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brettworks

thinking through music


  • January 4, 2024

    Database: Virtual Riot On Building A Map Of Sound Design In Your Mind

    “With Massive, before Serum, there were no tutorials. And I was just turning every knob and imagining what that might mean what I’m doing right there […] I was like, Just turn every knob, remember what it does and start to build in your mind a sort of map of, Okay, this does this, this does Continue reading

    database, sound design
  • January 3, 2024

    Keywords: Minimalism

    (Photo: Sarah Dorweiler) Minimalism is an artistic philosophy of doing more with less (or doing less with even less), of limiting, reducing, or narrowing one’s palette of materials and toolkit of techniques with which to create. In music production, minimalism entails committing to, and maximizing the potentials of, a few good sounds (or one great Continue reading

    keywords, minimalism
  • January 2, 2024

    SEK 5

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    atelier, sketch
  • December 30, 2023

    Resonant Thoughts: Errollyn Wallen’s “Becoming A Composer” (2023)

    “Trick yourself or be forced into writing something very fast and you will see just how quickly you become an animal. All nerve endings and responses, ears on wire stalks.You know it all already.” “Intuition is an awareness of patterns, above and below the surface, seen and unseen, heard and unheard. For me, the act Continue reading

    composing
  • December 29, 2023

    Keywords: Iteration

    (Photo: Katja Anokhina) Iteration is the production strategy of growing your music by tinkering over time with the goal of moving a track ever closer to having the right form for its feeling and right feeling for its form. Six examples from a thousand possibilities: begin with a plain drum sound and complexify it, give Continue reading

    iteration, keywords
  • December 27, 2023

    Database: Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry On Instant Inputs And Outputs

    “I’m a miracle man–things happen which I don’t plan, I’ve never planned anything…Whatsoever I do, I want [the recording studio] to be an instant action object, instant reaction subject. Instant input, instant output.” Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry database. Continue reading

    database
  • December 26, 2023

    Harmonium In June

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    harmonium
  • December 22, 2023

    Keywords: Effects Chains

    (Photo: rolandus.com) Effects chains are black boxes for processing sounds assembled without knowing their musical output until you hear it. Think of them as routes for sounds to travel, flowing from one effect to another and picking up distortions, resonances, artifacts, and colorations along the way. Effects chains allow the producer to think big by Continue reading

    keywords
  • December 21, 2023

    Resonant Thoughts: Warren Zanes’ “Deliver Me from Nowhere: The Making of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska” (2023)

    “Why are the Sun sessions Elvis’s best? It’s the spontaneity. That short echo. They’ve got a little Nebraska in them. Those records, they’re pretty closely connected in some strange metaphysical way. I suppose their relationship would be in the characters but also, without a doubt, in the sound. It’s a dissociative sound. It’s the sound Continue reading

    Resonant Thoughts
  • December 20, 2023

    Marimbafied 7 (sketch)

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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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