brettworks

thinking through music

poetry

  • Musical Logics

    Musical logic is reasoning by other means— not knowing the key but feeling the mode not counting beats but feeling the pulse not planning the form but keeping it open not according to plan but making it up on your way. Music is the pleasure the human mind experiences from counting without being aware that Continue reading

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  • Three Significant Soundscapes

    Count them — twelve rickshaws outside the theater perched like metal birds bell polyrhythm chimes feel it — organ music inside the headphones pulsing to the footsteps drone notes divided vibrate — bass booms around the passing car invisible halo kick drum and bass currency music’s chump change. Continue reading

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  • A Mix

    A mix talks with the music, asking it how it wants to be heard. A mix dances with the music, leading it around the stereo dance floor. A mix emphasizes the important sounds right now.  A mix exaggerates, boosting tiny into huge, compressing loud into soft. A mix generates ambiance.  A mix balances multiple sounds, Continue reading

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  • Country Music

    There’s a cricket outside the window singing whole notes in four four one twenty bpm leaving space for wind’s rustle and an occasional car at five am silence autumn music from afar. 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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  • Impossible Mix

    The subway dancer guys are performing  with a bass speaker  playing big beats   but I’m already listening  to my own sound on headphones   so I fiddle  with the volume  just so their beat  mixes with my bass line  and now I don’t ignore them  because our different musics  are getting along.  Continue reading

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  • Less And More Music Production Heuristics

    Less predictable. More unusual. Less smooth. More textured. Less even. More jagged. Less new. More weathered.* Less obvious. More nuanced. Less automated. More considered. Less quantized. More error. Less looped. More change over time. Less rushed. More taking its time. Less prefab. More customized. Less trying to impress. More trying to explore. Less boring. More Continue reading

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  • Action And Better Action

    Play a drum fill, withhold the fill. Resolve the chord, leave it hanging. Round out the mix, thin it. Try it again, use this first take. Introduce the section, get right to it. Build a composite, keep it stratified. Steady beat, fluctuating rhythm. Manage the mood, mix the emotions. The right way, what about this Continue reading

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  • The Music Speaks Up

    The music keeps reminding you that you don’t know it well enough, that you’re not paying attention to what it needs. You’re not listening. You’re hearing what you hope I should be,  rather than what I am. The music is tight but not right, filled out but not filled in, descriptive but not imaginative. Listen Continue reading

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  • On Musical Knowing

    We have a recurring sense that we don’t know much about music. A sense that we tried to learn a lot, but came up short. A sense that we can’t commit to one musical thing. But we know some musical things, a knowing that lives in experience, which includes the musics we’ve heard and the Continue reading

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