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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

When I went back to England after a year away, the country seemed stuck, dozing in a fairy tale, stifled by the weight of tradition.
BRIAN ENO

Country Weight Years
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 think very often producers are really trying to repeat things. When they hear something in the new songs that they recognize as being a bit like something that was a success on a previous record, they’re inclined to encourage that.
BRIAN ENO

Song Thinking Trying
For instance, I’m always fascinated to see whether, given the kind of fairly known and established form called popular music, whether there is some magic combination that nobody has hit upon before.
BRIAN ENO

Combination Form Kind Magic
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
Sometimes they’re of my own creation, as well – and they’re just as annoying. It’s not only other people’s ear worms that bug me, it’s my own, as well.
BRIAN ENO

Annoying Creation Sometimes Well
What matters in modern music is not the part you can write down, the words and the tune, but the rest – the texture, the atmosphere, the references and associations.
BRIAN ENO

Atmosphere Matters References What Writing
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
All cultures have these feelings about non-functional areas of activity. And the more time people have on their hands, the more they commit it to those areas.
BRIAN ENO

Feelings Hands People
I want to rethink surrender as an active verb.
BRIAN ENO

Surrender Verbs Want
Ambient music is intended to induce calm and a space to think.
BRIAN ENO

Calm Space Thinking
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
If I tried to make a commercial album, it would be a complete flop. I have no idea what the world at large likes.
BRIAN ENO

Albums Commercial Ideas
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 wanted quite the opposite of that. I wanted them to accent their styles, so that they pulled away.
BRIAN ENO

Away Pulled Quite Wanted
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

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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