brettworks

thinking through music

  • Music Travels Cont’d

    Nine-year old Willow Smith has an infectious pop hit circulating the Internet (a full album seems to be forthcoming).  “Whip My Hair” is an intense affirmation song and is good repetitious fun: Here’s a cover of the song rendered on piano in a ragtime-jazz-ish style.  I don’t know who the pianist is, but you can… Continue reading

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  • You Are The Controller

    Last week Microsoft released the Kinect controller for their XBox video game console.  The Kinect is being hailed/hyped as the next step in gaming technology as it does away with the most annoying part of the gaming experience: those little handheld controllers that serve as an interface between the player and the game.  Nintendo’s Wii… Continue reading

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  • Musical Memes: A Bassline Travels

    In a recent (and fascinating) New York Times article on the resurgence of soul music among young and mostly white singers (“Can a Nerd Have Soul?“), we’re reintroduced to The Supremes’ 1960s Motown classic, “You Can’t Hurry Love.” Propelling that uptempo hit is James Jamerson’s 8-note bass line (with a rhythm kinda like: 1-2, 1-2, 1-2-3,… Continue reading

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  • Apple Commercials and Musical Minimalism

    Apple computer makes magnificent TV ads for its products: the commercials are visual case studies in sleek minimalism, computer or iPhone set again a pure black or white background, a disembodied hand showing the viewer just how simple it is to work with this technology.  Carefully chosen music is part of what makes Apple’s commercials… Continue reading

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  • Sound Exploring

    If you make electronic music of any type you can’t get around the inescapable fact of needing and wanting to explore new sounds.  Back in the early days of electronic music–think Stockhausen, Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky–making electronic sounds was a laborious process.  One had to layer sine tones, or manipulate magnetic tape, or deal… Continue reading

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  • Eno & Co. Improvising Electronic Music

    Ambient music guru Brian Eno recently released a recording called Small Craft On a Milk Sea (2010 Opal Ltd.).  Perhaps as part of a promotional strategy for the new release (?), Eno is making a series of seven videos called “Seven Sessions On a Milk Sea” documenting improvised performances with two other musicians (Jon Hopkins… Continue reading

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  • Acoustic Territories

    A recent addition to the growing literature on the field of sound studies is Brandon LaBelle’s Acoustic Territories: Sound Culture and Everyday Life (Continuum 2010).  LaBelle is a sound artist, writer, and editor of Errant Bodies Press (which brought us the book African Feedback).  Acoustic Territories offers an acoustic politics of space, or what the… Continue reading

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  • Making Musical Systems Public

    Over the years, a lot of electronic musicians have shrouded their work in a veil of mystery: they tell us very little about how they make their music–the tools the use, their working methods, and so forth.  We are reminded of vinyl DJs back in the day who would cover up the labels on their… Continue reading

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  • The Music of Arvo Pärt

    Arvo Part‘s music moves me.  It could be the scales he uses, his sense of silence and space, the dissonances and unresolved tensions–all that musical stuff–but I suspect that it’s also something more.  Born in Estonia in 1935, Part is considered one of the most important living composers of sacred concert music.  His music has… Continue reading

  • C.Wright Mills: On Intellectual Craftsmanship

    “Thinking is a struggle for order and at the same time for comprehensiveness.” – C. Wright Mills Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962) was an American sociologist best remembered for his 1959 book The Sociological Imagination (which is still in print). For me, one remarkable aspect of the book is its Appendix, “On Intellectual Craftsmanship.” Here Mills… Continue reading

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