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43Folders.com is Merlin Mann’s website about finding the time and attention to do your best creative work.

Eno on the Microsoft Sound: 'Here's a specific problem -- solve it.'

Q and A With Brian Eno

Brian Eno, from 1996, speaking on the creation of “The Microsoft Sound” (the gentle little tune that plays when you boot your Windows PC).

I thought you’d enjoy it as an example of how a novel bit of work and some limitations can re-align your perspective and even help you get unstuck about unrelated projects.

(Thanks, Mike)

The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I’d been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, “Here’s a specific problem — solve it.”

The thing from the agency said, “We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,” this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said “and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.”

I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It’s like making a tiny little jewel.

In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I’d finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.

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Briano Eno on perception of...

Briano Eno on perception of time

Here are some comments Brian Eno made in an interview in 1996 about creating the startup chime for Microsoft Windows. Q: How did you come to compose “The Microsoft Sound”? A: The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of i...

 
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