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When you look back on a historical period of music, it seems so obvious to you what the characteristics of it are, but they’re not obvious at the time. So, when I look back at my own work.

Brian Eno

It’s nice, I think, when people use your music for things you didn’t think of.
BRIAN ENO

Nice People Thinking
We have two different ways of working. One is completely unstructured where somebody just starts playing and somebody joins in and then the other person joins in, and something starts to happen. That’s occasionally what happens.
BRIAN ENO

Mean Moving Play Playing Somebody
I don’t like celebrity programmes – but I do like programmes about how ideas are formed and evolve.
BRIAN ENO

Evolve Ideas Programme
Perhaps when music has been shouting for so long, a quieter voice seems attractive.
BRIAN ENO

Attractive Long Voice
I’m struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity.
BRIAN ENO

Computer Driven Technology
I don’t want to do free jazz! Because free jazz – which is the musical equivalent of free marketeering – isn’t actually free at all. It’s just constrained by what your muscles can do.
BRIAN ENO

Free Jazz Musical Want
The biology of purpose keeps my nose above the surface.
BRIAN ENO

Biology Noses Purpose
I believe in singing.
BRIAN ENO

Believe Happen Life Magic Singing
Because if someone does that, you can find your own position in relation to it: what is it that I don’t agree with? In the studio I want to articulate a position clearly enough so that other people can use it – or chuck it away if they don’t want it.
BRIAN ENO

Enough Position Relation Someone Use
When I was young, an eccentric uncle decided to teach me how to lie. Not, he explained, because he wanted me to lie, but because he thought I should know how it’s done so I would recognise when I was being lied to.
BRIAN ENO

Decide Done Lying Teach Uncles
My lyrics are generated by various peculiar processes. Very random and similar to automatic writing.
BRIAN ENO

Peculiar Process Writing
Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do & do the last thing on the list.
BRIAN ENO

Last might Statistics
I belong to a gospel choir. They know I am an atheist but they are very tolerant.
BRIAN ENO

Atheist Choir Knows
What I would really like to do, if I could have a sort of kingship for a short time and organize the group of my dreams.
BRIAN ENO

Dream Feelings Together
The prospect of music being detachable from time and place meant that one could start to think of music as a part of one’s furniture.
BRIAN ENO

Detachable Furniture Thinking
In fact, quite a lot of what I do has to do with sound texture, and, you can’t notate that. You can’t notate the sound of “St. Elmo’s Fire.” There’s no way of writing that down. That’s because musical notation arose at a time when sound textures were limited.
BRIAN ENO

Mean Musical Sound Writing

When you look back on a historical period of music, it seems so obvious to you what the characteristics of it are, but they’re not obvious at the time. So, when I look back at my own work.

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When you look back on a historical period of music, it seems so obvious to you what the characteristics of it are, but they’re not obvious at the time. So, when I look back at my own work.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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