brettworks

thinking through music

Thomas Brett

  • Brett’s Sound Picks: Rebekka Karijord’s “Morula”

    Rebekka Karijord’s two and a half-minute “Morula” seems built entirely out of voice. It begins with a simple sung arpeggio–a three chord, nine note statement. The voice seems processed, maybe auto-tuned, or maybe sampled. By the third time around its call is responded to in a higher register, with a contrasting shape. We also hear… Continue reading

  • Questions For A Composer About Music

    How do you want people to use your music? Is it for sitting-still listening? Is it for dancing while listening? Is it to soundtrack a film? Is it to help you study? Is it to set a mood on a date? Is it to accompany a text? Is it a working through of a theory?… Continue reading

  • What Is Adele Doing That So Many People Respond To?

    The English pop megastar Adele has an epic voice and it’s this quality of epic-ness that sets her apart and draws us towards her music. What makes her voice epic? Her flawless sense of pitch, her phrasing, her all out power. Most of us who aren’t singers or have no particular interest in the voice–this… Continue reading

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  • Curating The Week: The Appeal Of Analog, The Casio MT-40, And Lydia Goehr on The Functions Of Music

    1. An article on the hold of the analog in the digital world. “It turns out that while the digital often comes close to crushing its analog precedents, that process can do something curious to its putative victims: underscore their virtues, elevate their status and transform the formerly workaday into something rarefied, special, even luxurious…What… Continue reading

  • Music And Attention

    Focus on me music says, to bridge memory and anticipation, to order the scatterbrain– improve your functioning, learn to be better through style. Pay attention to my tones in succession or vertical stacking, follow them along their travels, soaring over landscapes, skimming across water. Register my rhythms in unison- or clashing-ness, vibrate with their architectures,… Continue reading

  • Notes On The Africa Express Version Of Terry Riley’s “In C”

    “Rules are not as important as results.” – Terry Riley (from an interview here) If you happened to be knowledgeable about the rhythmic riches of African musics and also happened to attend one of the early performances of Terry Riley’s pioneering minimalist piece “In C” in 1964, you might have noticed that something was up. You… Continue reading

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  • Uncritical Listening

    Only the simplest music I get analytically, unpacking without trying, dividing without counting, hearing without thought transcription. When complexity sings I take a step back to view its note shapes from afar, observing without judging, counting without unpacking, suspicious of their busy work. It was a piece by Takemitsu– I noticed one tone, the first,… Continue reading

  • Curating The Week: The Cove App, The Effects Of Extreme Music, And The Origins Of Rock and Roll

    1. An article about Cove, an app that helps users make sense of their emotions using music. “The app helps you make music that shows how you feel, whether it’s happy, sad or anywhere in between. After making these mood pieces, you can share them with important friends or family, which can help them understand your confusing… Continue reading

  • Inherent Rhythms

    The sound men swept in on their once-a-year visit to listen to the show, to hear the orchestra’s sounds with outsider ears. Could I hear that percussion part again? one of them asked through a microphone, wanting to inspect an African drum in isolation. The drum played solo, self-conscious of its double sound of bass… Continue reading

  • On Resonation

    Musical instruments have resonators to amplify and project their sound out to the musicians and to us, the listeners. But we resonate too along with the music, in sympathy with its aims, in tune with its mood, oscillating to its rhythms. Our resonance gives depth to music’s meaning: picture this circuit where sound is the… Continue reading