The Oblique Strategies

Over 100 worthwhile dilemmas BRIAN ENO and PETER SCHMIDT

Oblique Strategies 1975, 1978, and 1979 Brian Eno/Peter Schmidt

Not building a wall but making a brick

Would anybody want it?

Go to an extreme, extreme move back to a more comfortable place p

Listen to the quiet voice

Turn it upside down

Make an exhaustive list of everything you might do and do the last thing on the list

Honor thy error as a hidden intention

Mute and continue

Accept advice

A line has two sides

Question the heroic approach

It is quite possible (after all)

Discover the recipes you are using g and abandon them

Take away y the elements in order of apparent nonimportance

Remove ambiguities and convert to specifics p

Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities g

Do nothing for as long as p possible

Faced with a choice, do both

Listen in total darkness darkness, or in a very y large g room, , very y quietly q y

Simply a matter of work

Use an old idea

Is it finished?

Fill every beat with something

Consult other sources -promising p g -unpromising p g

Always give yourself credit for having g more than p personality y

Courage!

Do the words need changing?

Go outside. Shut the door

The inconsistency principle

Use fewer notes

Emphasize differences

Do something boring

Look at a very small object object, look at its centre

Mechanicalise something idiosyncratic y

Reverse

Give the game away

Imagine the piece as a set of disconnected events

Tidy up

Don't break the silence

Bridges -build -burn

Ask people to work against their better judgment j g

Overtly resist change

Revaluation (a warm feeling)

What mistakes did you make last time?

Don t be afraid of things Don't because they're y easy y to do

Intentions -credibility credibility of -nobility y of -humility y of

Work at a different speed

Short circuit (example; a man eating gp peas with the idea that they will improve his virility shovels them straight into his lap) p)

Ghost echoes

Disciplined self-indulgence

Be less critical more often

Infinitesimal gradations

Towards the insignificant

You can only make one dot at a time

Give way to your worst impulse p

Are there sections? Consider transitions

Make a blank valuable by putting p g it in an exquisite q frame

Just carry on

Tape your mouth

State the problem in words as clearly y as possible p

Go slowly all the way round the outside

The most important thing is the thing g most easily y forgotten g

Water

Use an unacceptable colour

Change nothing and continue with immaculate consistency y

Is there something missing?

Lowest common denominator

Emphasize repetitions

Allow an easement (an ( easement is the abandonment of a stricture)

Simple subtraction

Look at the order in which you do things g

Decorate, decorate

How would you have done it?

Be extravagant

Is the intonation correct?

What would your closest friend do?

Into the impossible

Do we need holes?

Get your neck massaged

Repetition is a form of change

Use filters

You are an engineer

Look closely y at the most embarrassing details and amplify them

Don't Don t stress one thing more than another

Breathe more deeply

Humanize something free of error

Be dirty

Make a sudden, destructive unpredictable action; incorporate

Once the search is in progress, something will be found

What is the reality of the situation?

Twist the spine

Emphasize the flaws

Do the washing up

Left channel, channel right channel channel, centre channel

Trust in the you of now

Feedback recordings into an acoustic situation

Don't be frightened of clichs

Only one element of each kind

Think of the radio

Remember those quiet evenings g

Children -speaking -singing

Cut a vital connection

Disconnect from desire

Assemble some of the elements in a group and treat the group

Take a break

Shut the door and listen from outside

Only a part, not the whole

Retrace your steps

You don't don t have to be ashamed of using gy your own ideas

Once the search is in progress, something will be found

Don't Don t be frightened to display your talents y

Destroy -nothing nothing -the the most important p thing g

Accretion

Always first steps

Discard an axiom

Lost in useless territory

What are the sections sections of? Imagine a caterpillar moving

Abandon normal instruments

Use 'unqualified' people

Define an area as 'safe' safe and use it as an anchor

From nothing to more than nothing g

What are you really thinking about j just now?