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
I'd been making music that was intended to be like painting, in the sense that it's environmental, without the customary narrative and episodic quality that music normally has. I called this 'ambient music.' But at the same time I was trying to make visual art become more like music, in that it changed the way that music changes.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Brian Eno describes his innovation in 'ambient music' as merging the qualities of music and visual art.
In this quote, Brian Eno reflects on his creative process, highlighting his desire to create ambient music that transcends traditional music structures. He envisions music as a form of environmental art, devoid of a strict narrative, while simultaneously reimagining visual art to incorporate the dynamic and transformative elements typically found in music.
Themes
AmbientMusicArtEnvironmentalInnovation
In practice
Example use cases
In a presentation on contemporary music, one might quote Brian Eno to illustrate the blending of artistic mediums.
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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