We are increasingly likely to find ourselves in places with background music. No composers have thought to write for these modern spaces, which represent 30% of our musical experience.
Brian EnoRead
When I started working on ambient music, my idea was to make music that was more like painting.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Brian Eno aimed to create ambient music that emphasizes atmosphere and experience, similar to visual art.
In this quote, Brian Eno expresses his intention to approach the creation of ambient music with an artistic perspective akin to painting. He suggests that, rather than focusing solely on music in a traditional sense, he seeks to evoke emotions and create environments through sound, much like how a painter uses colors and forms to inspire feelings and ideas in their viewers.
Themes
Ambient MusicPaintingArtistic ExpressionAtmosphereEmotion
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about innovative music styles, one might quote, 'When I started working on ambient music, my idea was to make music that was more like painting.'
More from Brian Eno
All quotes βI think that technology is always invented for historical reasons, to solve a historical problem. But they very soon reveal themselves to be capable of doing things that aren't historical that nobody had ever thought of doing before.
Brian EnoRead
When I first started making ambient music, I was setting up systems using synthesizers that generated pulses more or less randomly. The end result is a kind of music that continuously changes. Of course, until computers came along, all I could actually present of that work was a piece of its output.
Brian EnoRead
People do dismiss ambient music, don't they? They call it 'easy listening,' as if to suggest that it should be hard to listen to.
Brian EnoRead
In the future, you won't buy artists' works; you'll buy software that makes original pieces of 'their' works, or that recreates their way of looking at things. You could buy a Shostakovich box, or you could buy a Brahms box. You might want some Shostakovich slow-movement-like music to be generated. So then you use that box.
Brian EnoRead
Ambient music must be as ignorable as it is interesting.
Brian EnoRead
Similar quotes
Every good composition is above all a work of abstraction. All good painters know this. But the painter cannot dispense with subjects altogether without his work suffering impoverishment.
Diego RiveraRead
The giant white cube is now impeding rather than enhancing the rhythms of art. It preprograms a viewer's journey, shifts the emphasis from process to product, and lacks individuality and openness. It's not that art should be seen only in rutty bombed-out environments, but it should seem alive.
Jerry SaltzRead
You don't merely give over your creativity to making a film - you give over your life! In theatre, by contrast, you live these two rather strange lives simultaneously; you have no option but to confront the mould on last night's washing-up.
Daniel Day-LewisRead
Art-making is not about telling the truth but making the truth felt
Christian BoltanskiRead
Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.
Jean CocteauRead
The artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition-and therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty and pain.
Joseph ConradRead