“The absence of limitations is the enemy of art.”
Orson Wells
Creative challenges and limitations are a fun and interesting way to improve your skills. The point of these challenges is to create limitations for yourself to work within to help boost your creativity. In fact it’s more difficult to create anything at all then to create something very specific. I think this longer quote might explain this phenomenon a little more.
“Limitations foster creativity. Tell an artist to paint anything, and he may struggle, but tell him to create something specific, in a set amount of time, for a certain audience, and these constraints might well push him to produce something he might never have come up with on his own.” (John C. McCrae)
During one summer break I set myself the challenge of composing and producing one piece every day for a month. I set myself many limitations to try and assist in the success of the challenge. Each day had its own musical prompt, songs should be around 2 minutes long and they could not be revisited or remixed for the duration of the month.
An example of the 30 day song challenges can be seen below.
What I then did was think of which song fitted with each prompt. I would then use that song as an inspiration or a starting point for my song production of the day. This does not mean I was trying to copy this song, but the song would inspire my decision making for the production.
My list from 2016 with the artist / song that was the inspiration. (Based of the 30 day song sharing social media challenge)
Day 01 – A song people wouldn’t expect you to like – Joe Satriani /prodigy
Day 02 – A song that helps you clear your head- jon Hopkins abandon window
Day 03 – A song that makes you happy – happy pharrel williams
Day 04 – A song you can always relate to RJD2 – ghostwriter
Day 05 – A song that reminds you of your best friend – tame impala endors toi
Day 06 – A song you liked when you were younger- placebo pure morning / nancy boy
Day 07 – A song you like hearing live – elephant tame impala
Day 08 – A song that reminds you of something sad – nature boy moulin rougue – or KOJA
Day 09 – A song that makes you want to dance – one more time daft punk
Day 10 – A song that reminds you of summer –breakbot
Day 11 – A song that has a new meaning to you every time you hear it- purity ring lofticries
Day 12 – A song that makes you laugh – ciara body party
Day 13 – A song that holds a lot of meaning to you – cosmos midnight moshi / david bowie
Day 14 – A song in another language- reggaeton generally – travesuras nicky jam
Day 15 – A song that makes you feel blissful – latch mistermack rmx / mos def may december
Day 16 – A song from a new album you are waiting for – frank ocean – super rich kids /sweet life
Day 17 -A song by your favorite band – david bowie- moss garden – ambient
Day 18 – A song you’re currently obsessed with – 69 camero
Day 19 – A song you have as your ringtone/want to be your ringtone – cresentdolls daft punk
Day 20 – A song that reminds you of your boyfriend/girlfriend – tove lo habits remix / love me like you do
Day 21 – disco sample
Day 22 – a song that makes you sleepy – clams casino
Day 23 – an old song from a old style of music – blues
Day 24 – a song that you dont understand- lone air glowfires.
Day 25 – A song that reminds you of a big change in your life – French / breakbot style
Day 26 – A song with your favourite instrument (saxophone) https://soundcloud.com/xxx/rascal-elhaes-joint
Day 27 – a song you never get bored of – voyager daft punk
Day 28 – An acoustic song – ?
Day 29- A style you only like listening to sometimes. – dub reggae
Day 30- Your favourite song at this time last year –
Examples of the recordings from this challenge:
Another fun one was during COVID I set up a live stream production challenge. There was a spinning wheel that chose one of a number of different challenges, these were less specific challenges that could be reused.
Here’s the list of live stream challenges:
- 5 tracks only – ala 8 bit era
- Random youtube sample – you had to incorporate a random YouTube sample
- Only synths –
- Only samples (no midi)
- 10 min challenge – see factmag against the clock
- Reverso (reverse everything) – (mostly audio challenge too)
- Phones only – you could only use mobile devices / tablets. No DAW
- Silence is golden (Creative use of moments of silence)
- Its solo time – incorporate instrument solos
- Cheapskate – free vsts only-
- 007 clickers only! (Only mouse)
- 1 synth – can only use 1 synth for all sounds
- Ridiculous BPM – 40BPM or 208 you choose.
You could roll a few dice to get yourself started on one of these. If you find this useful please tag or post it back here!
Here’s an example of a challenge livestream I did with a friend.
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