Technology
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Creative Notes: What The Tech Does, What We Do
The tech calculates, we wonder What if?The tech measures, we balance.The tech generates data sets, we create ad hoc.The tech recalls perfectly, we remember fleetingly.The tech suggests if this, then that?, we associate by other means.The tech presents patterns, we seek meanings.The tech proliferates options, we seek constraints.The tech makes loops and redundancies, we make Continue reading
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On The Music In Apple’s FaceTime Commercial
“Seeing music as a model could seem cold or trivializing. But the urgencies and the passions of living are among the things that music models: music doesn’t belong to the detached world of mathematical modeling. And there is nothing trivial about the musical enterprise: it is far removed from toy model airplanes or fashion models Continue reading
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On Rhythmic Instabilities And Brand New Feelings: DJ Rashad’s “Feelin””
“The technology’s so on point now: we can sample almost anything now.” – DJ Spinn One of the talked about music releases of 2012 is DJ Rashad’s Teklife Vol.1: Welcome to the Chi. Rashad is a Chicago musician who makes music to accompany a dance style known as footwork. Footwork is characterized by its hyper Continue reading
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In Praise Of Slowness: On Writing On Cellphones
It stuck me recently that I might say something about how the blog posts at bretttworks.com are written. So here goes: I write them on my phone. *** Most of the writing happens in those moments that could otherwise be wasted moments–while waiting for the subway, standing in line somewhere, sitting on the subway, sitting Continue reading
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On Grid Matrix Sequencers: The ToneMatrix
“The most exciting game for me is the space game, the search of possible space shapes, that is to say the logical and concrete building of various layouts.” – Ernő Rubik, inventor of the Rubik’s Cube If there is a guiding shape for electronic music making in our time, surely it’s the grid matrix–that 4×4-, 8×8-, Continue reading
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On Techlust: Native Instruments’ Maschine
I’m at Tekserve, in the audio department, and I spot a beauty: Native Instruments’ Maschine, a hardware-software rhythm machine. I move in for a closer inspection. Its top is made of metal and I run my fingers across the smooth, cool brushed surface. I pick up the musical object off the display table and assess Continue reading
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On The Most Human Human
In his book The Most Human Human, an engaging account of competing in the annual Turing test, Brian Christian ranges far and wide through the literature of AI (artificial intelligence), linguistics, computer science, philosophy and even poetry to figure out what exactly makes us distinctly human and distinctly different from machines. The Turing test was conceived by Alan Turing, Continue reading
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On Headphones
In a recent New York Times article on the dangers and downsides of headphone us, Virginia Heffernan makes the case that headphones–those little earbuds that are placed inside the ear, actually–put users at risk for early hearing loss. Not only that, but they isolate us from one another; headphones are an antisocial technology. Herffernan elaborates: Continue reading
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The 1980s Revisited: Synthesizers, Drum Machines and La Roux
In the early 1980s, just as I was getting seriously interested in music, electronic musical instruments were getting seriously interesting and affordable. I spent a lot of time lurking around the back section of music stores and even home organ stores (yes, they used to have such places; do they still?) fiddling with the then brand-new Roland Continue reading
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