brettworks

thinking through music

May 12, 2020

Art About Music: Henri Matisse’s “Music” (1910)

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art about music, Uncategorized
May 11, 2020

The Sketch Method

“The strategy is, then, to tinker as much as possible and try to collect as many Black Swan opportunities as you can.” – Nassim Taleb, The Black Swan, p. xxv One way of consistently producing music is to use the sketch method. A sketch is an idea for a track that happens not through pre-planning… Continue reading

sketch method, Uncategorized
May 8, 2020

Curating The Week: Soundscapes, Drone Instruments, A Newsletter

• Adjustable soundscapes at MyNoise.net. • An article about a composer and her long-stringed drone instrument. “Try to find resonances — textural miracles that are confusing as to structure but spinning and mesmerizing.” • Nadia Eghbal’s newsletter. “I’m enjoying learning how to interact using a new, proprioceptive set of senses. Yes, it’s tactile, but I’m… Continue reading

Curating The Week, Uncategorized
May 7, 2020

Prince And The LM-1: Four Lessons

I wrote an article for Popular Music & Society about how Prince used Roger Linn’s first drum machine, the LM-1 Drum Computer. The article explores Prince’s LM-1 rhythm programming techniques and sound ideals by considering song examples, interviews with Prince’s engineers and musicians, and online fan discussion. I argue that given the constraints of music technologies… Continue reading

drum machines, rhythm programming, Uncategorized
May 6, 2020

Ben Lukas Boysen’s “Love” (2020)

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Brett’s Sound Picks, Uncategorized
May 5, 2020

Art About Music: William Sidney Mount’s “Dance of the Haymakers” (1845)

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art about music, traditional grip, Uncategorized, unconventional measures
May 1, 2020

Curating The Week: Kevin Kelly, Vinyl Cutting, Brian Eno

• Kevin Kelly’s advice. “Art is in what you leave out.” • An article on vinyl album cutting. “The game is trying to do something that is anti-generic.” • Jon Pareles on the music of Brian Eno. “Amorphous, open-ended, unstructured time, with undercurrents of foreboding, pockets of boredom and fleeting interludes of peace or reassessment.” Continue reading

Curating The Week, Uncategorized
April 30, 2020

Song Structures Versus Sound Sculptures

One key to electronic music production is learning to devise ways to expand what you happen to have right now into something something you can’t yet hear. What you have right now might be a rhythm, a bass line, a sequence of chords, a burst of noise, a loop, or ten minutes of field recordings… Continue reading

music production, musical process, workflow, working knowledge
April 29, 2020

Brett’s Sound Picks: Lorenzo Senni’s “Canone Infinito” (2020)

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Brett’s Sound Picks, Uncategorized
April 28, 2020

Art About Music: Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s “Music Lesson” (1769)

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art about music, keyboard music, Uncategorized

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.