What I Learned From Brian Eno

Oblique - and not so oblique - strategies

A still from Gary Hustwit’s ENO: the world’s first generative documentary, where pieces are added or rearranged in new and unpredictable orders with each viewing.

In January, I took an online course with the legendary Brian Eno. Before I get into what I learned from him, I’ll discuss the main takeaway from telling friends about it: many people do not know who Brian Eno is. One friend even said, “where’s that?” I’m sure Brian would love the idea that he was actually a place.

Not to embarrass those who don’t know, but Brian is many things: the godfather of ambient music, via the release of his “Music for Airports” album in 1978. Grammy winning record producer of albums like U2’s Joshua Tree and collaborator on albums like David Bowie’s Heroes. Original member of the highly influential Roxy Music. The composer of the Windows PC start up sound. To name a few.

He’s 76 now, and as vital as ever. This online course wasn’t one of those Masterclass pre-shot classes, but rather live and interactive (there were Q&As each week). Brian beamed in from his studio in England, and we all - thousands of us - took in his ponderings and tips about a life in art.

There was a mountain of information to absorb, but below I’ll post some of my favourite tidbits:

Slow preparation, fast execution

I’m working on a record right now for artist Marquita Walsh, and this is something I said recently in studio with her and co-producer Kalem Mahoney: we’ve gotten an incredible amount of work done in a short span of time, but I trust it. This record has been in Marquita for a long time, and she and Kalem had done lots of work before I joined. It’s not surprising that the execution should go quickly. Every meeting, every conversation, every text about a project is work on a project. It’s something that is so easy to forget in the free flow of life, because art is not just the clocked studio hours, or hours when you’re holding the instrument. It’s all part of the whole.

Input and Output

Brian spoke about how he now gets up and does nothing. Literally. Sits in a chair, lays on the floor, looks out the window. No food, no coffee, and - for godsake - no news doom scrolling. ‘Once I stopped constantly putting things in,’ he said, ‘I started to see things come out.’ I’ve been very familiar with the input and output stage of the art itself: we all need time to just go and live, to refuel the tank, despite what some dickheads very publicly say (oh, please click the link: I bet you can guess who if you’re a musician). Eno’s evolution of this into daily life is a part of mindfulness and meditation, and can only help the artist on their creative way. If you’ve already consumed snippets of the NYT, CNN, The Atlantic, and stress eaten your meal while chugging coffee before you’ve sat down to work, what space are you starting in? Most of your session will likely be trying to undo all that came before.

Our Brains Do the Work

This is about subtractive vs. additive writing. Eno remarked that composers often put double the amount of music in a piece compared to what the listeners want. I’m not sure that’s universally true: a friend of mine once listened to Lux on my recommendation, and texted me in all caps “NOTHING HAPPENS IAN!” as her review, which I politely disagree with. Though I see her point if you’re comparing it to most mainstream music.

That said, in an age of bloated to the point of exploding pop songs, the music I personally gravitate to is more parred down and intentional. If there’s a drum, I want to really hear what that drum sounds like. Why else would the artist have chosen that particular drum? You certainly can’t hear its character when it’s one of 120 tracks playing at the same time. And I’d agree that the rich and full mixes that young producers want and believe can only be achieved through tracking like this is a fiction. We still only have so many frequencies on the spectrum, after all: one instrument is gonna take up its share, or fifty are gonna compete for the same space. A record like this one is a great example of things that seem counterintuitive: very full sounding with very few instruments, and very spacious and loud - especially the drums - though they’re played quietly.

A Whole New World

I’ve thought about this for a long time, and hearing it from such a master just solidified it:

“I wanted to be able to settle into a world of some kind, and let it slowly play out.”

I don’t think I could think of a better compliment for an album than describing it as a world I’ve been invited into, or stumbled upon. In fact, I would say that all my favourite records represent this idea in different ways. Whether that be U2’s Achtung Baby, Joe Henry’s Reverie, Olafur Arnalds Re:Member…the list goes on, and has nothing to do with style or genre. The records are cohesive in sound and texture, lyrical direction…but it’s something else, too. It is the closest to an ‘x’ factor in art, I think. The idea that this is indeed a world you are visiting, and it was here before you came and will be there after you leave. I think that happens when an artist is committed to a clear vision, and does the best they can to create outside the bounds of external pressures or expectations.

The Frame of the Music

I could keep going all day, but I’ll end with this beautiful idea:

“The frame of the music - is it sealed off from the rest of the world, like classical music? Or is it absorbant? Something that could accept other sounds in to turn them into music.”

Any listeners to my latest album - and some of my others too - will understand why I love this. I adore music with no rules. I think more and more genres are open to this idea in 2025, and that’s a collectively good thing. I don’t think there’s really an audience out there who regularly thinks “I hope to actively avoid x and y sounds” when they listen to music, but the truth is, they’ll naturally experience that phenomenon if they commit to certain genres exclusively. And who wants that? What better feeling is there than saying “and then x song comes in with that crazy sound and I don’t even know what it is!”?

If music is a magic trick, then we all would like to keep being impressed by the woman being sawn in half, and wonder how the magician pulled it off. Fellow musicians/“magicians” most of all.