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>Kim wrote: >>You could just as well take a sample that only existed as a single 5 >second >>event in the original piece and then loop it in your own. By repetition >you >>can give something a character it didn't have before, and use that as a >base >>for recontextualizing the sample in a new piece. > >I fail to see that recontextualizing a piece of audio changes anything. >The >second you take the sample out of its context you`ve recontextualised it. >This >line of thought can lead to conclusions that by simply sampling something >you are creating something new. no, a sample just by itself wouldn't be "recontextualized". That term usually means that you have placed the sample into some completely different environment, where it takes on some completely new meaning. It requires actual work to create that new environment and some artistic concept that defines the new context and what it means. >And repeating it doesn`t change the creativity and hard work of those who >made it. I think you missed the point I was making there, which actually had nothing to do with sampling rights. I was saying that repetition itself has an effect on people and is a useful musical statement to make. That's what looping is largely about, right? The specific point here was that something that had only occured once, can take on significantly new meanings when repeated. Like the time I went to a Queensryche concert (hey, they were really cool once...:-) and they had a video screen, which wasn't so common at the time. They were doing their full-blown operation:mindcrime metal-opera thing. At some point, the word "sex" appeared on the big screen. The crowd roared; everybody likes sex. But the word kept coming back, and coming back, and coming back. and the song was about manipulation and such things, and the crowd was definitely not roaring about sex after it had been constantly blinking at them for a while. Repetition had changed the meaning completely.....it was a really cool effect. That's the sort of thing I mean by taking a single event and repeating it to change it's meaning. >(If anything it makes it more apparent.) And that is what copyright is >meant >to protect , right? It`s not meant to "foster" anything , but protect >those >who put original art out in the public domain. Well, no, copyright is not there to protect "hard work". It exists to encourage the ongoing development of new ideas. Like I said before, this is very different from things like Patents, and trademarks, or property, or even your own labor. It doesn't matter if you spent 3 years on something or whether you drank a lot of tequila and the next day thought the thing scribbled all over your wall is pretty cool so you publish it. One part of this encouragment of new ideas is that authors are granted some limited rights to control how their work is reproduced. This keeps them from getting ripped off by counterfeiters or pirates, so they are not afraid to publish their work. A balancing part of copyright allows others to use that work is some limited fashion according to fair use rules, which prevents someone from stifiling ongoing creativity by refusing to allow anyone to reuse any portion of the work. Again, check the numerous references cited so far, these concepts are explained in many places. I understand the feeling of "I worked hard on this, I worked hard to learn how to do this, I should get compensation for it." But the fact of the matter is that this has nothing to do with copyright. You might have some moral issue about that, fine. But copyright law and this particular "I paid my dues" issue are not related. With intellectual property, you can bust your ass for years and make $5 because nobody cares about your work, or have a funny dream and turn it into $50mil. The law has nothing to do with the effort applied, but the result at the end. >>As far as sampling a whole groove goes, I think something like a James >Brown >>groove is a monumental piece of popular culture. For many people, those >>sounds and that groove have been an ever-present part of our environment >for >>most of our lives. If you wanted to make an artistic interpretaion or >>comment on that cultural event, I think that quoting that groove would >be a >>completely valid thing to do. Many listeners would have an immediate >>connection to that, which you could then use as a basis for your own >>statement. > >forgive me for asking ,but are you saying here that a sample is validated >by quality/cultural impact the original song has had on society? If people >have connected with it in the past it`s alright to use it for yourself? I >don`t see how we could possibly make distinctions between the >quality/popularity >of sampling sources , that would open up a whole new can of worms. Who >would decide on cultural impact? Where would the line go? as is stated many times in the various bits of literature cited, for copyright issues these decisions have to be made on an individual basis. It's stated in the legal opinions that these issues are too difficult to place general guidelines on them, and must be considered for each case. However, I was speaking about the actual artistic event there, not sampling rights. I think you need to put yourself in another's shoes to understand this. I'm someone who grew up using and programming computers, and digital media, and video games, and tv, and the whole bit. Noisy cultural stuff coming at me from all directions. "Copy and Paste" is a totally natural thing for me to do. People 10 years younger than me, it's even more natural. 