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Home , Andy Mackay, Brian Eno, Discreet Music, For Your Pleasure, Robert Fripp, Roxy Music

Sydney Kaloustian

Dr. Swanson

MUSC 224

12/8/19

The Techniques and Styling of

Songwriter once said, “Music is the wine that fills the cup of silence,” ​ ​ (“100 Famous…”). This quote is something music lovers can all agree with, whether one enjoys classical, pop, rock, or country music. Music is something that connects people and gives them common ground. What is also known is that music is so much more than notes on a page; music is innovation and style used to compose something more than skin-deep. It can convey a message, feeling, image, and serve a purpose greater than what we initially understand. This is especially true, one can believe, in the case of Brian Eno and . This paper will explore the techniques used by songwriter and musician Brian Eno to draw his audience in and create music that speaks to souls. In studying the various musical techniques of Brian Eno and Roxy Music, it is clear that by the use of loop pedals, pre-recorded samples, and ambience, Brian Eno can construct a cohesive piece of enjoyed by millions of people over the years.

Brian Eno was born on May 15, 1948, in Suffolk, England. He grew up near an Air Force base, and was exposed to music from the American Armed Forces radio. In the 1960s, Eno became an art student at the Ipswich Civic College and later, the Winchester School of Art. He studied music and painting there, but had absolutely no intention of becoming an artist of any sort. Eno credits his work in art with negative ambition. He explained in an interview,“I think negative ambition is a big part of what motivates artists. It’s

the thing you’re pushing against. When I was a kid, my negative ambition was that I didn’t want to get a job,” (Frere-Jones). Regar and ended up joining a rock and roll group, Roxy Music, in 1971. (Eno has stated that had he not joined Roxy Music, he would have been an art teacher, harvesting his love for the arts.) When he joined, he played the synthesiser, an instrument known to be prevalent in music. For the first little bit of time that Roxy Music was performing on stage, Brian actually refused to get on stage with them, instead wanting to operate the mixing desk for the shows audio. After some time, he came around and would join them on stage. He recorded two with the group, but left the band in 1973 in order to pursue a solo career after a series of disagreements and becoming unsatisfied with the rockstar life he was living. From 1973, when he departed Roxy Music, to 1977, he created and released four complete studio albums, with the most popular song of his career coming from these. In the late 1960s, though, Eno developed a tape system for creating music, and collaborated with Robert Fripp. What happened to cause this new development, though, not many realize. A friend of Eno’s, a saxophonist named , asked if Eno could lend him some tape recorders for his band to use. Eno visited them and discovered Mackay had a -type piece of equipment operated with a video-game joystick. Mackay told Eno to take the piece of equipment home to try it out and see if he liked it. Eno got the hang of this new “instrument” very quickly, and started using it to create new songs and tracks for Mackay’s band. Fast forward to meeting Robert Fripp, he and Eno took this equipment and developed it to how they liked it. Fripp and Eno named the newly developed musical system “Frippertronics,” (“Brian Eno Biography”). In the early 1970s, together, they co-wrote and co-produced an entitled “Evening Star.” In addition to creating lyrical and musically creative pieces, Eno was also a member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia. While dabbling in the classical, orchestral music scene, Eno crafted a score for a Herbert Vesely film, further adding to his list of musical credits. Since the 1970s, Brian Eno has been plenty active in the music world, and has collaborated with many artists, with his most recent involvement being in 2019 at the DAU art and film installation in Paris, for which he wrote multiple songs, (“Brian Eno: Biography). He has released a total of twenty-eight albums, not counting those

created with Roxy Music, and each one offers something new and exciting to the world of music. To this day, Eno is considered a “non-musician,” (“Brian Eno at 70). Since the 1970s, Brian Eno has brought countless hits, all different and unique in their own lyrical and instrumental ways.

