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brettworks

thinking through music


  • July 2, 2026

    Resonant Thoughts: Cory Doctorow’s “The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI” (2026)

    “Art is what happens when an artist has a big, numinous, irreducibly complex feeling in their mind, which they infuse into some artistic medium—a book, a song, a dance, a painting, a photograph, and such—in the hopes of making a facsimile of that big, numinous, irreducibly complex feeling materialize in the minds of people who… Continue reading

    Resonant Thoughts
    technology, AI, art, artificial-intelligence, writing
  • July 1, 2026

    Arrows Of Attention: Musical Prompting

    You’re a soloist who specializes in 19th-century Romantic music. You have no sheet music in front of you and don’t consider yourself an improviser, yet at your instrument you’re able to remember fragments of themes, chord progressions, and melodies from dozens of different composers whose works you’ve practiced and performed. Use this partial knowledge to… Continue reading

    arrows of attention, musical prompts
    music, writing
  • June 29, 2026

    Jumbled Study

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    constraints, voice
  • June 26, 2026

    Pianola (May)

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    Uncategorized
  • June 24, 2026

    Tibi

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    practicing
  • June 23, 2026

    Curating The Week: AI as System, AI’s Didacticism, Vermeer’s Art

    • An essay by L.M. Sacasas on how AI is a system, not a tool. “AI is not a tool in this sense, it is an environment which envelops the user and works on us from the inside out while we naively think that we remain unchanged by our use so long as we are… Continue reading

    Curating The Week
    AI, artificial-intelligence, technology, writing
  • June 22, 2026

    Cymbalscape

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    finger cymbals, Uncategorized
  • June 19, 2026

    Brett’s Sound Picks: Squarepusher’s “K8 Park” (2026)

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    Uncategorized
  • June 18, 2026

    Resonant Thoughts: Ben Lerner’s “Transcription” (2026)

    “these impossibly delicate things were the result of a thousand rapid choices and adjustments, movements of the hand” (20). “kept seeing the flowers as organic one instant and as artificial the next, a kind of duck–rabbit effect, not between things the object might represent, but between nature and culture, the given and the constructed” (20).… Continue reading

    Resonant Thoughts
  • June 17, 2026

    Marimbafied 36

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    marimba, mellow vibes
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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: Cory Doctorow’s “The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI” (2026)
  • Arrows Of Attention: Musical Prompting
  • Jumbled Study
  • Pianola (May)
  • Tibi

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