Oblique Strategies are back!

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"More generally, OS seem to me to take a key trope of Eastern mysticism (the koan) and redeploy it in secular fashion."

Absolute bunkum. In what way precisely does a strategy like "Play your instruments left-handed" constitute a koan? Or even, for that matter, "Honour thy mistakes for their hidden intentions?"

Sounds pretty self-explanatory to me. The latter is an especially useful one in a song-writing context - by giving a mistake made in playing credence, it can add an unexpected twist to a particular progression.

Eno and Schmidtt devised Oblique Strategies to save time in the studio, as a method of bypassing a creative impasse, especially useful when studio bills start mounting up. So you see, OS was a practical solution to a practical problem. I don't see how Eastern mysticism enters into it at all.

As an aside, I think if Oblique Strategies had been devised in a non- rock setting then no-one would have batted an eyelid.

Trevor, Monday, 17 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"Go and do the washing up".

Andrew L, Monday, 17 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"Honour thy mistakes..." is exactly the kind of thing I'm thinking of, but yeah, probably koan was the wrong word. Chicken Soup For The Musician's Soul, perhaps?

Tom, Monday, 17 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

That's more like it.

Trevor, Monday, 17 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

"are they art? *ducks and runs away, very fast*"

Well I reckon you're out of firing range by now, so I'll have to content myself with saying...

OS aren't art per se, they're a conduit for art.

Trevor, Monday, 17 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link

seventeen years pass...

hey, think about a bicycle oversleeping

— concepts bot (@conceptsbot) April 15, 2019

don't worry, tell me what it is like to paint a picture of an octopus

— concepts bot (@conceptsbot) April 15, 2019

please go home with a dog on an escalator

— concepts bot (@conceptsbot) April 14, 2019

you could also listen to jazz with your friend on the beach

— concepts bot (@conceptsbot) April 13, 2019

i want you to eat curry rice with someone you do not like in a gallery

— concepts bot (@conceptsbot) April 13, 2019

all right, have lunch with an owl on the telephone

— concepts bot (@conceptsbot) April 12, 2019

i have an idea. run away with a dolphin

— concepts bot (@conceptsbot) April 12, 2019

frogbs, Monday, 15 April 2019 14:24 (five years ago) link


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