# Eno: composers as gardiners



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Here - http://www.edge.org/conversation/composers-as-gardeners - is a link to a talk by Brian Eno in which he says that composers have usually been more like gardeners than architects. Architects plan the whole project at once, from a big picture, while gardeners kind of make it up as they go, responding to what they find taking place in the garden. Something like that. Thought I'd share.

Edit: I think I've written "Gardiner" so many times I don't know what "gardener" is anymore.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

Well, I cultivate palms which makes me kind of a 'gardiner'; then again, I only compose on the piano by myself. But I guess I do compose lots on bass, guitar and drummer when I'm working with an original band or working in the studio.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I think composers are actually rather like composers... I imagine there are as many architectural ones as those who garden.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

From Schoenberg's 'fundamentals of musical composition':



> a composer does not, of course, add bit by bit, as a child does in building with wooden blocks. He conceives an entire composition as a spontaneous vision.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

emiellucifuge said:


> From Schoenberg's 'fundamentals of musical composition':
> 
> a composer does not, of course, add bit by bit, as a child does in building with wooden blocks. He conceives an entire composition as a spontaneous vision.


Hmm. That looks easy enough. Must be the devil is in the details.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Hilltroll72 said:


> Hmm. That looks easy enough. Must be the devil is in the details.


Theres another 212 pages after that first one!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

To be fair to Eno - I assumed you'd watch the video and in my laziness I didn't really make an effort to explain what he says. Although he refers to other composers' work several times, it's fairly clear that he's talking about his own experience of composing, and how it didn't match his assumption. 

Also, the similes seem meant to be helpful, not controlling.


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## Argus (Oct 16, 2009)

emiellucifuge said:


> From Schoenberg's 'fundamentals of musical composition':


I've read all Schoenberg's books, but I'd take any single Eno album over all of Schoenberg's entire oeuvre combined. Being specific, I'd take Another Green World over anything any Austrian ever composed.

Just sayin'.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Thanks for sharing!


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

emiellucifuge said:


> Theres another 212 pages after that first one!


[!]

I'm guessing this Eno guy doesn't composed classical music much?

The whole dichotomy, if that's really what it is, seems pretty similar to two ways of writing 'long' fiction. One way is to make an outline of the whole shebang, starting from a plot notion, and then fill it in. Another way is to start with a 'great idea', and then build on it. There are probably amalgams of the two procedures, as the story unfolds. Which kind of shmushes up the dichotomy.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

science said:


> Here - http://www.edge.org/conversation/composers-as-gardeners - is a link to a talk by Brian Eno in which he says that composers have usually been more like gardeners than architects. Architects plan the whole project at once, from a big picture, while gardeners kind of make it up as they go, responding to what they find taking place in the garden. Something like that. Thought I'd share.
> 
> Edit: I think I've written "Gardiner" so many times I don't know what "gardener" is anymore.


Bad boy, Bad girl, write out "gardener" 100 times now. Due at end of this period 

I believe, hunch and projection and what I've heard of Eno (a healthy amount and variety) that Eno is one of the Gardening type.

The Architect is good as analogy, except there are those who do 'build' without an overall preconceived plan of the building.

Some composers are quite famous for 'getting it all in place in their head first, then writing it down.' Mozart and Schubert immediately come to mind.

But consider, for those composers with both the ear, the training and that eidetic musical memory may have been drafting, changing, scrapping whole pages, re-arranging, etc. the piece in their head, all held in memory, before the ink hit paper. Of course, that ability after practice does lead to more complete pieces 'coming all at once' and needing little revision.

Schubert was given an ink-is-just-dry poem from a friend, a text for a new song. The story goes Schubert paced around the room for a few minutes, scanning the text, then abruptly announced to the poet, "I've got it! Its good, too." I bet he did, have the whole piece in mind, that is, and that too, it was good. Well, I envy the hell out of Schubert and that ability, let me tell you!

The rest of us 'build,' whether there is more or less of an overall plan.

One teacher of mine said something so pertinent I am happy to pass it on to any composer, indeed, anyone coming up with any kind of idea for a creative project, small or large, "It is always good to have a plan. At least you then have something to deviate from." (Yes, that Professor Emeritus ended the sentence with a preposition; we'll all just have to get over it

He also advised if you did not have the ability or did not conceive of actual notes, horizontal or vertical, that drawing out a horizontal abstraction of general contours and shapes, with perhaps a written note here or there, would be of great help.

Whatever the methods, you would probably agree that composers who used any or all methods who were ultimately successful have left behind them some seriously impressive and important edifices.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

well, some composers _were_ gardeners!, like Ravel and his small japanese garden at his house in Montfort l'Amaury:

http://jonathanephraim.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/p1010204.jpg


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