a comment here. I agree with the classical form as a restriction, but not as an end in itself. I think any composer has to listen to what has been done before, but only as "fodder" for future works. A great deal of the celebrated composers listened and borrowed shamelessly from one another. Anyone listening to Beethoven, can hear Haydn, and anyone listening to Sibelius can hear Dvorak. We need to know what was done before us, as a baseline, and because it is in our consciousness, it will creep in to our music.
However I also see that I only have, really, a few restrictions; what the instrument I am writing for can physically do, (as I cannot create a range it cannot play), what the form allows me to do (before it becomes some other form), and how carefully I listen to myself (so that the work becomes the thing I have heard and not something else.)
One of my favorite composers is Charles Ives. Even more than Schoenberg, Ives threw form out the window, so to speak. Rather than creating new tonation, he understood the randomness of notes, when played together, and created "montages" of orchestration which somehow embrace tonality, atonality, consonance and disonance, simultaneously.
For myself, restrictions should be guides to where we are going, how we can get there, and what it should generally look like, but it should never be a limiter. Restrictions are like good pliers; they help you "get at" the thing you are trying to loosen.
tbl said it best when they said "its all been done".
each MUSICIAN inherits thier own voice and it is what it is, regardless of how it is percieved by others.
That is BS. I would never want restrictions on my writing. One likes to beleive in the freedom of music, but then there are compromises the shatter the elution of integrity. There will always be some restrictions. But with your example I would feel much more comfortable with the first command. “Write me a piece of music. Anything. No restrictions. Go!” Life is a mystery. Live in the mystery, do not fear it.
"My freedom will be so much the greater and more meaningful the more narrowly I limit my field of action and the more I surround myself with obstacles. Whatever diminishes constraint diminishes strength. The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self of the chains that shackle the spirit."
- Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music
Robert Frost said, "Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down." The "rules" of rhyme and meter were essential to his creativity.
Then there's Walt Whitman and "Leaves of Grass." A different genius.
To each his own.
Sat Nam[I salute the truth in you] Derek.Sikiru Adepoju,with whom I work[see atunbi] shared your articles with me......thank you .I appreciate you since I have shared my culture individually and in a variety of group settings in Australia,Borneo Malaysia,Singapore,USA,Finland,Belgium,Holland[where I went on a three month contract and ended up working with youth there for four years],Ghana,Senegal,Nigeria....etc.......without any financial backing. ....Starting over......is crucial.It is not coincidence,receiving your articles at this time.Last week I played with Sikiru,Mickey Hart,Bob Weir and several others in Golden Gate Park[S.F]...for Earthday commemoration.On our way to Oakland Sikiru and I were discussing stepping up promotion of our Cd Ijinle Ilu[Afrika Heartbeat....on CD Baby]....and I told him we need to contact you to give us 'Special Feature' promo on CD Baby. We have a lot more material to release....'Catch The Spirit'[with: Zakir Hussain,and Giovanni Hidalgo....#1 in the world in their respective fields].....is ready!! . I also wish to recommend Ella Andall[whom I encouraged to put her work on CD Baby]....if you wish to do some special CD Baby world tours....Afrika Heartbeat,Ella Andall plus Parry's Pan School[a youth steelband from Trinidad and Tobago,for which I handle External Relations]..would be a formidable cultural/musical combination!ASE!!..........Stay healthy happy and holy[whole]....................One love. val.
Most of my songs are written for Song Fight (songfight.org) which is a weekly songwriting competition which provides these sorts of restrictions. There are always two specific restrictions (you have to write a song with a certain title and within a certain time frame), and sometimes there are additional "optional challenges" (like "emphasize a mistake" or "avoid conventional instruments" or whatever).
A good method or tactic to help sharpen focus or initiate change... pull you out of the "rut" of staying in certain keys and or timings and rhythms, with out being over whelmed. Now, if I could only muster the discipline...heh.
I can't find the frKng article that said write a tune w/ the word RADIO in it.....uber_dang!!! Derek, to what station do you suggest i sent this tune?
RADIO MIKE....... http://www.weatheroutpost12.com/members/Alida_Rohr
Restriction is the method I used to write my last 10 albums (see http://echoroot.fuzz.com/music ). I refer to it as taking a concept or set of parameters and "using them in a sentence." I often use a homemade algorithmic composer which defines a set of parameters (tempo, key, modes, etc) - restricting the loop, patch and note selections and allowing me to quickly pull together a composition.