Brian Eno has been around and making music since the early 1970s, and it seems that with every song he releases, whether it be a solo-piece or not, brings so many characteristics of both modern and past music styles to create a new, unique piece. When speaking about his image, he says, “[I don’t] bring all of the baggage that comes with expressionistic . It's something else. It's another art form,” (Sherburne). Eno’s recognition of art in music is something unique. Even when Roxy Music had a heavy influence in the music realm, they were constantly evolving. “Roxy Music’s recording career lasted only 11 years, and if you ​ listen to their first two albums, ‘Roxy Music’ and ‘,’ and the last two (thus far), ‘Flesh And Blood’ and ‘Avalon’, you might take them for different bands,” (“How Roxy…”). Even though the music Brian Eno took part in was constantly changing, he maintained a crucial aspect to music. Brian Eno has influenced plenty of music out today, but where did he receive his inspiration and influence? He has admitted to being a fan of , specifically the song, “It’s Gonna Rain,” which is a song made of spoken words ​ arranged into beats and phrases. “‘It's Gonna Rain' was one of the most important pieces of ​ music in my life, and the whole idea of generative really came out of that,” (Tingen). Through the years, Eno has gathered inspiration from many artists, and even worked with some of them, namely , Willie Nelson, and , (“Brian Eno at 70”). Where has all of this taken him, though? Plenty of bright-minded musicians burnout or seemingly fall off of the face of the earth and are never heard of again. Today, Brian Eno is still creating new ​ music. In 2012, Eno released an album, (one of many throughout his extensive career), but for the first time, allowed it to feature his voice. He called it a “musical novel,” and said that the inspiration came from the tragic sinking of the Titanic, (Kreps). Based on what Eno has said, it is fairly evident that his inspiration comes from experience, whether that

be his own or that of someone else’s. He seems to enjoy seeing things through other people’s eyes, and creating a story from that.

Repetition and variations have been a feature of music for many years. Songs from time periods as far back as medieval times have feature repetition on music (“The Birth…”). Loop pedals are a very familiar musical tool to many artists. Lately, artists including Ed Sheeran have used loop pedals to enhance and add to songs, and will even perform with the machines on stage. Brian Eno is yet another artist that is not a stranger to using loop pedals in music. The use of looping was not invented by Eno. He noted that when attending a lecture in college, he discovered his professor using a tape recorder for music. From then, he decided that music was fascinating and creative, and chose that as his future career. As far back as 1973, Eno has been using tape recorder looping to create music, specifically the song, “No Pussyfooting.” His use of looping continued into 1975 with the album, “,” which featured a thirty minute long track of Eno using his synthesizer with a tape recorder looping sound. This paper, however, is going to look at the album For Your Pleasure, an album released in 1973, considered to be, “their most art-school ​ ​ album, as well as their greatest,” (Tannenbaum). Brian Eno, in this album, uses looping and repetition to create variation in his music. There are two tracks on For Your Pleasure that are ​ ​ heavily influenced by repetition; the songs are “The Bogus Man,” and the self-titled closing track, “For Your Pleasure.” “Repetition is a form of change,” Eno stated when asked about his repeating instruments (Tannenbaum). This is certainly evident in “The Bogus Man,” which is an almost ten minute track feature instruments such as the electric , , vocals, and various drums that change slightly and bring about phrases that cycle over and over again, creating one cohesive piece of music. The second loop-heavy track self-titled “For Your Pleasure,” while shorter than the previous song, uses studio mixing to create, “panoramic disorientation,” (Tannenbaum). Each instrument is taken and distorted with aspects such as reverb or echo. There are plenty of songs written by Brian Eno that include looping, but there

are definitely ones that feature it more heavily than others. This is not the only characteristic that Eno is keen to, however.

