I’ve talked previously about ideas being cheap, and as your list of ideas expands, time can become the limiting factor. When it comes time to actually sit down and make something, that list can become more of a hindrance than help. Installing constraints on your work artificially reduces the number of options that you have, which may help you push past your writer’s block and on to creating.
Constricting Lyrics & Short Form Writing
One of the most common and perhaps obvious ways to constrict writing is through adopting a form. A form is simply a set of rules for you to follow that will determine what your output looks like. For example, a haiku, consisting of 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables respectively, is a form. A limerick is also a form. Even something as simple as a couplet, where two lines rhyme with one another, is a form.
There are a variety of ways you can sort of gamify your writing - both challenging yourself and encouraging your success. One such method is to create a lipogram - a piece of writing that fully omits a certain letter. Can you write your piece without the letter m? How do the new words that you’ve chosen affect how someone might perceive your work? Wikipedia has a list of numerous similar games you might like to try, and even includes examples of works using those techniques.
Constricting Music
The vast world of music theory creates problems on both sides of the spectrum: musicians are afraid of getting into a pattern of too many songs that use similar chords, but also afraid of branching out their music too much and losing “their sound”. Fortunately, because this problem is so universal, many before you have had similar problems, and there are options.The most common option is playing in a different key. You really like C G and F chords? Take those chords up a whole step and now you’re playing D A and G. Same chord progression, but different chords, for a slight change. This process of adjusting chords to a new key is called transposing.
Another common technique for musicians is adjusting the tuning of your instrument. This is used by many musicians who feel they are in a rut with an instrument and want to find new ways to experiment with their sound. For example, guitarists have a standard tuning, eADGBE, and “drop D” tuning, which brings down the lowest string a whole step, resulting in dADGBE tuning. This tuning can change the entire play style of the instrument, in fact drop D tuning is very popular in rock and metal music. This is only one of many alternate tunings out there, so feel free to explore!
Hopefully this inspires you to institute some limitations great idea you’ve been sitting on, or helps you reinvent a piece you’ve been working on and wanted to punch up. I can’t wait to see what you make next!