music production
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Notes On Unknowns And Conditions For Musical Flourishing
unknown—unrevealed, uncertain, unsettled, undecided “I’ve come to think that attention is the most important thing in a studio situation.” – Brian Eno Sometime last year I was listening to an almost finished track and heard a sound I couldn’t recall making, a sound I couldn’t figure out in retrospect how it came about. Some quality Continue reading
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Notes On Music Production In Quarantine
Recently, with more time at home, I’ve been thinking through and working on different ways of making music. My usual approach is to improvise my way into something interesting. This always involves playing the keyboard, using a sound that I believe in, and trying to figure out some kind of structure and flow for that Continue reading
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Okay For Now
One of the concepts that’s on my mind when I’m producing music is the notion of okay for now. Though it may sound slacker-ish, the mindset describes a settling for whatever I’m doing at the moment and not worrying about if it’s good or bad or where it may or may not be going. (Note: Continue reading
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Brettworks 2019 Posts On Music Production
Notes On Perfect On Musical Stasis And Directionality Notes On Working In Layers On Minimalism and Maximalism On Micro-Adjustments And The Game Of Amounts Losing Objectivity Musical Endings Differ, Be Important: The Make It More Interesting Concept Journal Note: Tweaking Audibility, One Part At A Time Without Methods, But With Principles The One Fell Swoop Continue reading
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Notes On Perfect
It’s said that perfectionism is a dangerous trait that leads you on endless goose chases after forever unattainable standards. Or that perfectionism catches you in its net of your own making, as the depth of your aspirations slowly suffocate your ability to finish things: If only I could fix this, this, and this, then it Continue reading
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On Micro-Adjustments And The Game Of Amounts
Electronic music production, said the producer Mr. Bill in one of his YouTube tutorials, is a game of amounts. It’s true. Bill was referring to the thousands of micro-adjustments one makes in the course of designing sounds, recording parts, arranging, and mixing a track of music. The process is simple but involved and very drawn 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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On Music Production’s Repeated Listenings
“My work is a progressive revelation of something which exists independently of me. Attention is rewarded by a knowledge of reality.” – Iris Murdoch, in Matthew B. Crawford, The World Beyond Your Head, p. 127 “I can’t begin to describe how that simple act of repetition back then made me so ecstatically happy—but it did. Continue reading
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Breaking Free From A Modus Operandi Towards Enchantment
This happens to me all the time: I’m building up the music, fixing and adjusting things, calibrating and measuring, evening out and making everything balanced then I realize, crap, I don’t like it. The problem is that I’ve lost touch—temporarily, I hope—of what I would like to listen to. My busyness has assumed an outsized life Continue reading
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Good Notes Are Everywhere At Hand
“Any theory’s relevance depended on its possible bearing for my practice.” – David Sudnow, Ways Of The Hand (2001), p. 19. “Good notes were everywhere at hand, right beneath the fingers” wrote David Sudnow in his 2001 book, Ways Of The Hand. Originally published in 1979 as a deep (and fairly reader-unfriendly) phenomenological dive into the Continue reading
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