playing music

December 17, 2021

Keeping The Hands In Play

(Photo: Gerrit Dou’s “A Woman Playing A Clavichord”, c. 1665) “The musician, like the writer or speaker, regularly confronts his conduct as performance or not.” David Sudnow, Talk’s Body (1979), p. 65. 1. Whenever I feel I’m disconnected from the musical because I’ve been looking at the screen and tinkering with parameters too much, I Continue reading

play, playing music
November 10, 2017

On Writing About Music and Making Music

I spend about equal time writing about music and making music and these experiences are quite different from one another. When I’m writing about music I’m on the outside of it, listening in. It feels like the music is far away—as if it’s a foreign craft practiced by a different kind of person than me Continue reading

playing music, writing about music

Thomas Brett is a musician and writer who holds a PhD in ethnomusicology from New York University. He is the author of Principles of Electronic Music Production and The Creative Electronic Music Producer, a book described by Sound On Sound magazine as “a deep philosophical analysis of the various creative inspirations, ideas and processes involved in producing electronic music.” His essays have appeared in the journals Popular Music and Popular Music and Society, as well as edited collections by Routledge, Oxford, and Cambridge University presses. Thomas has played percussion on Broadway since 1997 and writes about music at brettworks.com.

playing music

Keeping The Hands In Play

On Writing About Music and Making Music