-
Keywords: Musical Spells, Musical Clichés
Along the spectrum of possible musics the musician-composer-producer can make, two types are most important: that which casts a spell, and that which sounds cliché. Music that casts a spell has power: it creates a state of enchantment through its sounds and what they do. Enchanting music enchants by many means: through orchestration and timbre-textures, Continue reading
-
Resonant Thoughts: Benjamin Swett’s “The Picture Not Taken: On Life and Photography” (2024)
“I keep coming back to Cartier-Bresson and his paradoxical ethos of a technical prowess that cares not for technique. ‘People think far too much about technique,’ he says in one of his famous aphorisms, “and not enough about seeing.’” “Consider what happens when you take a picture—I mean, what is going on inside you, the Continue reading
-
Keywords: No Expectations
No expectations is an approach to workflow as open-ended and non-determined. The mindset celebrates continual play on your musical system’s edges: exploring tools, trying things out, noticing how the sounds feel and work on you rather than having preset, a priori ideas of how you should use them. Play a few chords, turn a few Continue reading
-
Database: Jack Stratton On Hyped-Up Versus Doing Their Little Thing Sounds
“For a while there—and I have to credit a friend with this phrase—we lived under the Rule of the Solo Button, where every instrument sounded lush and big. So you got these really hyped-up sounds—and it’s cool when everything’s hyped up. It’s kind of like the Chipotle burrito, where every element you could just eat Continue reading
-
Resonant Thoughts: Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny” (2017)
“It is your ability to discern facts that makes you an individual, and our collective trust in common knowledge that makes us a society. The individual who investigates is also the citizen who builds. The leader who dislikes the investigators is a potential tyrant.” “Since in the age of the internet we are all publishers, Continue reading
-
Resonant Thoughts: Michael Crawley’s “To The Limit: The Meaning of Endurance from Mexico to the Himalayas” (2024)
“You have to be able to feel where the edge is in particular training sessions, to have a sense of pace from the catch of your breath and the weight of your legs, and you have to be able to be attentive to the background fatigue that is the constant companion of any athlete.” “‘You Continue reading
brettworks 