Sampling.

Sampling, the process of taking an existing source and repurposing it to create something new. A true foundation to hip hop, it developed in the 1980s, when DJs like Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash began sampling funk and soul records, often times isolating the drum breaks and looping them live to create new beats. Having originated from hiphop, sampling soon began to expand all over the different musical genres and communities, creating a huge impact and new outlook on sharing music.

There is quite a lot of controversy around sampling, when does it become stealing, paying homage, or creating entirely new art? How can you differentiate? Personally I believe sampling is never stealing, the whole point of creating art is that something or someone has inspired you to create what you’re making, your process can’t ever stem from nowhere. Sampling is just one aspect of this inspiration, when you hear a piece of music and feel you can take that one particular section to create something new, this is not stealing, its evolving and sharing inspiration. In todays day and age I believe that there are so many people making art and have been in the past that nearly no idea is truly ‘original’ (in the sense its just you making it) or new. Art is a reaction to a situation, it’s a portrayal that often can’t be as impactful through words or other actions, and so it is something that should be constantly shared between others, used and adapted freely. However, that said I do understand the controversy around money and artists being fairly paid when it comes to using samples. I think each situation is different in those regards and it becomes a more complex viewpoint.

I use sampling a lot throughout my work, both sonically, but also with my visual work, I have previously worked a lot with collage, taking imagery from so many different sources and using them to create an entirely new meaningful piece. Also, within my film work I have experimented with archive footage and sampling all this existing material that is just sat online, unused. I really do think if something is available to you and you can see an idea evolve from it, then you should utilise your access to it and use it.

For example here are two simple- a4 collages I have made in my sketchbook.

In Fridays lecture we spent a little time using audio samples to create a sonic piece of work, I really enjoyed this task, although my outcome is messy, underdeveloped and simple I still had a lot of fun creating it and gave me a new found inspiration for sampling.

There are so many aspects of sound and music that I have only briefly worked with or learnt about but have never gone deeper into, and as I progress through this course I am made aware of certain aspects that I know I need to dive deeper into as I am attracted to them. Sampling is definitely one of them. I would like my next focus to be sampling using vinyl as I have so many tracks that stimulate my creativity that I use more as an entertainment than a source of work.