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When I’ve finally got the title, I think, “Okay, yes, now I know where we are. Now I know what it is. Fine, that must be finished or nearly finished.

Brian Eno

The texture suggests some kind of mood, and the mood suggests some kind of lyric. That’s like working in reverse, often quite the other way around, from sound to song. Although often they stop before they get to the song stage.
BRIAN ENO

Although Around Suggests Tecture Way
I’ve noticed a terrible thing, which is I will agree to anything if it’s far enough in the future.
BRIAN ENO

Agree Enough Terrible
The basis of computer work is predicated on the idea that only the brain makes decisions and only the index finger does the work.
BRIAN ENO

Decision Hands Ideas
I’m very good with technology, I always have been, and with machines in general. They seem not threatening like other people find them, but a source of fun and amusement.
BRIAN ENO

Fun People Technology
There are certain sounds that I’ve found work well in nearly any context. Their function is not so much musical as spatial: they define the edges of the territory of the music.
BRIAN ENO

Musical Sound Territory
I felt extremely uncomfortable as the focal point, in the spotlight. I really like the behind the scenes role, because all my freedom is there.
BRIAN ENO

Behind Roles Scenes Spotlight
I had a lot of trouble with engineers, because their whole background is learning from a functional point of view, and then learning how to perform that function.
BRIAN ENO

Function Trouble Views
Look closely at the most embarrassing details, and amplify them.
BRIAN ENO

Amplify Details Looks
The seven white notes on the piano – each section of the piece (there are 12 sections) is five of those seven white notes.
BRIAN ENO

Piano Simple White
It’s easy to forget that your best work is done when your attention is fully engaged.
BRIAN ENO

Attention Done Forget
All the best lyrics are written in ten minutes.
BRIAN ENO

Best Minutes Written
I don’t like headphones very much, and I rarely listen to music on headphones.
BRIAN ENO

Headphones Listening To Music
I think the other thing that’s important is getting to a place, which very, very rarely happens with improvising groups, where somebody can decide not to play for a while. You watch any group of musicians improvising together and they nearly all play nearly all the time.
BRIAN ENO

Differences Musician Playing Thinking Watching
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
Let’s do something else.”And you always think “Oh my God I’ve never done anything at all like that before.” But, of course, in retrospect, and to an outsider, they’ll say, “Oh, yeah that’s typical Eno.
BRIAN ENO

Anything End never Outsider Something Think
People who are very confident in themselves aren’t hurt by criticism. They make use of it.
BRIAN ENO

Criticism Hurt People
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 time I like listening to music most on headphones is, I have a game I play with my brother, he’s a musician as well.And he sends me MIDI files of keyboard pieces. So, these are pieces where I just get a MIDI file.
BRIAN ENO

Brother Favorite Game Hobby
The handbook always tells you what it does, and you can be quite sure that if it’s a complex device it can do at least fifteen other things that weren’t predicted in the handbook, or that they didn’t consider desirable. It’s normally those other things that interest me.
BRIAN ENO

Device Easiest Handbook Predicted Things
I occasionally meet people and they say, ‘Oh, I was born to Discreet Music’… They always have very weird eyes, those people.
BRIAN ENO

Born Eye Occasionally People
I see TV as a picture medium rather than a narrative medium.
BRIAN ENO

Mediums Narrative Television
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
Everybody is entertained to death.
BRIAN ENO

Death Entertained Everybody
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
I still do mostly listen to CDs. I think that every format really is a different way of listening. If you take a different sort of psychological stance to it – like, I think the transition from vinyl to CD definitely marked a difference in the way people treated music.
BRIAN ENO

Cds Difference Thinking
The problem with computers is that there is not enough Africa in them.
BRIAN ENO

Computer Enough Problem
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

When I’ve finally got the title, I think, “Okay, yes, now I know where we are. Now I know what it is. Fine, that must be finished or nearly finished.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

When I’ve finally got the title, I think, “Okay, yes, now I know where we are. Now I know what it is. Fine, that must be finished or nearly finished.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Brian Eno Quotes