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brettworks

thinking through music


  • May 1, 2026

    Resonant Thoughts: John Berger’s “Permanent Red: Essays in Seeing” (1960/2025)

    “After we have responded to a work of art, we leave it, carrying away in our consciousness something which we didn’t have before. This something amounts to more than our memory of the incident represented, and also more than our memory of the shapes and colors and spaces which the artist has used and arranged.… Continue reading

    Resonant Thoughts
  • April 30, 2026

    Stolen Moments Are Open-Ended

    The brief moments in which many musical projects begin feel stolen because they are as if outside of time, free from routine, surprising, and rich in delight. They’re powerful because they’re witness to something new happening. But how does this unfold? As usual there’s no plan, I’m just exploring—clicking on sounds, moving audio around, or… Continue reading

    Uncategorized
    art, music
  • April 28, 2026

    Opening (Remodel)

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    Uncategorized
  • April 24, 2026

    Gongscapes

    Gongscapes is the ten-year echo of my 2016 recording, Gong Music. Each of its sixteen tracks has three gong parts, arranged left-center-right along the stereo field. Gong parts were recorded as melodies, then re-sampled, pitched into a lower (more oceanic) register, and step sequenced so fragments of the parts resound once each time around a… Continue reading

    gongs
  • April 23, 2026

    Database: Annea Lockwood On Listening As Meditation

    “If you’re focusing your attention so strongly on listening, it’s a form of meditation. Which is so nourishing.” Annea Lockwood database (a cache of perceptions) Continue reading

    database
  • April 22, 2026

    Opening

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    Uncategorized
  • April 17, 2026

    No. 1

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    limberology, Uncategorized
  • April 15, 2026

    Curating The Week: Playing Mandolin, Sound Design, AI in Writing, AI’s Impact On Artists, Nature and Attention

    • An essay about returning to the mandolin at an older age. “Is domestic music a second-class thing? Discovering this history, I felt strongly what a different phenomenon music is when you make it yourself. You’re inside it, living it, experiencing a pleasure so intense that pleasure is perhaps no longer the word. This surely… Continue reading

    Curating The Week
    AI, artificial-intelligence, music, technology, writing
  • April 14, 2026

    Techniques: Juxtaposition

    There are two techniques of composing I use that generate very different results. The first is the goes along with technique. The idea here is build one part then build a second part by playing along with the first. Then play a third part along with parts 1 and 2, and so on, one layer at a… Continue reading

    techniques
  • April 13, 2026

    Brett’s Sound Picks: Colleen’s “Aguas abiertas” (2026)

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    Brett’s Sound Picks
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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

  • Resonant Thoughts: John Berger’s “Permanent Red: Essays in Seeing” (1960/2025)
  • Stolen Moments Are Open-Ended
  • Opening (Remodel)
  • Gongscapes
  • Database: Annea Lockwood On Listening As Meditation

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