This week relates directly to the final project I feel.  The topic was “where things are borrowed from,” in my own words–namely “grabbing” a piece of music from one source, and re purposing it to fit your own narrative.

What sampling used to be was more analog : burning a CD, transcribing a record, cutting a segment off of a tape cassette, playing “scratch records” on a turntable, all used to give an original piece of music a new identity and purpose.  I feel that this ties in to a lesson waaaayyyyy back in February when we talked about “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and listened to a swing interpretation of it.  I think that was technically a from of sampling wasn’t it?  I am no expert on musical processes and jargon, but to me it did lend a whole new meaning to the lyrics.  It was more up tempo and happy, and the fact that a woman sang the swing version and kind of suggested to me of a lover pining for her man who had wandered away.  The original tells to me a story of a man wishing for the good ol’ days with an old girlfriend and the simpler times of youth.  Also, those different interpretations of an original song and the “sampled” meaning of it can be affected by each and every person who listens to the “sampled” version, as also the original.  Because according to Shannon all information is just information, it is up to the person receiving it to assign a meaning.

Added on to that interpretation of information is the “sampling” process.  This includes what part of a song a person wants to use, where in their project the sample is used, any edits or transformations that are implemented.  The possibilities for new variations on meaning I strongly feel are endless.  Sampling both empowers anyone at all to make new forms of music out of preexisting sound, and so I feel that it compoundly increases the possibilities for artistic creativity, but like many things in this course, is also a double  edged sword.  It also means that there is an overall lesser demand for artists competent in musical instruments, because if it exists as a MIDI file, why learn to play it yourself?  Sampling, to me, is a conundrum.