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brettworks

thinking through music


  • February 7, 2024

    Resonant Thoughts: Michael Chanan’s “From Printing to Streaming” (2022)

    “Cultural work holds great attraction by promising self-expression and a sense of self-worth and the industry is never short of aspirants, who ensure a reserve army of labor that suppresses wages. Distinction is elusive, however, and the market, which is not so much free as moulded by corporate interests, imposes its own standards and norms, Continue reading

    Resonant Thoughts
  • February 6, 2024

    Keywords: Taste and Style

    (Photo: Jean-Philippe Delberghe) Taste and Style are entry points into musical aesthetics. Your taste is how you understand an aesthetic to work, while your style is how you practice this understanding. One wants to have a “good sense” of musical taste and musical style, but taste and style don’t need to be pursued: they’re a Continue reading

    keywords
  • February 5, 2024

    SEK 7 (remodel)

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    atelier, Uncategorized
  • February 2, 2024

    Same Walk, Different Music

    Steve Reich, “Double Sextet: II. Slow”The composer Steve Reich is a formalist whose austere works show an artist confident that feeling in music comes from structure in music. From his earliest piece scored for tape loops, “Come Out”, to his percussion opus “Drumming”, to his many chamber pieces for mixed ensembles, Reich designs music that Continue reading

    same walk, different music
  • February 1, 2024

    Database: Beatrice On Arrangment As Story

    “I kind of see [arrangement] as a bit of a story with repeating phrases. And every time you tell the phrase again you’re telling it in a slightly different way so it feels like you’re getting to know the story deeper and deeper and deeper. I like to do that by repeating sections but when Continue reading

    database
  • January 31, 2024

    HT Dub 7

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    it’s not my job to categorize
  • January 30, 2024

    Art About Music: Albrecht Dürer’s “The Bagpiper” (1514)

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    art about music
  • January 29, 2024

    Keywords: Scaling

    (Photo: Marcello Gennari) Scaling entails all the ways to build upon, extend, and multiply a musical idea to achieve its appropriate form. Scaling is a response to the question: How can I transform this music into a dimensional space over time? Scaling techniques are many, including: repetition, multiplication of parts, call and response, counterpoint, and Continue reading

    keywords
  • January 24, 2024

    Database: Chlär On Using AI To Stimulate Ideas At A Rudimental Level

    “I started implementing AI in my sequencing aspect of the sound because I found it fascinating that with techno we have both very primitive-sounding results where it’s really drum-driven, loopy, and tends to trigger a primitive aspect of our human condition. But at the same time it’s exploring technology to a very extreme extent. The Continue reading

    database
  • January 23, 2024

    Piano, Drone (1.21.24)

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    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

  • 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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