I decided to read this journal about sampling and the idea of it as a composition tool, something I’d previously read in a Brian Eno essay. I’m interested to see someone else’s interpretation of this idea and what they think in relation to samplers and how they are compositional tools. Here are some quotes.
“rap producers have inverted this logic, using samples as a point of reference, as a means by which the process of repetition and recontextualisation can be highlighted and privileged”. (Rose: 1994, p. 73)
This quote started speaking about how microsampling is something other than re-appropriation. It makes a point that rap producers are interested in samples as a point of reference, the loop and recontextualisation is the idea of it, how can we take sections and turn them into a whole thing.
like plunderphonics pioneer, John Oswald, Lacasse recognises that “manipulations can make it difficult to identify the recording from which the quotation has been extracted”. (p. 39)
This constant battle that sometimes you can’t tell what is being sampled is confusing and at times beneficial due to copyright laws, but this idea that sampling isn’t always obvious, sometimes you can’t tell it’s a sample.
These kinds of manipulations are relevant to the musicians who will form the basis of this case study and whose approach to sampling has as much in common with the use of everyday sounds and musique concrete than quotation.
So this essay is about these artists that use sounds and argues that sampling is closer to music concrete than quoting the samples it’s using.
However, Rose too often focuses on sampling as a “tactical priority” (Rose: 1994, p. 73) rather than the musical priorities and aesthetic choices made by producers in the recording studio. She also appears to be guilty of a rather crude essentialism by concentrating on “black cultural priorities”
So this writer Rose focuses too much on the idea of sampling as the main subject of interest. Rather than sampling as an aesthetic choice or style that a producer has when taking or recording samples.
Does the sampler form part of what Eno describes as “an additive approach to recording” which enables musicians “to chop and change, to paint a bit out, add a piece”?
This quote considers and reflects on the Eno essay, where he describes what the tape machine does for him, and what it allows him to do, as someone who cannot play an instrument. He can become a musician. Is a sampler the same?
the recording of music has moved from booths to the bedroom to the laptop, a meta-device that enables music to be produced, distributed, and consumed.
The idea of a laptop as a meta device in the modern recording world is interesting, perhaps this is my interest when using something like an SP404MK2, do I not want something to have dominance over everything I do?