brettworks

thinking through music

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  • On The Wellness Of Voice: Sounding Om

    Yoga class. The lights are off, the dark space peaceful, and we sit quietly on our mats, legs crossed, hands prayed in front of our chests — Namaste. With one unison breath we chant Om on a single unison pitch– centering and togetherness through collective sound. We’re a choir of Om. But there’s a problem.… Continue reading

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  • On Musical Time and Drummers’ Brains

    In a recent article by the always interesting Bikhard Bilger in this week’s The New Yorker (April 25), we learn about David Eagleman’s research on the brain and time perception.  Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Baylor College, wants to understand how we experience time, an especially interesting question considering how subjective time can feel in those moments when… Continue reading

  • On Information, Musical Memes And Earworms

    For James Gleick, author of the recent book The Information, information has a life of its own independent of us.  In a recent interview on On Point radio he says:: “We live in a world where information passes from machine to machine.  We know that when it’s stored in material forms and when one machine talks to… Continue reading

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  • Notes On Music Criticism from Tony Herrington

    If you have an interest in writing about musical experience (as a student, critic, academic, or simply as a music blogging individual) you may find Tony Herrington’s notes on music criticism particularly edifying (I know I did).  Herrington is a contributor to The Wire, one of the best sources for insightful writing about exciting new… Continue reading

  • From Quadraphonic To Good Enough Sound

    Why did quadraphonic sound never catch on? Was it because no one wanted to have to set up four speakers instead of two?  Was it just too expensive and cumbersome?  Was it because its various formats were incompatible with one another?  Or did folks somehow collectively decide that stereo was good enough? Quadraphonic or “Quad” sound was first… Continue reading

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  • Addendum On The Unwanted Sound

    There is one other point I wanted to make note of regarding Garret Keizer’s The Unwanted Sound Of Everything We Want. At the end of the book in a discussion of the U.S. Supreme Court’s case Ward v. Rock Against Racism (1989) Keizer makes the offhand observation that “rock music . . . may be… Continue reading

  • Guest Post: Talia Jimenez on Cells

    Today I share with a guest post by my friend Talia Jimenez.  Talia is a musicologist who also blogs on exercise (http://myexercisehabit.blogspot.com).  Thanks for your post Talia! * * * After a beautifully focused yoga workout, our instructor has us lie down in sava or dead pose.  His narration guides us through each one of our… Continue reading

  • Interviews with Roger Linn

    Instrument designer and musician Roger Linn is perhaps most famous for inventing the first drum machines (in the early 1980s) to use digitally sampled drum sounds, the LM-1 and LinnDrum.  In the years since, Linn teamed up with Akai to invent the MPC-series of drum machines/sequencers, and lately Linn has turned his attention to making… Continue reading

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  • More Cookery-Music Connections: Texture and Timbre

    In a video podcast lecture available on iTunes U, the chef Grant Achatz discusses the creative process involved in arriving at new dishes.  In a short video from the lecture Achatz introduces what he calls “flavor bouncing.”  He begins with a single ingredient/flavor (white beans) and then maps a list of possible other ingredients/flavors (bacon, beer, almonds…) that could successfully “bounce off”… Continue reading