Culture is everything you don't have to do. Brian Eno More Quotes by Brian Eno More Quotes From Brian Eno Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting. Brian Eno listening attention interesting I don't like headphones very much, and I rarely listen to music on headphones. Brian Eno headphones listening-to-music I wanted to use the studio like a microscope for sound, which is what good engineers do. Brian Eno microscopes use sound 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." Brian Eno party couple song The Marshall guitar amplifier doesn't just get louder when you turn it up. It distorts the sound to produce a whole range of new harmonics, effectively turning a plucked string instrument into a bowed one. A responsible designer might try to overcome this limitation - probably the engineers at Marshall tried, too. But that sound became the sound of, among others, Jimi Hendrix. That sound is called electric guitar. Brian Eno guitar overcoming trying The trouble begins with a design philosophy that equates 'more options' with 'greater freedom.' Brian Eno design trouble philosophy Songs that don't depend on composition depend instead on performance - so the fire has to be there in the playing. Brian Eno performances fire song When I started making my own records, I had this idea of drowning out the singer and putting the rest in the foreground. It was the background that interested me. Brian Eno records singers ideas I've got a feeling that music might not be the most interesting place to be in the world of things. Brian Eno feelings world interesting 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. Brian Eno band gone culture One of the great breakthroughs of evolution theory is that you start with simple things and they will grow into complexity. Brian Eno evolution theory simple Listening to something is an act of surrender. Brian Eno surrender listening The only value of ideology is to stop things becoming showbiz. Brian Eno showbiz becoming ideology I'm very opinionated. Brian Eno opinionated Nothing so dates an era as its conception of the future. Brian Eno conception eras You can't do anything interesting with cutting-edge technology except not make it cutting-edge. Brian Eno cutting technology interesting I can see the use and value of religion, just as I can see the use of mud wrestling, yoga, astronomy and sadomasochism. but I reject the idea that you can't be a deep human being without it or any of them. Brian Eno yoga wrestling ideas 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. Brian Eno interaction notable identity 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. Brian Eno painting ephemeral space W]hat makes a work of art ‘good’ for you is not something that is already ‘inside’ it, but something that happens inside you. Brian Eno hats works-of-art art
