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I Set Up Situations That Involve Abandoning Control And Finding Out What Happens.
-Brian Eno
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I Set Up Situations

Brian Eno
...
I Set Up Situations That Involve Abandoning Control And Finding Out What Happens.

Understanding the Quote: "i set up situations that involve abandoning control and finding out what..."

This quote by Brian Eno reflects deeply on the theme of situation. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Situation, Findings, Happens, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Brian Eno interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Brian Eno

Brian Eno is celebrated for insightful thoughts on situation and findings. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

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Topic
Situation
Findings
Happens
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Given The Chance, I'll Die Like A Baby, On Some Faraway Beach, When The Season's Over.
Baby
Beach
Chance
My Interest In Making Music Has Been To Create Something That Does Not Exist That I Would Like To Listen To. I Wanted To Hear Music That Had Not Yet Happened, By Putting Together Things That Suggested A New Thing Which Did Not Yet Exist.
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I'm Bloody Awful At Multi-tasking.
Awful
Bloody
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I Think The Other Thing That's Important Is Getting To A Place, Which Very, Very Rarely Happens With Improvising Groups, Where Somebody Can Decide Not To Play For A While. You Watch Any Group Of Musicians Improvising Together And They Nearly All Play Nearly All The Time. In Fact I Often Say That The Biggest Difference Between Classical Music And Everything Else Is That Classical Musicians Sometimes Shut Up Because They're Told To, Because The Score Tells Them To. Whereas Any Music That's Sort Of Based On Folk Or Jazz, Everybody Plays All The Time.
Thinking
Play
Differences
It Must Be Quite Mysterious To Some People Why I Bother To Carry On. Because, You Know, I Don't Sell That Many Records.
People
Records
Mysterious
Lyrics Are Always Misleading Because They Make People Think That That's What The Music Is About.
Thinking
People
Music Is
Once Music Ceases To Be Ephemeral - Always Disappearing - And Becomes Instead Material... It Leaves The Condition Of Traditional Music And Enters The Condition Of Painting. It Becomes A Painting, Existing As Material In Space, Not Immaterial In Time.
Space
Ephemeral
Painting
As Soon As I Hear A Sound, It Always Suggests A Mood To Me.
Sound
Corny
Mood
When People Censor Themselves They're Just As Likely To Get Rid Of The Good Bits As The Bad Bits.
People
Bits
I Prefer To Shoot The Arrow, Then Paint The Target Around It. You Make The Niches In Which You Finally Reside.
Arrows
Target
Niche
It Infuriates Me That Stuff From The Internet Routinely Doesn't Include All The Credits. Because As Soon As I Listen To Something, If I Like It, I Want To Know, "who's The Bass Player?" "who Did That?" "who's The Engineer On This?
Player
Credit
Bass
One Way Of Working Is Just Bring A Group Of Totally Different Musicians Together And Encourage Them To Stick To Their Guns, Not To Do The Thing That Normally Happens In A Working Situation Where Everyone Homogenizes And Concedes Certain Points - So Eventually They're All Playing In Roughly The Same Style. I Wanted Quite The Opposite Of That. I Wanted Them To Accent Their Styles, So That They Pulled Away. So There Would Be A Kind Of Space In The Middle Where I Could Operate, And Attempt To Make These Things Coalesce In Some Way. In Fact Quite A Lot Of My Stuff Has Arisen From That.
Gun
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Being An Artist Is A Job For Life.
Jobs
Artist
Being An Artist
I Think Audiences Are Quite Comfortable Watching Something Coming Into Being.
Thinking
Audience
Comfortable
Songs That Don't Depend On Composition Depend Instead On Performance - So The Fire Has To Be There In The Playing.
Song
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The Most Important Thing In A Piece Of Music Is To Seduce People To The Point Where They Start Searching.
People
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We're Going Through This Super-uptight Era, Which I Think Comes Entirely From Literacy, Actually. It's The Result Of Machines That Were Designed As Word Processors Being Used For Making Music.
Thinking
Uptight
Machines
The Artists Of The Past Who Impressed Me Were The Ones Who Really Focused Their Work.
Artist
Past
Impressed
Another Way Of Working Is Setting Deliberate Constraints That Aren't Musical Ones - Like Saying, "well, This Piece Is Going To Be Three Minutes And Nineteen Seconds Long And It's Going To Have Changes Here, Here And Here, And There's Going To Be A Convolution Of Events Here, And There's Going To Be A Very Fast Rhythm Here With A Very Slow Moving Part Over The Top Of It." Those Are The Sort Of Visual Ideas That I Can Draw Out On Graph Paper. I've Done A Lot Of Film Music This Way.
