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brettworks

thinking through music


  • January 13, 2026

    When Less Leads To More

    My hope for every music production session is for something unexpected to catch my attention and open a new perceptual world. But such worlds almost never open right off the bat. Like anything aesthetically significant, they tend to require time and attention–you have to work into them. How does one do that? It helps to Continue reading

    composing
    music, music theory
  • January 12, 2026

    Omni 98 bpm

    Continue reading

    Uncategorized
  • January 9, 2026

    Drumming Diaries: Grip

    Leonardo da Vinci, Studies of hands (c.1480) After a week away from performing, I noticed while playing marimba something I never think about. My grip: it felt weak. For a percussionist, grip is the pressure applied by thumb and index finger to make a fulcrum on which to balance sticks and mallets. A weak grip Continue reading

    Uncategorized
    grip, percussion, percussion playing, percussion technique
  • January 8, 2026

    Resonant Thoughts: Molly Bang’s “Picture This” (1991/2016)

    “Pictures are two-dimensional, whereas we live in a three-dimensional space, with many more dimensions added by our passions and intelligence. When we translate or reform our multifaceted experience into this flat, rectangular format, we play with space” (100). “Space implies time” (108). “…cut paper makes us concentrate on structure, emotional clarity, gesture, and overall cohesion Continue reading

    Resonant Thoughts
  • January 5, 2026

    Omni 96 bpm

    Continue reading

    Uncategorized
  • January 2, 2026

    Database: Tom Oberheim On Doing The Grey-Area Thing

    “First of all, you can’t simply design what the musician wants, because he or she may not know all the possibilities. And on the other hand, you can’t spend all your time only worrying about the oscillator drift and the power supply and all that. You have to do this gray-area thing.” – Tom Oberheim Continue reading

    database
  • December 31, 2025

    Curating The Week: Artistic Toil, Aphoristic Intelligence, AI Slop, Reclaiming One’s Mind

    • An essay on artistic toil. “…instances of just how willing the great artists are to undergo tedious, repetitive, finger-cramping work—toil—in the service of their craft. In some of these examples, such as the stonework of a cathedral, there was a higher purpose to justify the toil. But often it seems that the artists engaged Continue reading

    Curating The Week
    AI, art, artificial-intelligence, technology, writing
  • December 30, 2025

    Resonant Thoughts: Stuart Jeffries’ “Everything, All the Time, Everywhere: How We Became Postmodern (2021)

    “The Postmodern Condition was the result of a commission [Jean-François] Lyotard had accepted to write a report on the condition of knowledge for the Conseil des Universités of the government of Quebec, and his immediate worry was that universities were becoming corrupted by the unfettering of capitalism and the consequent reduction in the status of Continue reading

    Resonant Thoughts
    AI, consciousness, history, philosophy, science
  • December 29, 2025

    Omni 103 bpm

    Continue reading

    Uncategorized
  • December 26, 2025

    15 December Study

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    Uncategorized
Next Page»

Thomas Brett is a musician and writer who holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from New York University. He is the author of Principles of Electronic Music Production and The Creative Electronic Music Producer, a book described by Sound On Sound magazine as “a deep philosophical analysis of the various creative inspirations, ideas and processes involved in producing electronic music.” His essays have appeared in the journals Popular Music and Popular Music and Society, as well as edited collections by Routledge, Oxford, and Cambridge University presses. Thomas has played percussion on Broadway since 1997 and writes about music at brettworks.com.

Recent Posts

  • When Less Leads To More
  • Omni 98 bpm
  • Drumming Diaries: Grip
  • Resonant Thoughts: Molly Bang’s “Picture This” (1991/2016)
  • Omni 96 bpm

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