brettworks

thinking through music

  • On Hildur Gudnadottir’s Without Sinking

    One way to make a claim for your innate listening acumen is to figure out which recordings in your collection you return to again and again.  Which ones reward repeated listenings?  A recording that does just this–and not merely offer itself up for one more remix (any recording can claim that status)–is probably pretty special… Continue reading

  • What Chord Are You?

    Could a chord–two or more pitches sounding simultaneously–capture your essence, sum up who and how you feel yourself to be at a particular time and place? Are you a sunny major triad kind of person, or a minor key tolling?  Are you open and consonant, in tune with yourself, like a perfect octave or fifth?… Continue reading

  • On Bassweight

    The documentary DVD Bassweight offers an overview of the emergence of dubstep, perhaps the most significant vector in the past few years of electronic dance music.  Dubstep originated in South East London in the late 1990s, growing out of instrumental dub remixes of the two-step garage sound, combining its rapid-fire, double time feel with the sub-bass basslines of dub and a… Continue reading

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  • On Headphones

    In a recent New York Times article on the dangers and downsides of headphone us, Virginia Heffernan makes the case that headphones–those little earbuds that are placed inside the ear, actually–put users at risk for early hearing loss.  Not only that, but they isolate us from one another; headphones are an antisocial technology.  Herffernan elaborates:… Continue reading

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  • Categorizing (One’s) Music

    If you want to set up, as I recently did, an artist account at CDBaby to sell your music, you will be directed to a screen where you will be asked not only to succinctly describe your sound, but also categorize the material in terms of pre-existing labels. For my description I wrote this: “This collection of… Continue reading

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  • The 1980s Revisited: Synthesizers, Drum Machines and La Roux

    In the early 1980s, just as I was getting seriously interested in music, electronic musical instruments were getting seriously interesting and affordable.  I spent a lot of time lurking around the back section of music stores and even home organ stores (yes, they used to have such places; do they still?) fiddling with the then brand-new Roland… Continue reading

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  • Addendum On The Unwanted Sound

    There is one other point I wanted to make note of regarding Garret Keizer’s The Unwanted Sound Of Everything We Want. At the end of the book in a discussion of the U.S. Supreme Court’s case Ward v. Rock Against Racism (1989) Keizer makes the offhand observation that “rock music . . . may be… Continue reading

  • Euphony Groove And The Prospect Of New “World” Music

    From 2000-2006 I was part of a most interesting (to us, anyways) music ensemble called Euphony Groove.  Euphony, meaning “wellness of voice” and groove, “a rhythm that repeats” formed the group’s mantra: music can make us well, over and over again.  Euphony Groove brought together musical traditions and sounds from Turkey, North Africa, China and… Continue reading

  • Sound Is Ethereal

    I saw this a year ago in a display for a high-end speaker . . . Continue reading

  • Garret Keizer On Noise And The Logic Of The Loud

    In his remarkable book, The Unwanted Sound Of Everything We Want (2010), Garret Keizer asks seeks meaningful answers to big questions about that most ubiquitous species of sound that surrounds almost all of us today: noise.  He wants to understand what our world sounds like, as well as how we would like it to sound, so he talks… Continue reading