Moving
Long
Musical
You Know That In Order To Copyright Material Somebody Has To Write It Down For You. Any Piece Of Recorded Material Has To Be Scored In Order For It To Be Copyrighted. I've Seen The Scores Of My Things And They Don't Resemble The Music In Any Way. If You Give Them To Somebody Who Has Never Heard The Music And Say, "what Does This Sound Like To You?" They'll Play You Something That Has No Relationship With The Music It Derives From. Notation Simply Isn't Adequate.
Writing
Giving
Copyright
All Music Has Political Dimensions Because It Suggests A Way Of Being.
Political
Way
Dimensions
If You're In A Forest, The Quality Of The Echo Is Very Strange Because Echoes Back Off So Many Surfaces Of All Those Trees That You Get This Strange, Itchy Ricochet Effect.
Nature
Echoes
Tree
For The World To Be Interesting, You Have To Be Manipulating It All The Time.
Interesting
World
I Love San Francisco And Brighton Has Something Of San Francisco About It. It's By The Sea, There's A Big Gay Community, A Feeling Of People Being There Because They Enjoy Their Life There.
Gay
Sea
San Francisco
Ambient Music Must Be As Ignorable As It Is Interesting.
Interesting
Ambient Music
Ambient
I Remember When In The Early Days Of Rock'n'roll, When Everything Sounded Totally Different, All Amazing And Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah. Now You Can Play Me One Second Of Any Record From That Time, And I'll Say "1959" Or "1961." I Can Hear Precisely. It's Like It Has A Huge Date Stamp On It.
Rocks
Play
Different
I'm Kind Of An Evangelical Atheist.
Atheist
Kind
Evangelical
I Think It's A Myth That American Public Or Any Other Public Is So Stupid That They Need To Be Constantly Pricked.
Stupid
Thinking
Needs
It's Actually Very Easy For Democracy To Disappear.
Democracy
Easy
Disappear
Any Constraint Is Part Of The Skeleton That You Build The Composition On - Including Your Own Incompetence.
Skeletons
Incompetence
Constraints
The Point About Working Is Not To Produce Great Stuff All The Time, But To Remain Ready For When You Can.
Stuff
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You Shoot Your Arrow And Then You Paint Your Bulls Eye Around It, And Therefore You Have Hit The Target Dead Centre.
Eye
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The Only Value Of Ideology Is To Stop Things Becoming Showbiz.
Becoming
Ideology
Showbiz
Cultural Objects Have No Notable Identity Outside Of That Which We Confer Upon Them. Their Value Is Entirely A Product Of The Interaction That We Have With Them.
Identity
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The Seven White Notes On The Piano - Each Section Of The Piece (there Are 12 Sections) Is Five Of Those Seven White Notes. If You Calculate It, There Are 21 Groups Of Five Notes In Any Group Of Seven Notes. And Although There Are 12 Sections, This Piece Actually Uses Nine Of Those Groups Because Some Of The Sections Repeat Earlier Ones. So That's The Formula. It's Very Simple As A Way Of Generating Something. It's My Inner Minimalist.
Simple
Piano
White
I See Tv As A Picture Medium Rather Than A Narrative Medium.
Narrative
Tvs
Mediums
For Me It's Always Contingent On Getting A Sound-the Sound Always Suggests What Kind Of Melody It Should Be. So It's Always Sound First And Then The Line Afterwards.
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Lines
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The Trouble With New Age Music Is That There's No Evil In It.
Evil
Age
Trouble
I'm Very Good With Technology, I Always Have Been, And With Machines In General. They Seem Not Threatening Like Other People Find Them, But A Source Of Fun And Amusement.
Fun
Technology
People
It's Not The Destination That Matters. It's The Change Of Scene.
Travel
Matter
Scene
The Micro-compositions Are The Pieces Themselves, But The Macro-composition Is The Whole Set Of Them And How It Moves From Track To Track And How The Titles Relate To One Another, For Example. Always When I Do Records Like This Of A Selection Of Instrumental Pieces - The Titles, To Me, Are Very Important.
Moving
Track
Important
If I Tried To Make A Commercial Album, It Would Be A Complete Flop. I Have No Idea What The World At Large Likes.
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Albums
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Even Though I'm Known As A Pop Musician, I Have A Seriousness About What I Do.
Musician
Pops
Seriousness
The Smart Thing In The Art World Is To Have One Good Idea And Never Have Another.
Art
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I'm Fascinated By Musicians Who Don't Completely Understand Their Territory; That's When You Do Your Best Work.
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I Have A Definite Talent For Convincing People To Try Something New. I Am A Good Salesman. When I'm On Form, I Can Sell Anything.
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Trying
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Whatever You Now Find Weird, Ugly, Uncomfortable And Nasty About A New Medium Will Surely Become Its Signature... The Excitement Of Grainy Film, Of Bleached-out Black And White, Is The Excitement Of Witnessing Events Too Momentous For The Medium Assigned To Record Them.
Black And White
Signatures
Events
I've Noticed A Terrible Thing, Which Is I Will Agree To Anything If It's Far Enough In The Future.
