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
Classical - perhaps I should say 'orchestral' - music is so digital, so cut up, rhythmically, pitchwise and in terms of the roles of the musicians. It's all in little boxes. The reason you get child prodigies in chess, arithmetic, and classical composition is that they are all worlds of discontinuous, parceled-up possibilities.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the structured and segmented nature of classical music, comparing it to other fields where talent can thrive in defined parameters.
In this quote, Brian Eno reflects on the highly structured and compartmentalized nature of classical music, suggesting that its rhythmic and tonal divisions create a framework within which exceptional talents, like child prodigies, can excel. He draws parallels between classical composition and other fields such as chess and arithmetic, highlighting that success in these areas often arises from navigating distinct, modular pathways of creativity and intellect.
Themes
Classical MusicCreativityDiscontinuityChild ProdigiesTalent
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the role of structure in creativity, this quote could highlight the importance of defined frameworks.
More from Brian Eno
All quotes →I 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
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