brettworks

thinking through music

October 6, 2025

Melodica

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October 3, 2025

Musical Remodeling as Defamiliarizing

Recently I’ve been remodeling music I haven’t yet released. I like the original tracks as they are, but remodeling is an opportunity to build a surprise, a chance to hear what happens when one’s prior work is bracketed and used as material for new music. The most exciting part of remodeling is defamiliarizing a track… Continue reading

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music production
October 2, 2025

Art About Music: DMG Audio’s Equilibrium EQ (2025)

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art about music
September 30, 2025

Curating The Week: Essay Writing, Zombie Democracy, Alva Noto, AI as Magical Thinking

• An essay by Zadie Smith about writing essays. “I developed a different sense of what an essay could be. I understood all three men to be ‘personal essayists’ in the sense that they cared passionately about their subjects, but they themselves were rarely figures in any particular piece; their energies were directed elsewhere. And… Continue reading

Curating The Week

AI, artificial-intelligence, education, writing
September 29, 2025

Renaci (Cycles Version)

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cycles version
September 25, 2025

Resonant Thoughts: Lewis Hyde’s “A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past” (2020)

“Memory and forgetting: these are the faculties of mind by which we are aware of time, and time is a mystery. In addition, a long tradition holds that the imagination is best conceived as operating with a mixture of memory and forgetting. Creation—things coming into being that never were before—that too is a mystery. Writers… Continue reading

creative epistemologies, Resonant Thoughts
September 23, 2025

Curating The Week: Awe, Brian Eno’s Legacy, Daily Rhythms

• An essay on awe. “Unlike the dark passions, awe is a pro-social emotion. It can encourage attitudes of generosity and altruism; of selflessness, empathy, and compassion. The sense that we are part of something vast and meaningful can create bonds of connection.” • An essay on Brian Eno’s legacy. “It’s possible, today, to go… Continue reading

Curating The Week
September 22, 2025

Tenebrae (Cycles Version)

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abundance, atelier, cycles version
September 19, 2025

Embered

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September 18, 2025

Brett’s Sound Picks: Verses GT’s “Left” (2025)

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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.