Another technique that Brian Eno is no stranger to is the use of pre-recorded samples in his songs. In the song discussed earlier, “For Your Pleasure,” Eno and his co-producer for the similarly-named album took bits and pieces from Roxy Music’s first album and included them in the track. Sampling, much like loop pedals, is a common technique used in music where bits and pieces of other songs are remixed or included in a new song. Plenty of songs that we know feature sampling. Sampling is very popular in R&B and rap music, with famous songs being “Crazy in Love” by Beyoncé or “My Name is” by Eminem. That certainly is not the only place sampling is found, though. Through listening to Brian Eno’s music, one can recognize that he, too, is a fan of using samples to create music. On a album, “,” Brian Eno worked with co-producer to help create multiple tracks with this sampling technique. They used music and vocals from songs found from different places in the world, including radio broadcasts, chants, speeches, and various other media. In one track, “America is Waiting,” Eno and Byrne use recordings of the Foreign Policy readings. Reviewers call his sampling and recordings, “fresh as a daisy,” and, “eerily prescient,” (Simpson). Eno’s work in sampling was even compared to that of Steve Reich, who was fond of sampling and turning speech into instruments. Many fans and music-lovers believe that the use of real world recordings have the power to bring issues to light in society. Eno said in an interview, “to make something is to express a belief in how ​ things belong together. To me, that’s a political statement,” (“Brian Eno at 70”). One review ​ read that, “Incorporating concrete, recognisable sounds from the ‘real world’ into the symbolic web of a musical composition encourages subjective readings of the source material,” (Beirens). This shows that there can be more to music than aesthetic, and that it can actually promote awareness of issues or uncover societal problems. Using pre-recorded samples is just another example of the many techniques Brian Eno uses in an almost meta way of thinking.

Ambient music is a popular style of music where a song is created to create a mood. It does not always have a musical feel to it, so to speak, but what it does do is portray to the ​ ​ listener a feel, similar to the role of a tone poem. Brian Eno has described ambient music tracks as “environmental music suited to a wide variety of moods and atmospheres,” (Brian ​ Eno at 70). Brian Eno and ambient music go together hand in hand. So many tracks he has ​ created use ambience to give portray a certain mood. Many people believe that Eno even coined the term “ambient music,” but he considers himself more of just an advocate, noting that ambient music is “just as ignorable as it is interesting,” (Sherburne). Eno said that his recognition and fascination with ambient music really evolved and came to be what we recognize now between the years 1974 to 1982. When asked about where his inspiration of ambient music came from, Eno said that his experience during a car accident inspired his exploration of ambient music (Schnabel). He noted that while he was recovering from the trauma, his girlfriend gave him an album of songs composed using a harp, but his listening system was broken, causing the album to sound completely different than it usually would. Between the rainy weather outside his window, the lighting in his room, and the broken-sounding album, the ambient music presented a “somewhat ghostly musical abstraction-a new way of listening to and experiencing music,” (Schnabel). This breakthrough inspired Brian to welcome this new form of listening and creating music. His first ambient album was entitled “Discreet Music,” and was released in 1975. After that album came a four-part ambient music series. On the first installment of the set of ambient music albums he created, he stated that his inspiration for the first album came from his ​ ​ extensive waiting in an airport where he was irritated, tired, and irked by the constant buzz and generic airport music he heard. He created this album and appropriately titled it, “Ambient 1: Music for Airports.” His intention was to create music that was supposed to calm and relax travellers in an airport, rather than irritate them, as he had once felt in an airport. He also created two more albums, “The Plateaux of Mirror,” and, “Day of Radiance.” Another album Eno created, “Ambient 4: On Land,” features sounds found in the outdoors, specifically sounds that sticks, bugs, frogs, rocks, and other naturally-found items create. Eno took all of those

sounds, combined it with musical instruments such as brass and bass, and created the natural world-based album. Brian Eno’s ambient music credits go on extensively, but if one were to analyze them all, it would take far too long.

Brian Eno has been active in the musical field for a long time, but what is he doing today? He has done a lot of composition and production work, and has created music for apps, video games, and computer companies. In the late 1990s, asked Eno to compose the sound for the standard start-up sound for Microsoft Windows. Since then, however, Eno has written music for apps and video games. In terms of physical art, though, Eno has dabbled in that, as well. In 2013, Eno created two different light and sound-based exhibitions at a hospital in England. The exhibit is comprised of multiple screens, all displaying various patterns and shapes set to music. It was an exhibit created for patients and visitors to experience ambient music, and to escape a traditional hospital setting. Eno’s artistic work has even gone as far as being projected onto the in Australia, (Dreaper). This further proves that Brian Eno is a man of many talents in terms of art. One could define him as a sort of “Renaissance Man” for music and arts.

