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 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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the experimental nature of ambient music and the evolution of music creation with technology.
Brian Eno discusses his early experiences in creating ambient music through the use of synthesizers that produced random pulses. He emphasizes how this process led to music that is ever-evolving and emphasizes the significant impact that computers have had on the ability to fully realize and present such compositions.
Themes
AmbientMusicSynthesizersTechnologyEvolution
In practice
Example use cases
In a presentation about the evolution of music technology, I might quote Eno to illustrate how randomization can lead to creativity.
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
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
The big message of gospel is that you don't have to keep fighting the universe; you can stop, and the universe is quite good to you. There is a loss of ego.
Brian EnoRead
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