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brettworks

thinking through music


  • November 14, 2017

    (parenthetical thoughts)

    (Harold Budd is walking in sandals around the shrubs and weeds of his backyard in Pasadena, California. It’s mid-afternoon, hot and sunny out. He kicks a stone that triggers a tiny dust explosion on his feet. Over the backyard are two telephone wires, a white bird sitting still on one of them. Budd is thinking… Continue reading

    (parenthetical posts), (parenthetical thoughts), Uncategorized
  • November 13, 2017

    EQ As Musical Process

    Continue reading

    EQ, musical process, Uncategorized
  • November 10, 2017

    On Writing About Music and Making Music

    I spend about equal time writing about music and making music and these experiences are quite different from one another. When I’m writing about music I’m on the outside of it, listening in. It feels like the music is far away—as if it’s a foreign craft practiced by a different kind of person than me… Continue reading

    playing music, writing about music
  • November 9, 2017

    (parenthetical thoughts)

    (One of the most beautiful musical moments that happens from time to time: I’m listening to something and a single tone, moving from a lower pitch to one higher, sends me towards revelation, into a thought cloud realization that I may have music all wrong. It’s not the sound that’s beautiful (the piano is nice… Continue reading

    (parenthetical thoughts), Uncategorized
  • November 8, 2017

    Resonant Thoughts: On Pascal Quignard’s “The Hatred Of Music”

      “Music is what man owes to time” (85). “It is possible that listening to music consists less in distracting be mind from ‘acoustic suffering’ than in struggling to reestablish animal alert. What characterizes harmony is that it resuscitates the acoustic curiosity that is lost as soon as articulated and semantic language spreads within us”… Continue reading

    Resonant Thoughts, Uncategorized
  • November 7, 2017

    On Music Performance As Epistemological Journey

    An idea that has influenced me this past year comes from the writer Geoff Dyer: All the best essays are epistemological journeys from ignorance or curiosity to knowledge. I have mentioned Dyer numerous times on this blog. He’s the author of a remarkable fictionalized non-fiction book about jazz, But Beautiful, and a classic set of… Continue reading

    epistemological journeys, Uncategorized
  • November 6, 2017

    Gould’s Bach

    Gould found music in geography fusing Bach with Canadian North cold weather counterpoint snow blanketed fugues solitary driving as three-part invention the self on wheels and radio hearing in seasons articulate matter. Continue reading

    poetry, Uncategorized
  • November 3, 2017

    Curating The Week: Alan Watts, Jonathan Gold, Kelela

    • Alan Watts makes a musical analogy. • A food critic interviews himself about how he came by his views of a restaurant. “Because [chef] Jordan Kahn is playing with modes of dining that have never before been articulated. Because months after your meal, images and juxtapositions will flash through your thoughts, as vivid as… Continue reading

    Curating The Week, Uncategorized
  • November 2, 2017

    Frustration Music

    Composing fixes the broken sounds and captures out of reach melodies of every desire: distant scores passing arrangements living orchestrations soundtracks for the unheard experience is polyphonic but we sing only one line at a time. Continue reading

    music and frustration, poetry, Uncategorized
  • November 1, 2017

    Visual Culture

    Maybe the Instagrammers are right— a photo’s worth is more than words’ affect shown besting the described colors not letters retro-filtered immediately digested chronicling proof that a selfie’s gift is adoring the present. Continue reading

    poetry, 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

  • Database: Arovane On Decisive Sources Of Good Musical Ideas
  • Musical Ideas
  • 2 September
  • Curating the Week: Juggling, Music Teachers, Writing, Tacit Knowledge in Research
  • 8000 Studies

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