Brian Eno once said, “The act of listening is the act of composing,” which is something ​ that he, and many of his fans, take part in and enjoy. Listeners take in the music he has to offer, and from that, can create and compose ideas or assumptions based on what the music tells them. It is important to note that Brian Eno is very aware of the effects of his music ​ techniques, including looping, timing, and samples. “I'm aware that in working with ​ computers, you exclude certain sonic possibilities...when you then listen to something that wasn't made in a computer, it sometimes has a shocking, sparkling, liveness to it,” (Tingen). His creativity comes from within, and is not always necessarily on purpose. He has said that “nearly everything I do starts as an experiment,” (Tingen). Even though Eno does not always use the “classic” or “traditional” equipments or instruments, it is evident that the music he creates is still effective in getting a point, message, feeling, or mood across. It’s safe to say ​ that overall, Brian Eno and Roxy Music have been influential in many aspects. Their

techniques and usage of various musical styles reflect their love for innovation and their pull to do something a little bit different. One reviewer said that without Brian Eno and Roxy Music, “here would surely have been no ABC, no movement, no , no Pulp, ​ no Human League, no Siouxsie and the Banshees,” (“How Roxy…”). All of those well-known bands are thought to have influencing from Eno in one way or another. Eno is a vastly creative, influential, and incredibly talented key figure in music. Through the usage of loop ​ pedals, ambient music, and pre-recorded samples, Brian Eno has created plenty of songs perfect for music lovers. It is perfect in the sense that aesthetically it is pleasing, and in the sense that when you break it down, it is complex and intriguing. Eno, in a sense, is a jack-of-all-trades. He has the ability to create music in a variety of ways, whether that be through musical instruments, new equipment, or even sounds found in nature. That in itself is a gift, and it is something that should gain him endless respect as a musician, composer, and artist.

Works Cited

“100 Famous and Inspirational Music Quotes.” CMUSE. CMUSE. n.d. ​ ​

“Brian Eno: Biography.” The Famous People. Famous People. n.d. ​ ​

“How Roxy Music helped define generations of pop.” The Economist. The Economist. 19 May ​ ​ 2019.

Beirens, M. “Voices, Violence and Meaning: Transformations of Speech Samples in Works by David Byrne, Brian Eno and Steve Reich.” Taylor & Francis Online. Informa. 27 Oct ​ ​ 2014.

Dreaper, J. “Brian Eno branches out into hospital work.” BBC News. British Broadcasting ​ Channel. 19 Apr 2013. ​

Frere-Jones, S. “Ambient Genius: Brian Eno.” The New Yorker. Conde Nast. 30 Jun 2014. ​ ​

Eno, Brian. “On Land: Ambient 4” 1982. Compact Disc.

Kreps, D. “Brian Eno Announces Titanic-Inspired Solo LP ‘The Ship.’” . Rolling ​ Stone, LLC. 24 Feb 2016. ​

Roxy Music. “For Your Pleasure.” . 1973. Compact Disc.

Schnabel, T. “Reissue Spotlight: Brian Eno’s Ambient Music.” KCRW Music. KCRW. 1 ​ ​ Jan 2019.

Sherburne, P. “A Conversation With Brian Eno About Ambient Music.” . Conde ​ Nast. 16 Feb 2017. ​

Simpson, D. “CD: Brian Eno and David Byrne, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.” . The Guardian. 23 Mar 2006. ​ ​

Tannenbaum, R. “Roxy Music: For Your Pleasure Album Review.” Pitchfork. Pitchfork. ​ 13 Oct 2019.

Tingen, P. “Brian Eno.” SOS: Sound on Sound. Sound on Sound. n.d. ​ ​