Thomas Brett
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Small Musical Failures As Non-Obvious Usage Paths
“Create non-obvious usage paths. In my experience, it’s the best algorithm.”– Dombaeb, KVR Audio In my work I notice a recurring pattern to small failures and the breakthroughs that sometimes follow them. Here is how the pattern plays out: 1. I’m doing my usual musical things, but nothing seems to be working. Nothing sounds interesting, Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: John Berger’s “Portraits” (2015)
“The gestures come from his hand, his wrist, arm, shoulder, perhaps even the muscles in his neck, yet the strokes he makes on the paper are following currents of energy which are physically his and which become visible only when he draws them. Currents of energy? The energy of a tree’s growth, of a plant’s Continue reading
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Notes On Acoustic Memory
Fred and I were talking about music—what else?—and our conversation turned to how we know things about it. I mentioned to him how a plug-in in my music software realistically emulates the wobbly and degraded sound of old cassette tapes—like the ones we listened to in portable cassette players back in the day. Tape wobble Continue reading
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“What you hear in music is just a hunch”: Musical Lessons From Harold Budd
Harold Budd, one of my favorite musicians, passed away last week. Budd began his career as a jazz drummer, and then began composing avant garde classical music. Finding influence in the work of painter Mark Rothko, composer John Cage, as well as medieval and renaissance musics, Budd turned away from the complexities of the avant Continue reading
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Brett’s Sound Picks: Robin Guthrie and Harold Budd’s “Coral” (2020)
(Brett’s Sound Picks 2020). Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Alessandro Baricco’s “The Game” (2020)
“There is a deep-rooted suspicion that the perception of the world that has been shaped by new technology is missing a whole segment of reality, perhaps the best part: the one that pulsates under the surface of things, where only patient, laborious, and sophisticated attention will lead. This is a place for which a word Continue reading
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Notes On Curation II: Sketchbook
Each week on this blog I’ve been sharing a piece of music. Some of these tracks are finished, some in progress, some are experiments that led somewhere but no further, and some are probably done but I just don’t know it yet. The music is always at least a few weeks old, and usually several Continue reading
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