Enough
Terrible
Agree
The Prospect Of Music Being Detachable From Time And Place Meant That One Could Start To Think Of Music As A Part Of One's Furniture.
Thinking
Furniture
Admirers Can Be A Tremendous Force For Conservatism.
Admirer
Force
Conservatism
Every Band I’ve Worked With Also Wants To Be Countercultural In The Sense That They Want To Feel That They’ve Gone Somewhere That Nobody Else Has Been.
Culture
Gone
Band
You Feel As If You're Not Living A Full Life. Which, Of Course, Is Why - It's My Theory About Why So Many People Who Are Heavily Into Computers Are Also Into Extreme Sports And S&m. It's Because Their Bodies Are Crying Out For Some Kind Of Action.
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People
Body
It's Amazing How Quickly People Get Used To Bad Quality.
People
Quality
Bad Qualities
In The 19th Century, A Lot Of People Were Against Outlawing Child Labour, Because To Do So Would Be Against The Very Foundations Of A Free Market Economy: 'these Children Want To Work, These People Want To Employ Them... What Is Your Problem? It's Not As If Anyone Has Kidnapped Them...'
Children
People
Would Be
When You Make Something You Are Always Offering Some Choices And Denying Others.
Offering
Choices
I'm Very Opinionated.
Opinionated
Editing Is Now The Easiest Thing On Earth To Do, And All The Things That Evolved Out Of Word Processing - 'oh, Let's Put That Sentence There, Let's Get Rid Of This' - Have Become Commonplace In Films And Music Too.
Editing
Earth
Film
I Set Up Situations That Involve Abandoning Control And Finding Out What Happens.
Situation
Findings
Happens
Be The First To Not Do What Nobody Has Ever Thought Of Not Doing Before.
Firsts
I Have These Headphones, Which Pretty Much Exclude Everything Else So That You Can Really Completely Control The Sound That You're Hearing. I Don't Use Them Very Much, I Have To Say. I Very Rarely Listen On Headphones.
Sound
Use
Hearing
Avant-garde Music Is Sort Of Research Music. You're Glad Someone's Done It But You Don't Necessarily Want To Listen To It.
Avant Garde
Done
Research
I Make A Lot Of Pieces Of Music That I Never Release As Cds.
Cds
Pieces
Release
Basically, You're Still Sitting There Using Just The Muscles Of Your Hand, Really. Of One Hand, Actually. It's Another Example Of The Transfer Of Literacy To Making Music Because The Assumption Is That Everything Important Is Happening In Your Head; The Muscles Are There Simply To Serve The Head. But That Isn't How Traditional Players Work At All; Musicians Know That Their Muscles Have A Lot Of Stuff Going On As Well. They're Using Their Whole Body To Make Music, In Fact.
Player
Hands
Important
Also Something That You Don't Have To Listen To From Beginning To End - You Can Enter At Any Point And Leave At Any Point.
Ends
Music In Itself Carries A Whole Set Of Messages Which Are Very, Very Rich And Complex, And The Words Either Serve To Exclude Certain Ones Or Point Up Certain Others.
Messages
Rich
Certain
It's Easy To Forget That Your Best Work Is Done When Your Attention Is Fully Engaged.
Attention
Done
Forget
Musicians Are There In Front Of You, And The Spectators Sense Their Tension, Which Is Not The Case When You're Listening To A Record. Your Attention Is More Relaxed. The Emotional Aspect Is More Important In Live Music.
Emotional
Listening
Important
I Hate The Way Cds Just Drone On For Bloody Hours And You Stop Caring.
Hate
Caring
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I Love The Sort Of Ambivalence Of This, The Ambiguity Of Something - Being, For Instance, In A Quite Busy Mexican Restaurant With One Of These Very Gentle Tracks Playing I Remember As Being Particularly Nice.
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I Suppose I Am Reluctant About Being Any Sort Of 'star' And I Didn't Particularly Want To Be Portrayed As One.
Stars
Want
Reluctant
A Lot Of The So-called Systems Composers Have This Thing That The System Is Always Right. You Don't Fiddle With It At All. Well, I Don't Think That. I Think The System Is As Right As You Judge It To Be. If For Some Reason You Don't Like A Bit Of It You Must Trust Your Intuition On That. I Don't Take A Doctrinaire Approach To Systems.
Thinking
Judging
Intuition
I Believe In Singing.
Believe
Singing
I Believe
I Belong To A Gospel Choir. They Know I Am An Atheist But They Are Very Tolerant.
Atheist
Choir
Knows
Often, I Think You Find That You're Enjoying Certain Things, You've Got This New Way Of Listening, And You Find That You Really Enjoy The Way That Sounds On It And The Way This Other Thing Sounds On It And The Way That Other Thing Sounds On It. So, You're Finding A New Pleasure That You Didn't Know About Before.
