It seems counterintuitive, but limiting your options can make you more creative, not less. When you have infinite choices, it's easy to get stuck. Constraints force you to find creative solutions within boundaries, often leading to ideas you would never have discovered with total freedom. Here's how to use limitations as a creative advantage.
Try writing a song using only two or three chords. This constraint forces your melody and lyrics to do more of the heavy lifting. With fewer harmonic options, you'll find yourself writing more inventive melodies and rhythms to keep the song interesting. Some of the most iconic songs in history use only two or three chords.
Giving yourself a strict deadline — write a complete song in one hour, or finish a verse in ten minutes — prevents overthinking and encourages instinctive creative choices. Time pressure forces you to commit to ideas rather than endlessly revising. The results might be rough, but they're often more energetic and authentic than carefully labored-over material.
Challenge yourself to write a song using only one-syllable words, or without using the word "love," or using only concrete nouns. Vocabulary restrictions force you to find fresh ways to express familiar ideas. They push you past clichéd language and into more original territory.
Instead of letting your song evolve organically, decide on the exact structure before you write a note — number of verses, chorus length, whether there's a bridge. Having the framework set in advance lets you focus entirely on filling it with great content rather than making structural decisions while simultaneously trying to be creative.
If you usually write on guitar, try writing on piano, or with just your voice, or using only a drum pattern. Different instruments suggest different melodies, rhythms, and moods. The unfamiliarity of a new instrument often produces ideas that feel fresh precisely because they don't come from your usual patterns.
The key to constraint-based writing is embracing the limitation rather than fighting it. View each constraint as a puzzle to be solved, not an obstacle to be overcome. The creative satisfaction of finding a brilliant solution within tight boundaries is one of songwriting's greatest pleasures.
Constraints are not the enemy of creativity — they are its fuel. By deliberately limiting your options, you force your creative mind to work harder and smarter, often producing results that are more original and exciting than anything unlimited freedom would have generated.
For help working within your creative constraints, Fast Rhymes provides tools to help you find the right words no matter what limitations you've set for yourself.
31/07/2025
Everything you need to write songs & poetry.
