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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

Music in itself carries a whole set of messages which are very, very rich and complex, and the words either serve to exclude certain ones or point up certain others.
BRIAN ENO

Certain Messages Rich
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 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
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
The muscles are there simply to serve the head. But that isn’t how traditional players work at all; musicians know that their muscles have a lot of stuff going on as well. They’re using their whole body to make music, in fact.
BRIAN ENO

Body Muscles Players Traditional Use Whole
Anything popular is populist, and populist is rarely a good adjective.
BRIAN ENO

Adjectives Populism Populist
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
Some people are very good at being ‘stars’ and it suits them. I’m grudging about it and I find it annoying.
BRIAN ENO

People Stars Suits
Be the first to not do what nobody has ever thought of not doing before.
BRIAN ENO

Doing Firsts Nobody
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
Painting, I think it’s like jazz.
BRIAN ENO

Jazz Painting Thinking
Admirers can be a tremendous force for conservatism.
BRIAN ENO

Admirer Conservatism Force
When people censor themselves they’re just as likely to get rid of the good bits as the bad bits.
BRIAN ENO

Bits Longer Notice People Something
I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for co-operation with others. This seems to be about the most important thing a school could do for you.
BRIAN ENO

Believe Encourage Important School
I hate talking about music, to tell you the truth.
BRIAN ENO

Hate Talking
So, that means you can only play either very high or very low or both. And we’re going to stay there until I take my finger down.
BRIAN ENO

Down Finger High Low Play

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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