Thinking
Listening
Sound
When I Was Working With Talking Heads What Would Happen Typically Is That They Would Go Out And Start Playing A Track, And I Would Always Run The Tape. I Always Record Everything, Even A Run Through Where You're Trying To Get In Tune. That's A Principle Because Sometimes When The Situation Isn't Clear Interesting Things Happen, And They Are Worth Listening To Again.
Running
Track
Interesting
Emotion Creates Reality, Reality Demands Action.
Reality
Demand
Action
Except In A Few Cases Like Music For Airports, Which Was A Very Clear Case Of Noticing A Niche [and] Saying, "okay, There's This Situation In Which People Always Play Music, And Nobody Has Written Music For That Situation So I'm Going To." So, That Was A Very Clear Example Of Spotting A Niche And Working For It. I Have Done That Occasionally.
Airports
Play
People
It's Nice, I Think, When People Use Your Music For Things You Didn't Think Of.
Nice
Thinking
People
I Still Do Mostly Listen To Cds. I Think That Every Format Really Is A Different Way Of Listening. If You Take A Different Sort Of Psychological Stance To It - Like, I Think The Transition From Vinyl To Cd Definitely Marked A Difference In The Way People Treated Music. The Vinyl Commands A Certain Kind Of Reverence Because It's A Big Object And Quite Fragile So You Handle It Rather Carefully, And It's Expensive So You Pay Attention To How It's Looked After.
Thinking
Cds
Differences
I Often Say To People That Producing Is The Best Paid Form Of Cowardice. When You Produce Things You Almost Always Get Credit, If It's A Good Record, But You Hardly Ever Get The Blame If It's Not! You Don't Really Take Responsibility For Your Work.
Responsibility
People
Credit
I Always Have Wanted To Know How The Whole Thing Was Done, What The Process Involved. And I Don't Particularly Enjoy That My Music Is Stripped Of Ancillary Details, And It Just Sort Of Comes Out Of This Big Tap Called The Internet Like Water. I Like Some Of My Water To Be Neatly Presented In A Bottle. With A Label On It.
Water
Details
Labels
If You Want To Make Someone Feel Emotion, You Have To Make Them Let Go. Listening To Something Is An Act Of Surrender.
Letting Go
Listening
Want
I'm Always Interested In Something When It Isn't Familiar To Me.
Familiar
A Studio Is An Absolute Labyrinth Of Possibilities - This Is Why Records Take So Long To Make Because There Are Millions Of Permutations Of Things You Can Do. The Most Useful Thing You Can Do Is To Get Rid Of Some Of Those Options Before You Start
Long
Labyrinth
Records
Whenever There's A New Music, There's A New Way Of Listening. And Whenever There's A New Way Of Listening, There Are New Musics That Follow From That. And People Start Listening Differently - That Can Either Mean In Different Places Or At Different Volumes Or In Different Social Groups Or Through Different Technologies.
Mean
Technology
People
I Hate The Thought That Someone Had Picked Up One Of My Song Records And Was Really Excited About It, And Walks [out Of] A Record Shop With On Land And Is Disappointed Because It Isn't What They Wanted. So, I Try To Make Signs, Graphically And Visually, To Say To People "okay, This Is This Department Of My Work And This Is This Other Department Of My Work." And Of Course I'm Very Pleased If People Like All Of Them, But I Don't Want Them To Feel Deceived At Any Point.
Song
Hate
Land
Every Collaboration Helps You Grow.
Collaboration
Helping
Grows
The Most Important Thing Is The Thing Most Easily Forgotten.
Important
Forgotten
Easily Forgotten
When I Went Back To England After A Year Away, The Country Seemed Stuck, Dozing In A Fairy Tale, Stifled By The Weight Of Tradition.
Country
Years
Weight
Robert Fripp And I Will Be Recording Another Lp Very Soon. It Should Be Even More Monotonous Than The First One!
Firsts
Should
Monotonous
Honor Thy Error As A Hidden Intention.
Errors
Advice
Honor
I Thought It Was Magic To Be Able To Catch Something Identically On Tape And Then Be Able To Play Around With It, Run It Backwards; I Thought That Was Great For Years.
Running
Years
Play
Not Many People Bought Velvet Underground Lps, But Those Who Did, Started A Band.
People
Velvet
Velvet Underground
At The Party, Rob Partridge Said To Me, "you Gave Hope To Other Balding Men." My New Epitaph: "co-wrote A Couple Of Decent Songs And Went Bald Shamelessly."
Song
Couple
Party
I Despise Computers In Many Ways. I Think They’re Hopelessly Underevolved And Overrated.
Thinking
Way
Computer
Attention Is What Creates Value. Artworks Are Made As Well By How People Interact With Them - And Therefore By What Quality Of Interaction They Can Inspire.
