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brettworks

thinking through music


  • September 23, 2019

    On Music Production’s Repeated Listenings

    “My work is a progressive revelation of something which exists independently of me. Attention is rewarded by a knowledge of reality.”  – Iris Murdoch, in Matthew B. Crawford, The World Beyond Your Head, p. 127 “I can’t begin to describe how that simple act of repetition back then made me so ecstatically happy—but it did.… Continue reading

    music production, Uncategorized
  • September 20, 2019

    Searches That Brought You Here: Nils Frahm, David Hockney, and J. Dilla

    • Nils Frahm Delay. This search brought you to my post about the music of Nils Frahm. I wrote: “The album alternates between intimate solo piano work that is perhaps Frahm’s signature quietudes sound, and more expansive (and long) pieces built upon rolling electronic keyboard arpeggios swirling in delay-effected, rhythm deluges.” • Hockney perspective. This… Continue reading

    searches that brought you here, Uncategorized
  • September 19, 2019

    Resonant Thoughts: Lewis Hyde’s “A Primer for Forgetting” (2019)

    “I gave up facts entirely in order to have an empty mind for inspiration to come into…You have to practice quiet, empty mind. I gave up the intellect entirely. I had a hard time giving up evolution and the atomic theory but I managed it…And I never have any ideas myself. I’m very careful not… Continue reading

    Resonant Thoughts
  • September 18, 2019

    Brett’s Sound Picks: Barker’s “Paradise Engineering” (2019)

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    Brett’s Sound Picks, Uncategorized
  • September 17, 2019

    Art About Music: Gustav Klimt’s “Music” (1895)

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    art about music, Uncategorized
  • September 16, 2019

    EQ Reveries

    I was listening to a part of a piece solo while EQing it. I had the sound’s waveform displayed in the EQ so I could see where its primary frequencies were happening and not happening, and my goal was to accentuate these frequencies and reduce (shelve) the less important ones at the margins. The part… Continue reading

    EQ, Uncategorized
  • September 13, 2019

    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

    listening, poetry, Uncategorized
  • September 12, 2019

    Resonant Thoughts: Leonard Koren’s “What Artists Do” (2018)

    “If you really want to separate your work from everyone else’s, every time you come to a Y in the road, don’t think about which way to go; automatically take the toughest route. Everybody else is taking the easiest one.” – Richard Serra in Leonard Koren’s What Artists Do (2018)   Continue reading

    Resonant Thoughts, Uncategorized
  • September 11, 2019

    Brett’s Sound Picks: 36’s “Find You” (2019)

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    Brett’s Sound Picks
  • September 10, 2019

    Art About Music: Domenico Fetti’s “Portrait of a Man with a Sheet of Music” (c. 1620)

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    art about music, Uncategorized
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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.

Recent Posts

  • Drumming Diaries: Energies of Performance
  • Brett’s Sound Picks: øjeRum’s “I (2026 remaster)”
  • In The Works: 28 April
  • Resonant Thoughts: John Berger’s “Permanent Red: Essays in Seeing” (1960/2025)
  • Stolen Moments Are Open-Ended

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