5-10 years younger than that and you've got kids making web sites before they can read. Concepts of artistic creation are radically changing, and not everybody is involved in it or understanding it. But for me and many others, copy and paste of a james brown groove would be a completely natural thing to do in creating a new piece of music. *for me*, it would be critical that it be exact, including all bits of weird reverb and noise crud and early 70's eq styles and whatever. If you've spent 20 years trying to play as well as Jim Hall, I understand you might not get this. (I've also devoted years trying to play guitar like that....it took me a while to get the aesthetic too.) >Is it better to >sample a James Brown beat that sampling a funky John Scofield groove , >simply because >the latter hasn`t had the popularity of the former? well, yes, I think so for the purposes I would do it. I would be interested in capturing the James Brown vibe that has come out of car stereos and tv's and boom boxes and neighbor's stereo's all my life and created the sonic environment I live in. If I want to recreate that environment in a piece of music, than for me, having a sample of it is the only real way. Playing that groove would be very difficult to get right, but probably possible. But the creative process would wrong for me. The copy and paste element would be a key element of the creation. > To me this is just another form of borrowing of ideas from one >>song to use in another that is very deeply ingrained in western pop and >folk >>music. All of the music I listen to, from early blues and jazz to the >latest >>drum and bass, does this constantly. Sampling just gives a new way to do >it, >>and huge numbers of musicians have found it a completely natural and >obvious >>thing to do in creating new music. > >I have to disagree with you there , Kim. I feel there is a BIG difference >between studying a recording and learning from a record(like jazz/blues >players have done for all time)and >recording parts of it and use it in your own music. There has to be a line >between interpretating a record and cutting out beit of AUDIO from it. >I personally draw a line between the music and the AUDIO. I can steal Jim >Hall`s licks and compositional ideas to expand creatively. This is done in >the hope that those ideas will evolve in my mind and evolve(or corrode!) >into sometinig of my own. But if I sample the very licks and ideas what >then? My song will certainly take on a new course in my computer but the >exchange of ideas that you`re promoting hasn`t taken place. I would simply >have used his stuff to alter/improve my own. Copyright-law protects Jim >Hall`s records , not my right to sample from them. Free use or no free use >, I truly believe >that this is a fact. I may be wrong and I`m shure you`ll set me straight >if I am. :-) It seems to me, you are getting caught up in some need to protect the investment you have in your craft, and not thinking strictly about the resulting value of the artistic result. You want the effort you've applied to it to be worth something. Or more likely, you are desperately hoping that it isn't worth nothing. To me, that's just a form of arrogance that musicians have, trying to prove they are somehow deserving of special credit or respect for the craft they have developed on an instrument. And you probably are, but the best place to find it will be in charging for it as a session player, not in judgements of art. When it comes to judging the artistic merit of a particular piece, the number of years the creator spent studying is usually not much of a consideration! And with copyright, effort spent means nothing at all. copyright has nothing to do with that. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand this musician-ego thing. I've been there. I devoted a significant portion of my life to being the fastest guitarist in the world, and probably came fairly close to succeeding. It was really, really important to me then that others see how well I could play. Not coincidentally, that's also the time when I thought samplers and sequencers were "cheating". That wasn't "real" music. Well, now I sit before you to say that's all a load of crap. What matters is the musical result, the skills involved are just tools for that end. When you get all caught up in the tools of creation, you lose sight of the whole point, in my opinion. It took me a long time to get past all that player-ego nonsense, and I'm really glad I did. The result matters to me now. Whether I sampled it or sequenced it or played it all in one glorious take is all the same to me, whatever gets the result and whatever works for me as a creative process. And now, when I hear a great piece of music, I just accept it for that. Did they play it all themselves, or sample it completely? I don't care. If I like it, it's good. And likewise, if you sample Jim Hall or play exactly like Jim Hall, that's also the same to me. and you know what? It will be the same to most of the audience too. They mostly don't care about how it's created, just if it's good and if they like it. It's only anally-retentive musicians that get caught up in these games. And the guy who samples things completely and does nothing to it? He's a beginner!! For god's sake, a new guitar player or drummer does exactly the same thing. You don't reinterpret anything or try to make some grand art when you're just learning your way around your instrument. Beginning guitarists play Stevie Ray Vaughn note for note, beginning samplists loop "funky drummer" without changing it. In both cases, they sometimes feel good about what they've done and put it out there for others. So what? give 'em a chance to develop. Nobody's going to pick up a sampler and become Aphex Twin overnight! kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@annihilist.com | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html http://www.annihilist.com/ | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com