brettworks

thinking through music

listening

  • Same Walk, Different Music

    Our subway stop has been under repair for a few months, so going anywhere involves walking a half mile to the 74th street stop. The 12-minute walk isn’t scenic, but it is a good time to spend listening to music. In fact, walking—not running, or sitting—may be the best way to listen to music because Continue reading

  • Gong Lessons

    Gongs are one of my favorite percussion instruments. Why? Because they’re drone machines that make unusual long tones, tones that are often of indefinite pitch and hard to decipher. Because they’re the orchestra’s ultimate Outsider instrument. Because they take a while to warm up, and even longer to quiet down. But the best thing about Continue reading

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  • One Good Listener

    Crash! Think of music like an encounter with two halves crashing together: on one side a set of sounds working as a composite, and on the other side, one good listener taking it all in. Like the case of a tree falling in the forest with no one around to notice it, without one good Continue reading

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  • The Perfect Room: Two Perspectives

    “When you put on a pair of headphones you are wearing the studio on your head, which is 100 percent reproducible. I’ve never been in a room that affected how my headphones sound.” – Andrew Scheps “What you perceive when you listen to a mix isn’t some kind of objective reality: it’s almost entirely constructed Continue reading

  • Notes On Quick Musical Assessments / Getting Granular With Musical Influences

    As you listen to music, think through these questions: What is the music’s bpm (beats per minute)? Or is it in free rhythm? How many parts are there? What are the music’s most important or foregrounded sounds? Does the music rely on a lead + accompaniment format? What processing effects are used? Are they used Continue reading

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  • Ear Reset

    A few weeks into the quarantine, with barely a car on the road or people on the sidewalks, I’m hearing my neighborhood’s soundscape more acutely. Where I used to spend a lot of time blocking out the city’s sounds (with earplugs, music, or avoidance), now its decibels have fallen back down to nature’s mix level.  Continue reading

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  • Musical Vantage Points

    What is your vantage point on the music? From what position do you listen—from a point of doubt, sympathy, skepticism, good cheer, confidence, or anxiety? Does your vantage change as the music changes, moving from a positive glance to a negative sneer? Does your positioning allow you to hear the music as it is, as Continue reading

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  • Annals Of Listening: Lackluster’s “Container” (2000)

    A few years after I moved to New York I was shopping for electronic music at Kim’s Music and Video in the East Village. Kim’s had these little listening stations set up where you could put on headphones and preview CDs of new music. I put on some phones and listened to an album by Continue reading

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  • Losing Objectivity

    I had worked on the track for a year, which was far longer than I had ever worked on a ten-minute piece of music. In my defense, things take time: it had taken time to decide on sounds, time to get going and wonder where I was going, time to record chord progressions, beats, and Continue reading

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  • Good Bit Listening

    One shouldn’t listen this way but I race through music letting the first track play all the way through then skipping along the others  FF>> FF>>FF>> impatient doubtful a skeptic looking for the good bits hoping for the good bits the parts that slow me down stop me in my tracks  music >> pauses >> Continue reading

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