People
Inspire
Quality
Of All The Things You Can Now Do, Which Do You Choose To Do?
You Choose
In Art, You Can Crash Your Plane And Walk Away From It
Art
Crash
Planes
The Whole Point Of Art, As Far As I’m Concerned, Is That Art Doesn’t Make Any Difference. And That’s Why It’s Important. Take Film: You Can Have Quite Extreme Emotional Experiences Watching A Movie, But They Stop As Soon As You Walk Out Of The Cinema. You Can See People Being Hurt, But Even Though You Feel Those Things Strongly, You Know They’re Not Real.
Hurt
Art
Real
Look Closely At The Most Embarrassing Details, And Amplify Them.
Details
Looks
Amplify
Some People Say Bowie Is All Surface Style And Second-hand Ideas, But That Sounds Like A Definition Of Pop To Me.
Hands
Ideas
People
So I Believe In Singing To Such An Extent That If I Were Asked To Redesign The British Educational System, I Would Start By Insisting That Group Singing Become A Central Part Of The Daily Routine. I Believe It Builds Character And, More Than Anything Else, Encourages A Taste For Co-operation With Others. This Seems To Be About The Most Important Thing A School Could Do For You.
Educational
Believe
Character
If You Had A Sign Above Every Studio Door Saying ‘this Studio Is A Musical Instrument’ It Would Make Such A Different Approach To Recording.
Doors
Musical
Different
The Dominant Theory Coming Out Of Hollywood Is That Peoples' Attention Spans Are Getting Shorter And Shorter And They Need More Stimulation.
Hollywood
Needs
Attention
I Got Interested In The Idea Of Music That Could Make Itself, In A Sense, In The Mid 1960s Really, When I First Heard Composers Like Terry Riley, And When I First Started Playing With Tape Recorders.
Ideas
Tape
Firsts
I'd Love It If American Kids Were Listening To Muslim Music.
Kids
Listening
Ifs
Art Is Not An Object, But A Trigger For Experience.
Art
Triggers
Art Is
Most Of Those Melodies Are Me Trying To Find Out What Notes Fit, And Then Hitting Ones That Don't Fit In A Very Interesting Way.
Interesting
Trying
Hitting
I Believe In Singing. I Believe In Singing Together.
Believe
Musical
Singing
Human Development Thus Far Has Been Fueled And Guided By The Feeling That Things Could Be, And Are Probably Going To Be, Better.
Feelings
Development
Humans
In Terms Of What Has Been Happening Recently, There Have Been, I Think, Some Really Interesting New Instruments That Have Come Out That Sort Of Show Me The Direction Of The Future. Korg Has Introduced The - They've Had A Whole Series Now Of These Things Called Kaoss Pads. They're Wonderful Because They Do Get Your Muscles Working Again. And What Djs Do, Of Course, With Their Dj Turntables Now, The Cd Turntables, Which Have Pitch Change And Speed Change And Everything Else. They're Doing Something That I Think Is Interestingly Physical.
Thinking
Cds
Interesting
Think Inside The Work - Outside The Work
Thinking
I Think That Sex, Drugs, Art And Religion Very Much Overlap With One Another And Sometimes One Becomes Another.
Art
Sex
Thinking
One Often Makes Music To Supplement One's World.
Creativity
World
Supplements
What Happens With Notation Is That It Reduces Things To A Language Which Isn't Necessarily Appropriate To Them. In The Same Way That Words Do, You Get A Much Cruder Version Of What Was Actually Intended.
Language
There Are Hundreds Of Manufacturers Always Producing Dvices That In General Do The Same Things. Since They Have Slight Structural Differences If You Take One And Fool Around With It And Give It A Good Kick It Will Actually Do Something That It Wasn't Designed To Do. I Have This Relationship With My Synthesizers. I've Had Them For So Long, And I've Never Had Them Serviced, So That Now Practically All Of Their Functions Operate Differently From What They Were Designed To Do. They Do Very Interesting Things Now, But That Means Nobody Else Can Use Them Either.
Mean
Long
Giving
Being Completely Free To Choose What To Do Is Actually Quite Difficult
Difficult
You Can't Really Imagine Music Without Technology.
Technology
Imagine
I Don't Like Celebrity Programmes - But I Do Like Programmes About How Ideas Are Formed And Evolve.
Ideas
Evolve
Programmes
When I Was Young, An Eccentric Uncle Decided To Teach Me How To Lie. Not, He Explained, Because He Wanted Me To Lie, But Because He Thought I Should Know How It's Done So I Would Recognise When I Was Being Lied To.
Uncles
Lying
Done
Frequently, I Go Straight Into The Studio And See What's Around. I Might Hire A Couple Of Instruments That I've Never Used - Maybe A Particular Type Of Electronic Organ Or An Echo Unit. Then I Just Dabble With Sounds Until Something Starts To Happen That Suggests A Texture. The Texture Suggests Some Kind Of Mood, And The Mood Suggests Some Kind Of Lyric. That's Like Working In Reverse, Often Quite The Other Way Around, From Sound To Song. Although Often They Stop Before They Get To The Song Stage.
