Re: Basic intro (OT)

[Tim Nelson <tcn62@ici.net>]

At 11:21 AM 8/15/01 -0700, you wrote:
>All your examples have displayed a fundamental prejudice: you think
>sample-based music by definition consists *exclusively* of "play this,
>then play that".

Is that what you think I think? I don't think that's what I think, at least
I don't think so. :-P Actually, I use samples myself quite often. What I
was objecting to is the ever-growing trend of reliance upon lengthy,
blatant, instantly recognizable chunks of well-known material with little
or no original musical input. Your original example did specifically
mention layering the samples, but never said one thing about altering them
in any way or augmenting them with original material. And I never gave any
definitions.

>all the sampled
>material I use is augmented by layering, effects, and original material.

Good!

>Your examples trivialise my work/art/product

No, my examples were not directed at YOUR music; as I said, I haven't heard
YOUR music and am not in a position to comment on it. My examples
trivialise the work/art/product of those who rely on extensive, obvious
sampling WITHOUT bringing anything original to it. If you feel that this
description includes you, I'm sorry. The fictitious conceptual chef's name
WAS kind of similar to yours, but again, that was based on the original
scenario of rehashing other peoples' work without bringing anything new to
the table.

>I'm playing "The Sound of Music" and "Rawhide" at the same time through an
>effects rack *while* I solo over it.

A while back, in reviewing an album I'd played on, an infamously smarmy
newspaper critic dissed one of my parts as being derivative of Jimmy Page's
solo on 'Over The Hills and Far Away', I guess because they both included a
low G being bent up to A... A couple of months later at a show where I was
sure the guy would be there, when that part of the tune came up, instead of
playing the guitar part I pulled out a little cassette boom box from behind
my amp that was all cued up to Page's 'Over the Hills...' solo and held the
speaker up to the microphone. It actually fit in pretty well, although
nobody had any idea WHY I was doing it, including the rest of the band.
How's THAT for an esoteric contextual implication? ;)

>(And that food example certainly isn't something *I'd* want to eat.)

Me either!

>I'd like to take exception to the implication that all sample-based
>music is parody, and neither honest nor original. I won't further
>belabor that point, but your thinking seems a bit constipated here.

If I'd said *all* sample-based music was parody, I'd have to agree with
your disgnosis. But that's not at all what I said.

>Consider the following [lotsa URLs]

Cool! I'll do that later tonight! Thanks for the links!

>the *bottom* three are the ones that have garnered the
>highest download counts from the general public! While musicians
>constantly whine about how sample-based music isn't "really" music,
>people certainly seem to like listening to it.

Ah, popularity... The Backstreet Boys have sure sold a heap of CDs over the
past couple of years. I've heard a lot of their music (my daughter is 8)
but it's never really been my cup of tea. My thinking must be constipated,
though, because everyone knows album sales are directly proportional to
artistic merit.
>
>>But a whole VERSE?!
>
>It was the natural endpoint of the vocal. Nobody would think twice if I
>sampled eight measures of a drum beat or a melody.

EIGHT MEASURES of melody? Sure they would! That's the central gist of what
got this whole thread started in the first place! Eight measures of melody,
to me at least, constitutes a fairly complete musical statement, and to use
it in its full form is very different from snagging the opening
Rickenbacker chord from 'A Hard Day's Night' or half a second of James
Brown shouting 'Hyaaagh! to use to spice up your own music. While short
samples used tastefully can be seen as analogous to punctuation marks,
eight continuous measures sampled from pretty nearly ANYTHING is more like
appropriating a paragraph or a whole page, hence my original question
regarding the extent to which this can be considered your *own* work.

Again, as you pointed out in your introduction, these are only opinions...

-t