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brettworks

thinking through music


  • March 12, 2024

    Music Box No. 13

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    atelier
  • March 11, 2024

    Keywords: Prompts

    Why am I working on this? Sometimes your music making answers this question, but often it doesn’t. So it can be helpful to think about possibilities and paths of action before you start by devising prompts to orient yourself in directions you could go. A prompt is a phrase to guide, inspire, and energize your Continue reading

    keywords
  • March 7, 2024

    The Alchemy Of Imperfection

    (Photo: Drazen Nesic) Many music production tools steer us towards perfection. With a click we load a sample with immaculate verisimilitude to a real instrument, auto tune errant vocal pitches by cents or semitones, quantize a shaky drum hit to the nearest sixteenth note or downbeat safe haven, loop a phrase to exactly four measures, Continue reading

    imperfection
  • March 5, 2024

    Database: Trent Reznor On Liking The Way The Other One Sounded

    “We’ve been having that happen a little bit with orchestral stuff, too, a couple scores we recently did. The intention was just dropping some Spitfire strings to mock-up something and then when it’s time to do it for real, after you’ve spent a fuck-load of money and add 1,000 people in and an orchestrator and Continue reading

    database
  • March 4, 2024

    OV 7

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    atelier
  • March 1, 2024

    Musical Prompts: Four Rooms

    In a large gallery with white walls and hardwood floors, heard from the end of the room. A pad sound plays loud and long chord washes, while the sub bass underneath moves away from root notes. The sound overwhelms the room and you. It’s hard to tell if the music is repeating or not. In Continue reading

    musical prompts
    Electronic music, jazz, music, new music, reviews
  • February 29, 2024

    Resonant Thoughts: Philip Guston’s “I Paint What I Want To See” (2022)

    “Where do you put a form? It will move all around, bellow out and shrink, and sometimes it winds up where it was in the first place. But at the end it feels different, and it had to make the voyage. I am a moralist and cannot accept what has not been paid for, or Continue reading

    Resonant Thoughts
  • February 28, 2024

    Database: Jan Jelinek On Risking Breaks In Style And Open-Ended Results

    “I was never interested in repeating, extending or improving one certain production methods. Even though I value artists who follow this strategy, it never became a perspective for myself. The concept of a rapid, erratic and jumpy biography attracts me much more. You should risk breaks in style–especially as an already established artist.” “Mostly it’s Continue reading

    database
  • February 27, 2024

    Keywords: Serendipity

    (Photo: Jonathan Greenaway) Serendipity is fortune’s role in artistic and scientific practice via accidental discoveries and discerning their value. The term was coined by writer Horace Walpole in 1754 with reference to an old Persian fairy tale (“The Three Princes Of Serendip”) in which three perceptive princes notice clues to insightfully describe a lost camel Continue reading

    keywords, serendipity
  • February 26, 2024

    D Dubs

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    dub-ish
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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

  • Database: Dave Stewart On Stereo Picture, Frequency Differences, And Demos
  • Brett’s Sound Picks: Musicentrydelete’s “Depth” (2025)
  • When Less Leads To More
  • Omni 98 bpm
  • Drumming Diaries: Grip

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