Song
Couple
Kind
I Had A Lot Of Trouble With Engineers, Because Their Whole Background Is Learning From A Functional Point Of View, And Then Learning How To Perform That Function.
Views
Trouble
Function
The Trouble Begins With A Design Philosophy That Equates 'more Options' With 'greater Freedom.'
Philosophy
Design
Trouble
Pop Is Totally Results-oriented And There Is A Very Strong Feedback Loop.
Strong
Feedback
Results
What People Call Unemotional Just Doesnt Have A Single Overriding Emotion To It. The Things That I Like Best Are The Ones That Ambiguous On The Emotional Level.
Emotional
People
Levels
When You Build A Building, You Finish A Building. You Don't Finish A Garden; You Start It, And Then It Carries On With Its Life. So My Analogy Was Really To Say That We Composers Or Some Of Us Should Think Of Ourselves As People Who Start Processes Rather Than Finish Them. And There Might Be Surprises.
Garden
Thinking
People
I Don't Want To Do Free Jazz! Because Free Jazz - Which Is The Musical Equivalent Of Free Marketeering - Isn't Actually Free At All. It's Just Constrained By What Your Muscles Can Do.
Free Jazz
Musical
Want
Listening To Something Is An Act Of Surrender.
Listening
Surrender
Law Is Always Better Than War.
War
Law
Cooking Is A Way Of Listening To The Radio.
Cooking
Listening
Radio
I Would Like To See A Future Where Artists Think That They Have A Right To Contemplate Things Like Global Warming.
Artist
Thinking
Global Warming
At The Beginning Of The 20th Century, The Ambition Of The Great Painters Was To Make Paintings That Were Like Music, Which Was Then Considered As The Noblest Art.
Art
Ambition
Painting
Lyrics Are The Only Thing To Do With Music That Haven't Been Made Easier Technically.
Easier
Made
Things To Do
You Just Make Different Music On A Computer. And You Can Make Wonderful Music On A Computer, But Don't Pretend That The Machinery Is Transparent. It Makes As Much Difference To What You're Doing As It Does If You Play An Acoustic Guitar As Opposed To A Kettledrum. You're Not Going To Make The Same Music.
Differences
Guitar
Play
With All Fashion, What We Do Is Play At Being Somebody Else. We Play At Inhabiting Another Kind Of World.
Fashion
Play
World
All Cultures Have These Feelings About Non-functional Areas Of Activity. And The More Time People Have On Their Hands, The More They Commit It To Those Areas.
Hands
People
Feelings
Possessions Are A Way Of Turning Money Into Problems.
Way
Problem
Possession
Once I Started Working With Generative Music In The 1970s, I Was Flirting With Ideas Of Making A Kind Of Endless Music - Not Like A Record That You'd Put On, Which Would Play For A While And Finish.
Flirting
Play
Ideas
Well, I Am A Dilettante. It's Only In England That Dilettantism Is Considered A Bad Thing. In Other Countries It's Called Interdisciplinary Research.
Country
Research
England
With Devices My Technique Is Always To Hide The Handbook In The Drawer Until I've Played With It For A While. The Handbook Always Tells You What It Does, And You Can Be Quite Sure That If It's A Complex Device It Can Do At Least Fifteen Other Things That Weren't Predicted In The Handbook, Or That They Didn't Consider Desirable. It's Normally Those Other Things That Interest Me.
Interest
Nothing So Dates An Era As Its Conception Of The Future.
Eras
Conception
I Love Good, Loud Speakers.
Loud
Speakers
There Are Certain Sounds That I've Found Work Well In Nearly Any Context. Their Function Is Not So Much Musical As Spatial: They Define The Edges Of The Territory Of The Music.
Musical
Territory
Sound
There Is A Sort Of Convergence Starting To Happen Between The Computer And Musical Instruments, But It's Still Quite A Long Way Off.
Long
Musical
Way
I Take Sounds And Change Them Into Words.
Sound
W]hat Makes A Work Of Art ‘good’ For You Is Not Something That Is Already ‘inside’ It, But Something That Happens Inside You.
Art
Hats
Works Of Art
I Always Use The Same Guitar; I Got This Guitar Years And Years Ago For Nine Pounds. It's Still Got The Same Strings On It.
Guitar
Years
Pounds
For Instance, I'm Always Fascinated To See Whether, Given The Kind Of Fairly Known And Established Form Called Popular Music, Whether There Is Some Magic Combination That Nobody Has Hit Upon Before.
