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brettworks

thinking through music


  • September 3, 2024

    Art About Music: Nikita Gale’s “Tempo Rubato (Stolen Time)”, 2023-24

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    art about music
  • August 30, 2024

    Art About Music: Thomas Hart Benton’s “Evening Concert” (1952-1963) & “Sources of Country Music” (1973)

    Thomas Hart Benton, Evening Concert (1952-1963) Thomas Hart Benton, Sources of Country Music (1973) Continue reading

    art about music
  • August 29, 2024

    Same Walk, Different Music: Photek’s “The Hidden Camera” (1996)

    Photek, “The Hidden Camera” (1996). This track is classic drum and bass that exemplifies the genre’s rhythmic inventiveness and orchestrational-arrangement resourcefulness. Photek (Rupert Parkes) builds seven minutes of music around eight or so parts that enter and exit the mix at 8- and 16-bar intervals. The through line is a skittish breakbeat (kick and snare Continue reading

    same walk, different music
  • August 28, 2024

    Double Drones

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    Uncategorized
  • August 26, 2024

    Keywords: Quick Mixes

    (Image: Fons Heijnsbroek) Quick mixes are brief sessions devoted to getting a track’s parts into a rough balance of volume, frequency, panning, texture-tone color, and presence. The track has been finished for a while and now you return to it with fresh ears to notice all that’s wrong. The voices sound dull and need a Continue reading

    keywords, mixing
  • August 22, 2024

    Brett’s Sound Picks: Loidis’s “Dollarama” (2024)

    2024 playlist Continue reading

    Brett’s Sound Picks, Uncategorized
  • August 19, 2024

    Keywords: Artistic North Stars

    (Photo: NASA/Preston Dyches) Influence is everywhere and diffuse, but we know people whose work and life we turn to for concentrated inspiration, sympathetic vibration, and to re-orient ourselves on our own adventure. These people are our artistic North Stars. They’re our teachers, contemporaries, or figures distant in time and place who inspire us with how Continue reading

    keywords
  • August 16, 2024

    Database: JakoJako On Getting A Bit Of Distance

    “As soon as a track is finished, or I think it’s time to put it to the side and start something new, at that point it’s good to actually leave some time in between before you listen to it again–you get a little bit of distance. As soon as you turn the track on you Continue reading

    database
  • August 15, 2024

    Brett’s Sound Picks: Clark’s “Green Breaking” (2024)

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    Brett’s Sound Picks
  • August 14, 2024

    Resonant Thoughts: Robert Farrar Capon’s “The Supper of the Lamb: A Culinary Reflection” (2002)

    “Technique must be acquired, and, with technique, a love of the very processes of cooking. No artist can work simply for results; he must also like the work of getting them.” (…) “Interest in results never conquers boredom with process.” Robert Farrar Capon, The Supper of the Lamb Continue reading

    Uncategorized
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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.

Recent Posts

  • Brett’s Sound Picks: Musicentrydelete’s “Depth” (2025)
  • When Less Leads To More
  • Omni 98 bpm
  • Drumming Diaries: Grip
  • Resonant Thoughts: Molly Bang’s “Picture This” (1991/2016)

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