This discussion brings to mind those musicians or groups who say "We don't like to put labels on our music -- we play a little jazz, a little folk, a little blah blah blah, and we don't sound like anyone but ourselves." But when you listen to those acts' music, it's always dull and derivative -- kind of sounds like whatever's on the radio these days. On the other hand, the truly creative and original sounds always come from people grounded in a tradition -- people who can state clearly what genre they are coming from.
Rather than having rules or restrictions, the best music is written with some sort of general outline or plan. Yes you can break it, but it wouldn't be a coherent part of your over arching plan.
Also, these comments are full of tl;dr
A lot of folks are saying, "I work best without restrictions," as if having no limits to one's music implies expanded creativity. While in many ways this is true, I think what Sivers is pointing to is direction, rather than simply restriction.
People respond to music with direction - there's that classic adage that music is not what you put into it, it's what you don't put into it.
Couldn't agree more with this position.
It reminds me of my very first high school drama class. Some poor soul stood on an empty stage with the direction to "do something." He was lost. Then the teacher provided a set of parameters (like the smoke detector has just gone off and you need to get your baby sister out of the house); the student was able to create brilliantly.
The lesson has always resonated, but I'm grateful for the reminder.
Jean Synodinos
(say it like this: sin-uh-DEE-nus)
Austin, TX
http://www.jeansynodinos.com
http://www.myspace.com/jeansynodinos.com
Having no restrictions is a restriction in it's own right. Breaking a mold is one of the hardest things I have ever tried. I think a musician trying to compose without restrictions generates the most interesting deviation from a recognized form if the music is contrasted and played as a movement along with a recognized form (an Etude for example such as the Liszt a minor). It is not often that I am able to break away from what is so big a part of my musical education.
Derek!
thanks for sharing all the good thoughts and insights with us.
I just did an artist-in-residence gig at a local high school 2 weeks ago.
We did an exercise where each student brainstormed 10 random titles for "as yet unwritten songs/poems." Then, in groups of 3, they went over each other's lists, and chose one title from each person. I wrote those all on slips of paper, drew them randomly, and the whole group, working individually, had 1-2 minutes to "speed write" on that title, then the next one came up; we did about 5 of those back-to-back. After that, students looked over there sheets, and picked out a few lines they thought were particularly cool.
It was surprising how consistently people, at some point in the exercise, came up with great "song/poem seeds," ideas/lines that really sparkled with potential. Many of the students used ideas from that exercise for the song/poem they performed on the last day--I got a new song out of it, too. (posted on my website)
The best part was this quote: one student said, "I used to just sit around and wait for inspiration. Maybe inspiration is for amateurs?" :]
And, yes, sometime, maybe it is!
I just had a great experience with this the other day. My songwriting partner and I have been doing volunteer work with Project Rytmo: A program developed to help adjudicated youth who demonstrate artistic potential to a positive and professional artistic environment.
Yesterday we worked with a group of kids on a class project. The project was to come up with a 30 second commercial jingle. The jinge could only be 30 seconds long, we where given a specific product to write about, we had to have a specific demographic to write to. We had 20 minutes to write it before we would have to perform it for a panel of judges.
We all began to shoot rapid fire ideas to each other untill the jingle started to take shape.
The whole purpose of the exercise was to get to the point of the hook and to work under pressure. But it was also a perfect example of working with restrictions. We knew what we had to write about, so there was no hemming and hawing about what to write about. We just started doing it.
We came up with a very fun little (lite) hip hop soft drink jingle. It was great experience.
One other thing on this topic.
David Lynch (Eraserhead, Lost Hwy, Wild at Heart, Blue Velvet, etc) is my favorite filmmaker. He is a genius in my opinion.
I remember reading and interview regarding working with television and it's restircitions.
There was the restictions of having to write for the TV format (A teaser, the opening credits, Act I, Act 2, Atc 3, etc.). There was the whole process of having the each act build up to a point that would have the audience sticking around after the commercial break.
Lynch's films usually have very intense violence and sexual scenes in them, and of course television imposes a lot of restrictions on this too.
But David Lynch explained that he never looked at these restictions as a chore, but instead viewed them as a challenge. He said that he found it fun and liberating.
I think that classical music actually shows the power of restrictions, and the power of having a musical language that your audience understands. What happened when classical composers gave up that idea in the first half of the 20th century? Classical music faded away. And what took its place - ragtime and later jazz - was very strictly defined and highly formulaic. Most popular music is, in fact, very strictly defined and highly formulaic.