Magic
Kind
Form
When You Sing With A Group Of People, You Learn How To Subsume Yourself Into A Group Consciousness Because A Capella Singing Is All About The Immersion Of The Self Into The Community. That's One Of The Great Feelings - To Stop Being Me For A Little While And To Become Us. That Way Lies Empathy, The Great Social Virtue.
Lying
Self
People
I Think Most Artists Would Be Happy To Have Bigger Audiences Rather Than Smaller Ones. It Doesn't Mean That They Are Going To Change Their Work In Order Necessarily To Get It, But They're Happy If They Do Get It.
Being Happy
Mean
Artist
Things That Are Very Popular Are Not Taken Seriously, Because The Snobbish Side Of One Says, "well, If Everyone Likes It It Can't Be That Good." Whereas If Only I And A Couple Of Other People Like It, Then It Must Be Really Something Special.
Couple
Taken
People
I Don't Like Headphones Very Much, And I Rarely Listen To Music On Headphones.
Headphones
Listening To Music
I Do Love Being In My Studio. Especially At Night.
Night
Studios
I Think The Idea That People Walk Around To Music Is Very Interesting. They Are Actually Creating The Soundtrack To Their Lives As They Walk Around To It.
Thinking
Creating
Ideas
Sometimes Something Intrigues Me About Particular Sounds, How They Work Together, And I Think "okay, I've Found Something Here; I'm Going To Take It Somewhere." And Sometimes Just To Find A Name For That Sound, Whatever It Is, Ends Up Becoming A Title Of The Piece Or Becoming Part Of The Title.
Thinking
Names
Working Together
I Wanted To Use The Studio Like A Microscope For Sound, Which Is What Good Engineers Do.
Sound
Use
Microscopes
One Of The Things You're Doing When You Make Art, Apart From Entertaining Yourself And Other People, Is Trying To See What Ways Of Working Feel Good, What Feels Right.
Art
People
Feel Good
I Describe Things In Terms Of Body Movements. I Dance A Bit To Describe What Sort Of Movement It Ought To Make, And That's A Good Way Of Talking To Musicians. Particularly Bass Players.
Dance
Player
Talking
The Biology Of Purpose Keeps My Nose Above The Surface.
Purpose
Noses
Biology
Saying That Cultural Objects Have Value Is Like Saying That Telephones Have Conversations.
Telephones
Conversation
Objects
Don't Be Ashamed Of Your Own Ideas. Most Musicians Get Applauded For Sounding Like Someone Else.
Ideas
Musician
Ashamed
The Idea That Something Is Uncool Because It’s Old Or Foreign Has Left The Collective Consciousness.
Ideas
Consciousness
Uncool
A Part Of Me Has Become Immortal, Out Of My Control.
Immortal
When I Work There Are Two Distinct Phases: The Phase Of Pushing The Work Along, Getting Something To Happen, Where All The Input Comes From Me, And Phase Two, Where Things Start To Combine In A Way That Wasn't Expected Or Predicted By What I Supplied. Once Phase Two Begins Everything Is Okay, Because Then The Work Starts To Dictate Its Own Terms. It Starts To Get An Identity Which Demands Certain Future Moves. But During The First Phase You Often Find That You Come To A Full Stop.
Moving
Identity
Term
I Think One Of My Pursuits Over The Years Is Trying To Answer The Question Of 'what Else Can You Do With A Voice Other Than Stand In Front Of A Microphone And Sing?'
Thinking
Voice
Years
A Culture Is The Sum Of All The Things About Which Humanity Can Choose To Differ.
Humanity
Culture
Stop Thinking About Art Works As Objects, And Start Thinking About Them As Triggers For Experiences... That Solves A Lot Of Problems ... Art Is Something That Happens, A Process, Not A Quality, And All Sorts Of Things Can Make It Happen ... [w]hat Makes A Work Of Art 'good' For You Is Not Something That Is Already 'inside' It, But Something That Happens Inside You.
Art
Thinking
Quality
Good Teachers Realise That The Students Are The Antenna; They Are Sensing Things That The Teachers Don't Yet Sense.
Teacher
Students
Antenna
If Something Is Good, You Must Torture It Mercilessly Until It Is Either Dead Or Great.
Torture
Ifs
All The Best Lyrics Are Written In Ten Minutes.
Minutes
All The Best
Written
Once You've Grown To Accept Something And It Becomes Part Of The System You've Inherited, You Don't Even Notice It Any Longer.
Accepting
I've Always Thought That Art Is A Lie, An Interesting Lie. And I'll Sort Of Listen To The "lie" And Try To Imagine The World Which Makes That Lie True...what That World Must Be Like, And What Would Have To Happen For Us To Get From This World To That One.
Art
Lying
Interesting
I'm Actually An Evangelical Atheist, But There Is Something I Recognise About Religion: That It Gives People A Chance To Surrender.
Atheist
People
Giving
I Hate Talking About Music, To Tell You The Truth.
