Re: Sampling debate

[Andre LaFosse <altruist@earthlink.net>]

KRosser414@aol.com wrote:

> It seems to me that if you are
> a scavenger sifting through recorded history looking for things that 
>will have
> resonance you would be somewhat aware that there is a debt to be paid to 
>those
> who originated the work since you are dependent upon them.  

(Hi Ken, how've you been?)

This raises another perspective on how the issues of influence and debt
gets looked at from a very different point of view when it involves
direct sampling, as opposed to personal influence.

Here's an example: Let's say I start messing around with someone else's
riff or tune on guitar.  As I play it, I start altering the notes, the
accents, what have you.  After a few minutes, I've come up with a
different (maybe a wildly different) riff.  Now, am I obligated to seek
out the composer of the work I started playing and ask their permission
to release the end result that I came up with, even if it's
unrecognizable from the original source of inspiration?

What if I'm playing along with a recording and then start coming up with
my own thing, which doesn't exist in any way in the original recording. 
Or I'm listening to a recording or performance, and suddenly start
getting an idea for a different and distinct musical part or plan. 
Would I be obligated to get permission from the person who wrote the
music that inspired me to come up with my own part, even if it bears no
audible or tangible evidence of having been derived from their work?

To go even further out, would Ornette Coleman be obligated to pay
royalties to the man who painted the picture which inspired him to write
the tune "Lonely Woman"?  If I see a great concert, come home energized
and inspired, start playing guitar, and come up with something then and
there, am I obligated to obtain permission from or pay back the artist
who put on the concert?  

For me at least, these aren't yes or no questions.  They're issues that
are worth thinking about in light of this debate, simply because I
suspect that nearly everyone here would answer "no" to just about every
one of the above questions if it dealt strictly with non-sampled music,
since they're more or less part and parcel of the creative process (at
least so far as I can tell).  We're all "scavengers of music history" in
a way.  But when it's done in as direct and obvious of a manner as
sampling, it gets looked at from a very different perspective.  

Things like "influence" and "inspiration" are indistinct, subjective
things.  It's often hard to say with any sort of strict authority that
something is obviously indebted to something else (except in extreme or
clear-cut cases).  Exactly how much an artist might be "in debt" to
their source of inspiration can be a difficult thing to try and define
in specific terms.  On the other hand, a sample is a very objective,
fixed thing: You've got your source recording, and then you've got the
sample of the thing.  Putting the process into such a concrete and
objective mechanism puts things in a completely different place.

Like I say, I don't think it's a yes or no issue, but it definitely
obliges one to re-consider a lot of the things that tend to get taken
for granted.

> But if you
> need to sample a Robert Plant screech from a Zeppelin song, then heavily
> process it, run it backwards, etc. until it's unrecognizable (thereby 
>putting
> you in the clear from owing them anything), to me it begs the question:  
>why
> not just screech into a mic for your damn self then?  

I know there are some techno musicians who will do this sort of in-depth
processing and tweaking on sounds taken directly from nature -- dripping
water faucets and the like.  They'll tweak them to the point of
unrecognizability, often coming up with sounds that maybe aren't all
that far removed from a standard synth tone, even though the source was
wildly atypical.  

The reason for this, as in the reason (or at least one possible reason)
behind mangling a Robert Plant sample, is that this is part of the craft
of what they do, and transforming a familiar sound into a wholly
unfamiliar one is an element of their art, in much the same way that a
jazz musician might struggle to put their own personal imprint on a
standard, even though it might be much easier and more direct to simply
write their own set of changes to play over.  The sampler is their
instrument, and they're obsessed with getting as much out of it as they
can -- sort of in the same way that I'm obsessed with trying to get
things out of my guitar with my own hands, rather than sampling or
sequencing them!

> In the question of Fripp's appropriating the work of Hendrix and Holst, 

I've gotten a couple of rather irate private replies to this bit, so I'm
going to try and clarify my point.  I wasn't suggesting that Fripp was
OK since he apparently hadn't been prosecuted or called to task for
these things; I was pointing out one example of a musician borrowing
fragments of other people's work in a non-sample-based manner.  

The reason I used Fripp as an example is because of Stephen's reference
to this mailing list being second only to the King Crimson list in terms
of insight into performance, and his accordant surprise that there might
be so many of us here prepared to defend the wholesale theivery that he
sees latent in sample-based music.  I was attempting to illustrate the
fact that borrowing musical ideas happens all the time, even with
musicians who don't sample other's work, who are by all appearances
ethical to a fault, and who inspire mailing lists which can boast high
standards of live performance critique.  

In this light, to hold up Fripp as some bastion of originality and
debt-free creativity, against which samplists can only wallow in the
mire of the callous theivery that is the worm-ridden essence of their
craft, seems a bit askew of a perspective.

I still think it's interesting that many people (myself included) are
often more ready to criticize a samplist for tweaking a source recording
beyond recognition than they would be to knock a guitarist for copping
an obvious riff.   Like I say, I don't think it's a black or white
issue, but I do think it demands that we re-examine a lot of the
assumptions we hold about music making in general.

> You may find a way to use it legally against the creator's wishes.  How
> someone could do that and keep a clear conscience is a bit beyond me.  

Once again, I think it's worthwhile to draw some analogies to the
non-sampling world.  If I write a piece of music inspired by a
particular artist, and then somewhere down the road I find out that the
artist in question hates the piece (even if it contains no obvious
references or quotes of their work), should I feel an obligation to
banish or destroy the piece?  If I study with a teacher and absorb some
of his techniques and ideas, and then use those ideas in outlets that he
doesn't care for or find musically rewarding, do I need to stop doing
what I'm doing, even if it seems like the natural and logical thing for
me to do?

No answers to any of these from me...  But important things to think
about in the midst of this sort of discussion, I'd say.

--Andre