strategies.txt

(Organic) machinery
A line has two sides
A very small object         Its center
Abandon desire
Abandon normal instructions
Abandon normal instruments
Accept advice
Accretion
Adding on
Allow an easement (an easement is the abandonment of a stricture)
Always first steps
Always give yourself credit for having more than personality (given by Arto Lindsay)
Always the first steps
Are there sections?  Consider transitions
Ask people to work against their better judgement
Ask your body
Assemble some of the elements in a group and treat the group
Balance the consistency principle with the inconsistency principle
Be dirty
Be extravagant
Be less critical
Breathe more deeply
Bridges   -build   -burn
Bridges -build -burn
Cascades
Change ambiguities to specifics
Change instrument roles
Change nothing and continue consistently
Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency
Change specifics to ambiguities
Children   -speaking     -singing
Cluster analysis
Consider different fading systems
Consider transitions
Consult other sources   -promising   -unpromising
Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element
Courage!
Cut a vital conenction
Cut a vital connection
Decorate, decorate
Define an area as `safe' and use it as an anchor
Destroy  -nothing   -the most important thing
Destroy nothing; Destroy the most important thing
Discard an axiom
Disciplined self-indulgence
Disconnect from desire
Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them
Discover your formulas and abandon them
Display your talent
Distort time
Distorting time
Do nothing for as long as possible
Do something boring
Do something sudden, destructive and unpredictable
Do the last thing first
Do the washing up
Do the words need changing?
Do we need holes?
Don't avoid what is easy
Don't be frightened of cliches
Don't break the silence
Don't stress on thing more than another [sic]
Don't stress one thing more than another
Dont be afraid of things because they're easy to do
Dont be frightened to display your talents
Emphasize differences
Emphasize repetitions
Emphasize the flaws
Faced with a choice, do both (from Dieter Rot)
Faced with a choice, do both (given by Dieter Rot)
Feed the recording back out of the medium
Fill every beat with something
Find a safe part and use it as an anchor
Get your neck massaged
Ghost echoes
Give the game away
Give the name away
Give way to your worst impulse
Go outside.  Shut the door.
Go outside. Shut the door.
Go slowly all the way round the outside
Go to an extreme, come part way back
Honor thy error as a hidden intention
Honor thy mistake as a hidden intention
How would someone else do it?
How would you have done it?
Humanize something free of error
Idiot glee (?)
Imagine the piece as a set of disconnected events
In total darkness, or in a very large room, very quietly
Infinitesimal gradations
Intentions   -nobility of  -humility of   -credibility of
Into the impossible
Is it finished?
Is something missing?
Is the information correct?
Is the style right?
Is there something missing
It is quite possible (after all)
It is simply a matter or work
Just carry on
Left channel, right channel, center channel
Listen to the quiet voice
Look at the order in which you do things
Look closely at the most embarrassing details & amplify them
Lost in useless territory
Lowest common denominator
Magnify the most difficult details
Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame
Make a sudden, destructive unpredictable action; incorporate
Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do & do the last thing on the list
Make it more sensual
Make what's perfect more human
Mechanicalize something idiosyncratic
Move towards the unimportant
Mute and continue
Not building a wall but making a brick
Not building a wall; making a brick
Once the search has begun, something will be found
Only a part, not the whole
Only one element of each kind
Openly resist change
Overtly resist change
Pae White's non-blank graphic metacard
Put in earplugs
Question the heroic
Question the heroic approach
Reevaluation (a warm feeling)
Remember quiet evenings
Remember those quiet evenings
Remove a restriction
Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics
Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities
Repetition is a form of change
Retrace your steps
Reverse
Short circuit (example; a man eating peas with the idea that they will improve  his virility shovels them straight into his lap)
Simple Subtraction
Simple subtraction
Simply a matter of work
Slow preparation, fast execution
Spectrum analysis
State the problem as clearly as possible
State the problem in words as clearly as possible
Take a break
Take away the elements in order of apparent non-importance
Take away the important parts
Tape your mouth (given by Ritva Saarikko)
The inconsistency principle
The most easily forgotten thing is the most important
The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten
The tape is now the music
Think - inside the work -outside the work
Think of the radio
Tidy up
Towards the insignificant
Trust in the you of now
Try faking it (from Stewart Brand)
Turn it upside down
Twist the spine
Use 'unqualified' people
Use `unqualified' people
Use an old idea
Use an unacceptable color
Use cliches
Use fewer notes
Use filters
Use something nearby as a model
Use your own ideas
Voice your suspicions
Water
What are the sections sections of?    Imagine a caterpillar moving
What are you really thinking about just now?
What context would look right?
What is the reality of the situation?
What is the simplest solution?
What mistakes did you make last time?
What to increase? What to reduce? What to maintain?
What were you really thinking about just now?
What would your closest friend do?
What wouldn't you do?
When is it for?
Where is the edge?
Which parts can be grouped?
Work at a different speed
Would anyone want it?
You are an engineer
You can only make one dot at a time
You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas
[blank white card]