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I had an interesting day. I was in the studio with a group of musicians, who shall remain nameless, and I said to them “Our exercise today is not to use ‘undo’ at all. So, there’s no second takes. Or, if you do a second take, you have to do the whole take.

Brian Eno

If you think of the way a composer or say a pop arranger works – he has an idea and he writes it down, so there’s one transmission loss. Then he gives the score to a group of musicians who interpret that, so there’s another transmission loss.
BRIAN ENO

Down Loss Thinking Transmission Writing
My guitar only has five strings ’cause the top one broke and I decided not to put it back on: when I play chords I only play bar chords, and the top one always used to cut me there.
BRIAN ENO

Chord Cutting Guitar Play
Lyrics are the only thing to do with music that haven’t been made easier technically.
BRIAN ENO

Easier Made Technically Things
A big ego isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A big ego means that you have some confidence in your abilities, really, and that you’re prepared to take the risk of trying them out.
BRIAN ENO

Ego Mean Risk
What happens with notation is that it reduces things to a language which isn’t necessarily appropriate to them. In the same way that words do, you get a much cruder version of what was actually intended.
BRIAN ENO

Appropriate Language Notation
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
It’s amazing how quickly people get used to bad quality.
BRIAN ENO

Bad People Qualities Quality
As soon as you externalize an idea you see facets of it that weren’t clear when it was just floating around in your head.
BRIAN ENO

Clear Floating Ideas
I believe in singing.
BRIAN ENO

Believe Happen Life Magic Singing
Well, there are some things that I just can’t get out of my head, and they start to annoy me after a while.
BRIAN ENO

Bugs Ears People
People in the arts often want to aim for the biggest, most obvious target, and hit it smack in the bull’s eye.
BRIAN ENO

Arrows Art Eye Smack
I want to rethink surrender as an active verb.
BRIAN ENO

Surrender Verbs Want
Avant-garde music is sort of research music. You’re glad someone’s done it but you don’t necessarily want to listen to it.
BRIAN ENO

Avant Done Garde Research
Most of those melodies are me trying to find out what notes fit, and then hitting ones that don’t fit in a very interesting way.
BRIAN ENO

Hitting Interesting Melodious Trying
Once I started working with generative music in the 1970s, I was flirting with ideas of making a kind of endless music – not like a record that you’d put on, which would play for a while and finish.
BRIAN ENO

Flirting Ideas Play
The great benefit of computer sequencers is that they remove the issue of skill, and replace it with the issue of judgement
BRIAN ENO

Issues Judgement Skills

I had an interesting day. I was in the studio with a group of musicians, who shall remain nameless, and I said to them “Our exercise today is not to use ‘undo’ at all. So, there’s no second takes. Or, if you do a second take, you have to do the whole take.

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I had an interesting day. I was in the studio with a group of musicians, who shall remain nameless, and I said to them “Our exercise today is not to use ‘undo’ at all. So, there’s no second takes. Or, if you do a second take, you have to do the whole take.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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