Brian Eno (1948-; see also chaps. 17 and 34) is a key figure in the shift from “composer” and “musician” to “producer” in contemporary electronic culture.
I wasn’t aware that he was one of the figures pushing the idea of being a producer and not a musician or composer.
Brian speaks on the fact that music in the 1900s was an event and something that was perceived at the time. Not something recorded available at playback. Music was located in “space” once recorded.
Brian also speaks that before the three-track recorder on tape, an audio recording was all about the performance and creating a viable realistic feeling of this performance. Once the stereo two-track tape machine came along this improved. Then once we had the three tracks the idea of production became a thing, that the performance isn’t the finished item and more could be done after it.
Then came the 1970s, the 4 track had arrived and suddenly a specific studio era arrived. The idea of “in-studio composition, where you no longer come to the studio with a conception of the finished piece. Instead, you come with actually rather a bare skeleton of the piece, or perhaps nothing at all.” Brian was working with the idea of sound being a compositional element without being musical.
He finished the short essay with the idea that a studio is a tool itself, and that people like him who aren’t conventional musicians could have never done what he does now without a studio with the sound tools that are available to him.