brettworks

Musical virtuosity and musicianship are not the same. The first is obvious and focuses on Me, while the second is subtle and dissolves into Us.

The first iteration of a series of pieces is often the most interesting, because you don’t yet know what you’re doing. Preserve that naïveté.

You don’t have to know all of music’s histories to say something new. But understanding what has come before you–and what’s adjacent to you–puts your work in perspective.

The musical system you use almost doesn’t matter. What matters is that you’ve learned to play the system like an instrument.

A piece of music’s resilience to repeated listening could be an index of its value. Good music doesn’t wear out over time—it keeps enchanting.

Speaking of enchantment: it’s the musics you find enchanting that suggest a direction for your own work.

Simple techniques, layered, lead to intricate sonics.

Effects become interesting when they’re used to amplify or reveal something already inherent in a sound.

Adopt the philosophy of marginal gains to solve the recurring problem of What can I do right now to improve my craft? Set yourself a tiny task, like recording an improvisation for one minute, or mapping a controller knob to a parameter. Tiny know-hows accumulate into a repertoire of practiced possibilities. Substantial knowledge is built of small things.