I rather like writing within the constraints of the ragtime genre. It's very strictly defined, but does leave plenty of room for experimentation. I like to think that good music results from that experimentation - I suppose posterity can decide that.
I can relate to this post. I started writing more and more progressive music...and there really is no end to a song once you start off in that direction if you want...
For my last CD, I tried to stay around 3-4 minutes for each song, and it was pretty liberating.
Not to mention, I could make those 3 minutes the best they could be and focus on the vibe for that song. Anything strong enough could be saved for a future song that didn't 100% serve that track.
I think it depends on how restrictive the restrictions are. If they are so restrictive as to inhibit creativity and exclude ideas that might occur along the way, then I prefer the possibility of breaking away from the rules. Composing music isn't engineering or architecture.
I remember recording a song in my apartment. I'm a drummer and couldn't set up a whole kit there due to noise issues and space issues. I didn't really decide on this restriction, but I had to deal with it. So I recorded individual drums one at a time. I sat and played the bassdrum, then I sat and played the snare drum, then I sat and played the hi-hat and the same for ride cymbal. One interesting thing I remember was some things the accents that I did along with the lead guitar line on the snare which I was able to nail pretty solidly, which I probably wouldn't have heard or done had I been playing the entire kit at once. I really like those shots and accents together and was really able to focus just on what the snare was doing without thinking about what my other limbs were trying to do. Now I suppose if I was Steve Gadd I'd been able to do that stuff, and so much more all together, and I would probably not have been in my apartment for that matter, but it was an interesting experiment for me. I don't think the restrictions necesarily limited me. I wouldn't want to write every song this way, but I think it's good to try different things from time to time to see what you come up with.
Agreed. I was aimless and without inspiration for a while, then someone asked me to write a theme song for their website. They gave me the parameters for the song as far as overall sound and specific instruments...all of a sudden, I was on top of my game again. Just because you're taking direction doesn't mean you're selling out. In fact, I think it makes you work harder because you have to fit a certain style flawlessly.
That's a great example David.
I feel I have written some of my best songs when I have been given the title of the song first, and then had to write the song to fit the title.
No Offense Juliette
Jesus Loves You (Everyone else thinks you're an asshole)
Are just two examples of this.
TJR
Neo Classic Rock
http://wwww.tjrmusic.com
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As far as restrictions go, it is difficult to top those inherent to a life on this planet trapped in a human body with a heavily input-filtered brain. Beyond those, anything else is simply welcome icing on top!
Cheers!
Ben
This is a brilliant method to inspire songwriting. It speaks to something I learned in psychology classes in college: structure hunger.
Just today I started writing myself very specific "assignments" for song ideas I came up with. Whenever I get stuck and the word flow stops, I'd read the "assignment" and things would flow again.
Derek, you're a genius.
Yeah, I discovered the same thing when I was a teenager - I wrote a lot of contemporary classical music then. I was trying to write a piece with a free flowing melody so I removed all restrictions and went to work... sounded like crap - no focus.
Then I said, OK, I'll write in 13/8 time and stick to G major or reasonable transpositions from it. The restriction was basically just that the first of every 13 eighths had to carry an accent... in between I was freely grouping 2s and 3s and 4s... and the result was a great melody that sounded totally free form but stayed focused.
And, of course, it would be even easier to write something great within the even tighter restrictions you gave... in fact I can already hear it. :o)
I'm highly prone to "option paralysis" myself, so I fully grok the notion that a restriction can set you free. It give you a starting point, a structure. I guess some of us are like ivy, and we need a structure in order to grow tall. Whether you follow the restriction, or rebel against it, it still helps to give you form. The "blank page" assignment never bothered me as much as it bothered some, but that was simply because I always just used something I'd written for a different course.
Laziness breeds ingenuity.
This thread was a very fun one to read. I like that there are other Ives and Shoenberg enthusiasts in the world. Julian Moore's post resonates very well also.
