Brian Eno on Windows XP

Supposedly this was also composed by Brian Eno for Windows XP. It is a one time play composition, that only plays during the Windows XP set-up process. I read that it was composed by him on many websites, but none too reliable... blogs, youtube videos and Microsoft wiki.

Ambient Music / John Cage

Brian Eno is an experimental music musician, so far covered in class for his use of and heavy contributions to ambient music. Apart from that Eno has worked on other minimalist music, glam and art rock acts, electronic music among others. He's worked with David Bowie (popularizing minimalism), David Byrne (apparently this song was used in the recent Wall Street movie), among others. His composition Ambient 1/Music for Airports, came to be in an attempt to make soothing, obstructive ambient music that can diffuse the tense atmosphere of airports.

In class it was mentioned that this piece was designed to also be something that can be easily interrupted, and continue playing without the abruptness of inserting a pause in the middle of a pop song, and the sudden change in tempo between the announcer talking and the song. I tried this myself using the YouTube clip that was played in class, and noticed how certain this is. While a straight cut (clicking on a different point in the timeline of the clip) doesn't work when it occurs just after a new note is played, it never fails when the clip starts playing again regardless of where I start from. In fact, the music falls to the background so easily, that if instead of going back to where the first cut was, going ahead to another portion would most likely go unnoticed by people in airports. The abruptness of the initial cut (from music to interruption) can easily be diffused by having a one second fade or a crossfade into the tone that signals that a message is about to be announced.

Eno also designed the Windows startup sound for Windows 95. Here's a video that has all the windows startup sounds up to 7, and in my opinion, the best ones are Windows 95 and 98, surprisingly enough, the Vista/7 sound sounds very uninspired.

Somewhere where I read about minimalism John Cage came up, so I read about him and realized he was the composer of 4'33". I didn't know the name of it at the time, but had heard from many teachers and professors about a composer whose composition consisted of the performing sitting at a piano and not playing, but rather that the "music" or sound of the performance was that made by people as they shuffled in their chairs, coughed, or talked as time went by and the performer "didn't do anything." I realized "ohh this is the guy," and after reading about him I'm not surprised it is so.

Going off that type of composition (which he revisted twice as 0'00"/4'33" #2 and in One³), comes a link between him and ambient music. 4'33" pretty much presented ambient sounds to an audience, its own ambient sounds that its members would produce under such circumstances. As in Brian Eno's Music for Airports, where it's designed for it not have any active listeners, Cage's 4'33" has the opposite, extremely seeking listeners, at least on that first performace, evidenced by the fact that some people left the theater. Ironically at the same time, these first listeners were also extremely passive, as in their search for music or the hint of any musical sound, most, or at least the ones that left, were completely passive to the ambient sounds of the hall, the coughs and shuffles, making 4'33" an ambient composition.

Brian Eno Video

Brian Eno brings in a surprisingly fresh and philosophical outlook towards music. In his quest to create a more desirable reality he has embraced a simple idea, but one with profound consequences: “simple systems can produce complex results.” By stripping the complexity and involving a random yet modular approach to creating music Eno produces works of art which dazzle their audience with their brilliant simplicity. One doesn’t need to take the classical or hierarchical approach to making music and let all flow of information propagate downwards. New age artists can mashup different technologies to create a completely different musical experience.

There is too much copying between artists nowadays as they race for top spots on the Billboard charts. Creativity is hindered by greed and the business/marketing aspect of music has corrupted the core behind what musicians stand for. Eno argues that things have simply evolved with the digital age and the current generation cannot savor music like previous generations because digital technology has saturated their ability to fully enjoy it. All the latest tracks are available to us via many mediums so what becomes essential is to capture the musical experience by having festivals and virally spreading it across social networks.

Brian Eno: A Tuesday in 1987

After viewing the BBC interview with Brian Eno, I was struck by his willingness to try something that he may not be good at- what could be called Play. As he states, we are told by our culture that we must pay attention to ourselves and that we must take control. By giving up this need for total control, to surrender, we give ourselves permission to enjoy doing things like singing that we might not be good at. We can hunt for fossils without being paleontologists, we can sing in the choir, we make drawings for pleasure without the thought of producing a show piece. I think this lifting of our own urge to self-criticize frees us up to explore, though I can relate to other posts, which refer to having perfectionist tendencies. I think that the automatons shown in this piece are incredibly evocative, juxtaposed as they are with Eno’s creativity, like making maps of the events of his daily life. Whenever I'm feeling stuck in a rut, I’ll have to try that to remind myself that I'm getting somewhere even if I don't yet know what that "where" is.

you shoot an arrow then you paint a bullseye round it

Another Green World - Brian Eno

One of the first things Eno discusses is singing in church. That's awesome in it's egalitarian power. I am not a singer. Actually, I think I am tone deaf. Still, I really enjoy singing - I think most people do. Catholicism as an influence was also interesting because though I am non-practicing, I also come from a Catholic family. Another idea I like is his thought on creating places where nobody has been before through music. I think the idea of "transcendence" is often hard to articulate and Eno does a great job of explaining it.

In his current incarnation, Brian Eno reminds me a lot of architect Frank Gehry. They refer to him as a "guru", and I think that is a term that is often overused. But I can see that this is an appropriate term for Eno. I also liked how much he loves pop music. He isn't above working with people who do more mainstream things.

This documentary had a wonderful collection of writers and journalists interviewing Eno. I was surprised to see the journalist Malcolm Gladwell. I am a big fan. He wrote one of my favorite books, Outliers: Stories of Success. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. I also I really liked hearing him talk about Music for Airports with Richard Dawkins.

I have a problem with a lot of music that accompanies most visual art shows. I feel like often having a live band overshadows say, a collection of paintings. And I think that just setting a playlist of pop songs is not always desirable, especially if you have say sensitive or controversial content. Plus, I like their to be discussion about the artwork. People have to feel like they aren't interrupting another kind of performance. I think this idea of ambient music is the solution to my problem. I would like to compose some music for a body of my artwork.

Questions:
Where does Eno live now?
His studio is amazing!
What program is Eno using to compose his music?
When he was in art school, what did he study?
Has Eno ever taught courses before?

Brian Eno Documentary

I just finished watching the Brian Eno Video. A lot of what he said about going outside of the box, for example having a drum solo played by someone who never learned drums, really resonated with me. My problem is, in addition to the fact that I've never learned to play an instrument, that I'm a perfectionist in my creative outlets. I rarely take creative license. I want things to be symmetrical and or at least have symmetry to the asymmetry. A great example is the project I'm working on for both the Seminar and this class about the comfort women. I'm using Isadora to create a visual / sound scape highlighting the atrocities in WWII. I set out to make this a creative exploration and yet I find myself spending hours on the most minute of details rather than letting it evolve in to its own piece. Micro-managing really stunts the creative process.

Another thing I enjoyed about Eno was the brief discussion about his light installations on the Opera House in Sydney. I really enjoy the environment created with light and sound installations. It reminds of two such installations I have seen. The first was on the show the L-Word, a Showtime series about the lives of lesbians. In the video, Marlee Matlin (Tony and Academy Award winning Actress) is revealing her light/sound installation after having been betrayed by her girlfriend, Jennifer Beals (from Flashdance). I love how the audio, at first, is indistinct and slowly changes into recognizable speech.

Another installation I enjoyed was the light show that happened every night on the hour in Seoul. The Namsan Tower, which is similar to the space needle, had different images and videos projected onto its torso. There was also a laser show at the base of the tower. One thing that would have made the show more dynamic is if it was motion sensor activated, although that created a logistical problem considering the mass quantities of people that are there at any given time.