Skip to content
    • about
    • ai in music resources
    • archives
    • art about music
    • atelier
    • books
    • brett’s sound picks
    • database (a cache of perceptions)
    • film
    • interview
    • keywords
    • music
    • thought tools
    • ventrilo-dialogues

brettworks

thinking through music


  • September 6, 2013

    Music Distillation: On King Crimson’s “Nuages (That Which Passes, Passes Like Clouds)”

    Skittering sub bump, synth chords floating harmonies, sobbing lead guitar. Continue reading

    music distillation
    lead guitar
  • September 4, 2013

    On The Music In Apple’s FaceTime Commercial

    “Seeing music as a model could seem cold or trivializing. But the urgencies and the passions of living are among the things that music models: music doesn’t belong to the detached world of mathematical modeling. And there is nothing trivial about the musical enterprise: it is far removed from toy model airplanes or fashion models… Continue reading

    advertising, Technology, wonder
  • August 20, 2013

    On African And Electronic Music Influences In Dawn Of Midi’s “Dysnomia”

    “Dysnomia is an album about time; it is an expression of the fractal unfolding of the present, demonstrated through rhythm.” – Aakaash Israni, bassist There’s a part near the end of John Collins’ excellent documentary on West African rhythm, Listening To The Silence: African Cross-Rhythms, where Collins makes a striking observation. African music, he says, is… Continue reading

    African music, Electronic music, music criticism
  • August 15, 2013

    Music Distillation: On Dawn Of Midi’s “Algol”

    Stasis as tension, stable fragments as timeline, offbeat becomes on. Read more about music distillations here. Continue reading

    music distillation
    stasis, tension, timeline
  • August 13, 2013

    Music Distillation: On AlunaGeorge’s “Your Drums, Your Love”

    Triple pitch drumming, saccharine auto-tuned voice, synthetic joy-noise. Continue reading

    music distillation
    entertainment, music, www youtube
  • August 8, 2013

    On Musical Time And Running Speed

    One night I was playing my part, listening to the part of another musician. All systems were running smoothly, and we were in sync. Then, suddenly, I had a sense that the other musician was pushing the time, just a hair. My ears perk up: Oh, this is interesting. I was sure of my sense that… Continue reading

    musical time, musings
  • August 6, 2013

    Borrowed Thoughts: Notes On Four Words

    curiosity ~ desire to know intuition ~ the faculty of attaining direct knowledge or cognition without rational thought and inference kind ~ of a sympathetic or helpful nature wonder ~ rapt attention at something awesomely mysterious or new to one’s experience Continue reading

    borrowed thoughts, self-help
  • August 2, 2013

    Music Distillation: On James Blake’s “Digital Lion”

    Chromatic voices, chords and oscillating bass, halftime pulse, steady. Read more about music distillations here. Continue reading

    music distillation
    youtube
  • August 1, 2013

    General Notes On Practice

    Practice is the pudding’s proof. Practice tests the theory. Practice is physical, experiential, and embodied knowledge. Practice can’t lie. Practice is the best you can do at this moment. Practice reveals how much you know (and didn’t even know you knew). Practice is a level playing field. Practice is tradition’s transportation. Practice problematizes tradition, highlighting… Continue reading

    practice theory, self-help
  • July 26, 2013

    On Small Joys Of Making Electronic Music

    One small joy for me with electronic music is the sounds. Oh the crazy interesting sounds! It’s easy to find sounds that excite me in ways that acoustic sounds don’t always do. Electronic sounds seem infinitely open and malleable, responsive to my limitations and even my (brief) moments of control. Electronic sounds are also mysterious… Continue reading

    creative strategies, Electronic music
«Previous Page Next Page»

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

  • Same Walk, Different Music: Actress, Suzanne Ciani, “Concrète Waves London B2” (2026).
  • Brett’s Sound Picks: Actress and Suzanne Ciani’s “Concrète Waves Barcelona B4” (2026)
  • The Real, The Virtual, and Thinking Compositionally
  • No. 6
  • Art About Music: “When Is That Young Man Going Home?” (1931)

Subscribe To Brettworks


©

brettworks

2022, All Rights Reserved.

Blog at WordPress.com.

 

Loading Comments...
 

You must be logged in to post a comment.

    • Subscribe Subscribed
      • brettworks
      • Join 745 other subscribers
      • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
      • brettworks
      • Subscribe Subscribed
      • Sign up
      • Log in
      • Report this content
      • View site in Reader
      • Manage subscriptions
      • Collapse this bar