brettworks

thinking through music

March 3, 2025

Pulsation and Long Tones

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groovology
February 28, 2025

Newsletter Recommendation: Letters From An American

Historian Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters From An American is a daily newsletter (text and audio) about the history behind today’s politics. Continue reading

reading recommendations
February 26, 2025

Brett’s Sound Picks: Barker’s “Stjernenatt” (2025)

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Brett’s Sound Picks
February 25, 2025

Curating The Week: AI Writing Assistants, Zone 2 Training, New Musical Instruments

An essay on AI writing assistants. “Letting a robot structure your argument, or flatten your style by removing the quirky elements, is dangerous. It’s a streamlined way to flatten the human mind, to homogenize human thought. We know who we are, at least in part, by finding the words—messy, imprecise, unexpected—to tell others, and ourselves,… Continue reading

Curating The Week
February 24, 2025

From The Archives: “nunc” (2022)

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from the archives
February 21, 2025

Database: Kelly Lee Owens On Creating Music On An Instrument To Take Away Doubt

“Think about it. When you’re programming stuff into the computer, you are constantly assessing what it sounds like and whether this note needs to be changed. It’s a constant interruption because that’s how your brain works. But if you create a piece of music on an instrument and immediately record that, you are taking away… Continue reading

database
February 20, 2025

Brett’s Sound Picks: Anouar Brahem’s “After the Last Sky” (2025)

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Brett’s Sound Picks
February 19, 2025

Atelier: Piano Duo

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atelier, piano music
February 17, 2025

Resonant Thoughts: Nicholas Carr’s “Superbloom” (2025)

“The way we see the social and political environment, the way we create a picture of reality through the welter of messages furnished by our ever more encompassing media, is and always will be refracted by scanty attention, by the poverty of language, by distraction, by unconscious constellations of feeling, by wear and tear, violence,… Continue reading

Resonant Thoughts
February 14, 2025

Curating The Week: Social Media, Attention, Note-Taking, The Simplification Of Music

• An essay on social media. “On social media, everyone believes that anyone to whom they have access owes them an audience: a writer who posted a take, a celebrity who announced a project, a pretty girl just trying to live her life, that anon who said something afflictive. When network connections become activated for… Continue reading

Curating The Week

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.