Hate
Talking
I Hate
I Think That There's Something That I Still Like About The Fact Of A Package, Like The Latest Report From Somebody. "okay, This Is What They're Up To Now; This Is What They're Doing; Who's Working With Them?
Thinking
Facts
Okay
I Had Wanted A Tape Recorder Since I Was Tiny. I Thought It Was A Magic Thing. I Never Got One Until Just Before I Went To Art School.
Art
School
Magic
The Problem With Computers Is That There Is Not Enough Africa In Them.
Computer
Problem
Enough
I Think Generally Playing Live Is A Crap Idea. So Much Of Stage Work Is The Presentation Of Personality, And I've Never Been Interested In That.
Thinking
Ideas
Personality
The Tools Are Evolving, And People's Interests Are Evolving As Well. So, Suddenly People Like To Hear Bands, People Like Devendra Banhart Or The Xx, Bands That Make A Kind Of Virtue Of Sloppiness. That Isn't What They Would Describe What They're Doing, But The Fact Is They Make A Virtue Of The Sort Of Hand-made Nature Of What They're Doing.
Hands
People
Sloppiness
American Television Really Is Pathetic.
Television
American Television
Pathetic
My Kind Of Composing Is More Like The Work Of A Gardener. The Gardener Takes His Seeds And Scatters Them, Knowing What He Is Planting But Not Quite What Will Grow Where And When - And He Won't Necessarily Be Able To Reproduce It Again Afterwards Either.
Knowing
Able
Kind
Composition Is A Way Of Living Out Your Philosophy And Calling It Art.
Art
Philosophy
Calling
My Lyrics Are Generated By Various Peculiar Processes. Very Random And Similar To Automatic Writing.
Writing
Peculiar
Process
I Have Lived In Countries That Were Coming Out Of Conflict: Ireland, South Africa, The Czech Republic. People There Are Overflowing With Energy.
Country
Czech Republic
People
I've Had Quite A Lot Of Luck With Dreams. I've Often Awoken In The Night With A Phrase Or Even A Whole Song In My Head.
Dream
Song
Night
If I Had A Stock Of Fabulous Sounds I Would Just Always Use Them. I Wouldn't Bother To Find New Ones.
Sound
Use
Fabulous
When I've Finally Got The Title, I Think, "okay, Yes, Now I Know Where We Are. Now I Know What It Is. Fine, That Must Be Finished Or Nearly Finished.
Thinking
Titles
Fine
Complexity And Intelligence Grow From Simplicity, Not From Greater Complexity.
Simplicity
Complexity
Grows
Every Collaboration Helps You Grow. With Bowie, It's Different Every Time. I Know How To Create Settings, Unusual Aural Environments. That Inspires Him. He's Very Quick.
Inspire
Collaboration
Different
The Whole History Of Pop Music Had Rested On The First Person Singular, With Occasional Intrusions Of The Second Person Singular.
Firsts
Intrusion
Occasional
Make An Exhaustive List Of Everything You Might Do & Do The Last Thing On The List.
Statistics
Might
Lasts
I Felt Extremely Uncomfortable As The Focal Point, In The Spotlight. I Really Like The Behind The Scenes Role, Because All My Freedom Is There.
Roles
Spotlight
Behind The Scenes
You Can Hear The Profile Of A Sound, In Retrospect, So Much More Clearly Than You Did At The Time. And I Think One Of The Things That's Going To Be Nauseatingly Characteristic About So Much Music Of Now Is Its Glossy Production Values And Its Griddedness, The Tightness Of The Way Everything Is Locked Together.
Thinking
Together
Sound
Part Of Me Likes A More Ragged, Jagged Guitar Sound Or Performance, But Our Work Might Not Have Been As Innovative Had We Followed In The Footsteps Of What Came Before. We Were Very Proud Of What We Had Hit On.
Proud
Innovative
Footsteps
My Guitar Only Has Five Strings 'cause The Top One Broke And I Decided Not To Put It Back On: When I Play Chords I Only Play Bar Chords, And The Top One Always Used To Cut Me There.
Cutting
Guitar
Play
I've Discovered This New Electronic Technique That Creates New Speech Out Of Stuff That's Already There.
Technique
Speech
Stuff
The Reason Conservatives Cohere And Radicals Fight: Everyone Agrees About Fears, No One About Visions.
Fighting
Vision
Reason
I'm Not Interested In Possible Complexities. I Regard Song Structure As A Graph Paper.
Song
Paper
Structure
Anything Popular Is Populist, And Populist Is Rarely A Good Adjective.
Adjectives
Populist
Populism
Instead Of Shooting Arrows At Someone Elses Target, Which Ive Never Been Very Good At, I Make My Own Target Around Wherever My Arrow Happens To Have Landed. You Shoot Your Arrow And Then You Paint Your Bulls Eye Around It, And Therefore You Have Hit The Target Dead Centre.
Eye
Arrows
Target
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