It’s important to set limitations, parameters. I’ve tried to writing a piece — just writing. It’s really difficult! But when I had to write a piece in an artificial key, or with strict instrumental limitations, well, it just pours out of me.
I could very well say I’m going to write a piece about death. Well...there’s still a universe of possibilities too vast for me to choose a starting point. But limitations can be the first great artistic decision any artist makes. For death, I think the decay of certain pitches and rhythmic elements could be an interesting parameter to explore.
Focus is a limitation. And focus is good. Therefore, limitations are good.
Then we go from there. Limitations are proliferating, not limiting really. Because we can break from them at any time! That’s the beauty in it. Marc Lowenstein put this well when I studied from him. He said, “Build yourself a box that you can then break out of.” Many composers do this. Schumann, and Bach, and Mozart, not necessarily in that order (though that’s probably the order in which I would listen to them).
Of course, this doesn’t just apply to music.
Entire genres are themselves limitations. Radio art — something I’m very interested in — is extremely limiting. The visual elements are stripped away (and obviously this isn’t really the case. Radio is more limiting now than it was a century ago. But living in a world of video, the choice to focus on radio means that limiting implications are extremely relevant) and we are left with an entirely different experience. See, limitations are not at all prohibiting to art, and anyone who loves radio can relate.
Photography is the same. In a world of video, still photos capture something entirely different. Even if I shot a model sitting completely still, time is still passing, and you see something so utterly strange, compared to a still photo. The singular moment, without time (and time elements can be introduced with effects, and these are yet more beautifully strange) is such a grand limitation, and why, I think, photography is still one of the most widely practiced forms of art.
I love film, but my interests tend toward radio, and photography. Art of the limited.