Oblique Strategies - Brian Eno

oblique.txt

Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities
Think of the radio
Don't be frightened of cliches
Allow an easement (an easement is the abandonment of a stricture)
What is the reality of the situation?
Simple subtraction
Are there sections? Consider transitions
Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities
Turn it upside down
Go slowly all the way round the outside
A line has two sides
Infinitesimal gradations
Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list
Change instrument roles
Into the impossible
Accretion
Ask people to work against their better judgment
Disconnect from desire
Take away the elements in order of apparent non-importance
Emphasize repetitions
Don't be afraid of things because they're easy to do
Is there something missing?
Don't be frightened to display your talents
Use unqualified people
Breathe more deeply
How would you have done it?
Honor thy error as a hidden intention
Emphasize differences
Only one element of each kind
Do nothing for as long as possible
Bridges -build -burn
Water
You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas
Make a sudden, destructive unpredictable action; incorporate
Tidy up
Consult other sources
Do the words need changing?
Use an unacceptable color
Ask your body
Humanize something free of error
Use filters
Balance the consistency principle with the inconsistency principle
Fill every beat with something
Do nothing for as long as possible
Discard an axiom
Listen to the quiet voice
What wouldn't you do?
Is it finished?
Decorate, decorate
Put in earplugs
Give the game away
Reverse
Abandon normal instruments
Trust in the you of now
Use fewer notes
What would your closest friend do?
Repetition is a form of change
Distorting time
Give way to your worst impulse
Make a blank valuable by putting it in an exquisite frame
The inconsistency principle
Ghost echoes
Don't break the silence
You can only make one dot at a time
Discover the recipes you are using and abandon them
Just carry on
Cascades
(Organic) machinery
Courage!
What mistakes did you make last time?
You are an engineer
Consider different fading systems
Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics
Mute and continue
Look at the order in which you do things
It is quite possible (after all)
Go outside. Shut the door.
Don't stress one thing more than another
Do we need holes?
Cluster analysis
Work at a different speed
Do something boring
Look closely at the most embarrassing details and amplify them
Define an area as "safe" and use it as an anchor
Mechanicalize something idiosyncratic
Overtly resist change
Emphasize the flaws
Accept advice
Remember those quiet evenings
Take a break
The tape is now the music
Short circuit (example; a man eating peas with the idea that they will improve his virility shovels them straight into his lap)
Imagine the music as a moving chain or caterpillar
Use an old idea
Intentions -credibility of -nobility of -humility of
Destroy -nothing -the most important thing
Imagine the music as a set of disconnected events
Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency
Imagine the piece as a set of disconnected events
What are you really thinking about just now? Incorporate.
Children's voices -speaking -singing
Assemble some of the instruments in a group and treat the group
Feedback recordings into an acoustic situation
Shut the door and listen from outside
Towards the insignificant
Is the tuning appropriate?
Simply a matter of work
Look at a very small object, look at its centre
Not building a wall but making a brick
Revaluation (a warm feeling)
Disciplined self-indulgence
The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten
Always first steps
Idiot glee
Question the heroic approach
Be extravagant
Always give yourself credit for having more than personality
State the problem in words as clearly as possible
Faced with a choice, do both
Tape your mouth
Twist the spine
Get your neck massaged
Lowest common denominator check -single beat -single note -single riff
Do the washing up
Listen in total darkness, or in a very large room, very quietly
Convert a melodic element into a rhythmic element
Would anybody want it?
Spectrum analysis
Retrace your steps
blacnk cards - add your own!
Go to an extreme, move back to a more comfortable place
Once the search is in progress, something will be found
Only a part, not the whole
From nothing to more than nothing
Be less critical more often