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
Any constraint is part of the skeleton that you build the composition on - including your own incompetence.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Constraints can enhance creativity by providing a framework within which to operate.
This quote by Brian Eno suggests that limitations, whether they are external or stem from one's own abilities, are essential components of the creative process. Instead of seeing constraints as obstacles, they should be viewed as integral parts of the structure that can shape and support the art or composition being created. Embracing these constraints can lead to innovative solutions, as they force the creator to think differently and make the most of their resources.
Themes
CreativityConstraintsArtCompositionInnovation
In practice
Example use cases
In a workshop on creative writing, you might say, 'Remember what Brian Eno said about constraints; they can be what shapes your story.'
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
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