Re: Great Quote about Looping by Brian Eno

[Rick Walker <looppool@cruzio.com>]

Michael Billow wrote:
> Contrary to the popular notion, Eno is not God. All artists edit and 
> "censor" their work, including those he mentioned. They might be a 
> little looser...


      In my own history as a professional musician,producer and 
teacher,  the overwhelming greatest detriment to good art that I've seen 
is the fact that the editing side of so many musicians seems to take a 
distant second to the creative side.

I see more artists who seem more motivated by fear than by the love of 
creativity.   I see more artists who struggle to put anything out to the 
world
for fear of the judgment that they perceive to be 'out there'.    In my 
history with most people,  the internal critic within these musicians' 
psyches
is a vastly more brutal judge than the society that surrounds them.

I know so many artists who would do the world a favor by moving away 
from perfectionism;   who would produce more art and better art
if they could balance their love of creativity with their fear of 
external judgment.

Sure, there are exceptions.     There are people who put out lots of 
fairly uninteresting music.   There are artists who are
grandiose and think every thing they do is wonderful.   But this 
grandiosity is just another form of the low self esteem that seems to
pervade culture.

I think this is what Eno addresses with this quotation.

Eno is not God, certainly,  but if you go see the list of artists who 
have come to him to help them become more creative it's a pretty fucking
impressive list.    There's a reason that Eno is revered:      He's 
very, very wise about the creative process.     Wise enough that he's 
worked with
U2, David Bowie, the Talking Heads, Laurie Anderson, Robert Fripp, David 
Lynch, Peter Jackson, Coldplay, Genesis, Nico, John Cale,
Grace Jones, Devo, UltraVox, James,  Jane Sieberry, Depeche Mode and 
many, many others.

These people are not idiots, obviously.

So I think there still might be something to this quote though it 
obviously pushes some buttons.

Rick Walker


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