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thinking through music


  • March 23, 2018

    Curating The Week: Mouse On Mars, Carlos Kleiber, A Watchmaker

    • An article about Mouse On Mars. “Music is a strong anarchic force,” Mr. St. Werner said. “It’s probably our last bastion of anarchic wilderness, that trace of nature that keeps just growing, keeps crossbreeding, keeps immigrating and migrating and cross-fertilizing and expanding our perceptual apparatus. It’s also a great means for orientation and for… Continue reading

    Curating The Week, Uncategorized
  • March 22, 2018

    Lessons From Dilla 3: The Bass Can Walk Or Wander

    The bass can walk or wander from the drum rhythm.  Continue reading

    beat programming, hip hop, lessons from Dilla, Uncategorized
  • March 21, 2018

    Freestyle: Music Aphorisms 4

    There’s musical repetition that creates a groove, and repetition that stands in for having new ideas. In some musics these two functions co-exist. Electronic music instructional videos would be more inspiring if they showed emotional composing/improvising/performing in addition to problem-solving. Electronic music compensates for the lack of physicality in its production through an excess of… Continue reading

    freestyle, music aphorisms, Uncategorized
  • March 20, 2018

    Art About Music: Eno And Fripp’s Signal-Delay System (c. 1973)

    Continue reading

    art about music, Uncategorized
  • March 19, 2018

    On Click Tracks And Going Off The Grid

    If you record your music using digital audio workstation (DAW) software such Apple Logic, Garageband, Ableton Live, or Digital Performer, you’ll notice that every time you go to hit Record a metronome click synced to your file’s tempo automatically clicks into action. The default tempo is 120 bpm (the optimal electronic dance music tempo) and… Continue reading

    click tracks, grid thinking, Uncategorized
  • March 16, 2018

    Curating The Week: Film Sound Design, AI-Generated Art, African Music In Film Scores

    • A video explaining how film sound design shapes our perception. • An article about AI-generated art. “What happens in a world where effort and scarcity are no longer part of the definition of art?” • An article about incorporating African musics into Hollywood film scores. “The most difficult part is that as soon as… Continue reading

    Curating The Week, Uncategorized
  • March 15, 2018

    Lessons From Dilla 2: Contrast Dry With Atmospheric

    Contrast the dry beat with an atmospheric keyboard sample. Continue reading

    beat programming, creative strategies, hip hop, lessons from Dilla, Uncategorized
  • March 14, 2018

    Theory As Poetry: John Mowitt’s “Music in the era of electronic reproducibility” (1987)

    music, as an organization of noise or sound, arises within the structure of listening music’s social significance derives from the role it plays in the stabilization of this structure, that is, how it articulates and consolidates structurally necessary practices of listening. – John Mowitt, “Music in the era of electronic reproducibility” in Music And Society,… Continue reading

    theory as poetry, Uncategorized
  • March 13, 2018

    Art About Music: Constantin Piliuță’s (1929-2003) “Lautari” (n.d.)

    Continue reading

    art about music, Uncategorized
  • March 12, 2018

    On Cymbals, Music, And Nonlinearity

    nonlinear – not sequential or straightforward; (physics) involving a lack of linearity between two qualities such as input and output; (mathematics) – involving measurement in more than one dimension One day a few weeks ago, while nowhere near any musical instruments, I found myself thinking about the sound of cymbals—how their infinite variety of pwssshhh sounds… Continue reading

    nonlinearity, 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

  • Art About Music: “When Is That Young Man Going Home?” (1931)
  • Curating The Week: Freedom, Exceptionalism, Finishing
  • Curating The Archive: Of Slow Voices (5.2.2022)
  • Database: Laura Cannell On The Mechanics Of Acoustic Instruments, Improvising, And Simple Motifs
  • Omni 128 bpm

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