[PD] How (Pd's) 'limitations' enhance creativity

[Matt Barber]

This is a great way to frame it, and it is indeed how I approach
composition as well. It sometimes helps to think of a piece as a solution –
maybe the only solution – to a set of constraints.

Three limitations that I love in Pd off the top of my head:

1. The relatively small set of core objects really helps with programming
ingenuity, and in fact has made me think through some things that have been
helpful in other programming contexts. I love when someone throws down a
"this can't be done in vanilla" challenge; I've learned lots from thinking,
"OK, we'll see about that!"

2. The smallish set of objects also means that Pd is not a black box. It
does mean sometimes that you have to know what you're doing, but in general
it does not force you to think a specific way about what you're doing. This
is not true in my experience with my students who use other programs
excluding csound and SC, but including Max – they'll often as a group
settle on one massive object or plugin that does 100 things in a really
specific way (look at this badass object I found!) and all end up writing
more or less the same piece due to the directions the design of the object
pushed them in.

3. Its visual austerity is a huge help to me in thinking clearly about
patching and dataflow. It's amazing how often a geometrically elegant
solution turns out to be an elegant solution full stop.

On Wed, Mar 2, 2016 at 9:50 AM, Lorenzo Sutton <lorenzofsutton at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Trying to turn the Pd limitations thread, which eventually became the
> (usual) 'Pd vs foo" thread, into something possibly more constructive,
> interesting and inspiring.
>
> Starting from the concept of "Creative Limitation" (I am primarily
> thinking of Stravinsky):
>
> How do Pd's limitations enhance people's creativity?
>
>
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