I had an experience early in life that relates directly to this topic. I usually came from the camp of total freedom being best and think that there usually should be something special about every song or piece that a person writes even if it is not readily noticeable. So I went to composition class and the teacher had us study 16th century counterpoint. Now this was maximally stiff for me and talk about seemingly stifling rules... Strict ranges to fit voices with small ranges, no more than 75% of the notes on strong beats, very strict rules governing allowable dissonance and its resolution, notes being tied were restricted to the next in duration ie. quarter notes could only be tied to half notes and eighth notes, things like "in quarter notes only one skip in one direction, downward skips from any kind of beat etc. etc. (For anyone desiring this knowledge, the brilliant Ernst Krenek wrote a book called Modal Counterpoint in the style of the sixteenth century)
Well, you get the point. I made some unmemorable pieces with these rules but the work did enter my sound world. Much later I vowed to do better and worked on pieces in this style more seriously. The following work was shocking in that by sticking to the restrictions I heard the music far more differently than I had before. Many nuances that prior to the work would fly over my head became shockingly powerful in their effects. The highest note of the piece being special in the structure, the freeness from certain rigidities from not noticing the interplay between weak and strong beats, the subtle touch of small moments... This and so much more burned a brand into my musical template that I would have never predicted.
Now when write with no restrictions, the work with restrictions has opened up far more possibilities than I could have ever imagined. This is true of many other aspects of music. I remember reading about guitarist Eric Johnson and how in his work in addition to Koto and many other techniques he worked with octave displacement. Instead of making all of the lines scalar he would place notes in succession in different octaves so the lines would be very fresh and tasty.
So the main theme of embracing restrictions is actually the ultimate freedom, since when you are free, you are limited by the possibilities
that you can imagine and your prior experiences.
I totally agree. Miles Davis used to test the ability of potential bandmates by making them play along using only three or four notes. If they could jam using only three notes, then imagine what they could do when they were allowed all the notes their instrument allowed...
No, restrictions are essential when creating. I love them. And that's why I wrote seedystories.acycle.org.
Even an enormouse lack of imagination can be overcome with a microscopic amount of giudance.
I can go either way. Restrictive, or not. Both, are always a challenge and for me, that's what it's all about.
“Write me a piece of music using only a flute, saw, and this broken toy piano. You can only use the notes D, E, and B - but never all 3 at the same time. It has to be in 3/4 time, start quiet, get loud, then get quiet by the end. Go!”
I suddenly have the urge to do that, and that's how some of my best ideas come about.
I think I like the idea of restrictions. It would force me to be creative with what I have. I would find ways to use what I have at it's absolute maximum potential. I think it would actually force me to become more creative with my limitations. In a way I think that's what might be wrong with music today. Producers seem to over produce their music because they can. Theirs no limit to tracks, etc. I think the next thing I try "just to see what happens" is write a tune that does nothing but repeat itself over and over, will see what happens
i have read this quote elsewhere, and for me personally, it rings true.
the blank page doesn't bother me a whole lot, but restrictions force you to be creative within a set of parameters. you just have to remember that there is still an infinite (!) amount of choices that can be made within these parameters. a slice of infinity is still infinity.
i love to jam freely, but especially when you're writing songs with a band it helps to "get things done" by saying let's not use horns on this piece, let's cap this song at 5 minutes and so on instead of doing totally free improvs on every damn track. like someone else said on here: if you say "i'll never use restrictions!" -- that's a restriction right there. oh, the irony.
I love this! Although I do like starting from scratch too.. I can pump out anything with parameters..
Blake
blakegriffith.blogspot.com
really heavy and intense
I wrote a blog about this. I LOVE restrictions. I actually get things done while not know what every little thing does on my recording software!!
It works for graphic design, too. I can't very well communicate someone's message without knowing what their parameters are.
In my solo piano house concerts, I'll ask for a portion of an audience member's phone number and improvise a new piece based on the numbers they give me. Completely fun, and keeps the music accessible...
True. Restrictions narrow the focus and allow us to concentrate our efforts in one definite area. I think it's important to be able to set restrictions on ourselves too. Someone elses restrictions can be interesting though....
On a trivial note, there were so many different mustards on the store shelf a few weeks ago that I wandered off without any. Too tired to choose, or was there nothing to narrow the choice?
It's great, such a nice metaphor. I like it too much.
I find that restrictions on projects really test resourcefulness.
As a designer I always enjoy work with conditions. The process of manipulating identified restrictions to me is one of the most creative feelings.
Even within my own personal projects, I create terms to work with. The semantic process to me is extremely enjoyable & creative. Defining terms to a project is what gives the project purpose and a solid foundation for development.
I have really been enjoying your articles! Keep it up!
Interesting! It works for me to start a song especially the electronic music part. I first compose on analog machines. It limits memory and sounds compared to computers. It helps me focus on the song & not lose myself in a software. Best, V.
That's an all time truth and applies to all areas of life. Restriction sets one free.