Once more, proof that limits can be good for creativity:
“The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I’d been working on my own music for a while, and was quite lost, actually, and I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, “Here’s a specific problem — Solve it!” The thing from the agency said, “We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional”, this whole list of adjectives, and then, at the bottom, it said: “and it must be 3_ seconds long”. I thought this was so funny, and an amazing thought, to actually try to make a little piece of music. It’s like making a tiny little jewel. In fact, I made eighty-four pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny, little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds, at the end of this, that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then, when I’d finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were, like, three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.”
- Brian Eno
I guess its the same as improvisation, Brian Eno is especially good at making the most of limits and random opportunities
ReplyDeleteFor those who don't know, he is talking about the Microsoft Windows 95 start-up sound.
ReplyDeletethanks Timo, I didnt know he had done that
ReplyDeleteI was just going to ask, was that the Windows boot sound. I was surprised when I actually found he had composed it. In fact I can't even remember how I found out in the first place.
ReplyDeleteBack then I was listening to the likes of Music for Airports where Eno had composed long pieces for public spaces, but one of my favourites was "Another Green World" which weighed in at 1'28"