Re: Long but hopefully inte
Matthew Robert Chicoine (scooby@umich.edu)
Wed, 15 Nov 1995 15:07:28 -0500 (EST)
Jason-
Right on bro. Actually, the point about the sampler has been one
I've been thinking about seriously. This is probably not any grand
revelation, but the sampler itself was primarily inspired by the
techniques developed by the DJ. One of the first technical developments
of the DJ was to manually loop the "breaks", started by Kool Herc,
developed and perfected by Bam, GM Flash, and others. You are absolutely
correct in seeing the parallel between a sampler's function and a
function of the DJ. Recognize that the early DJs and still many Djs of
today loop shorter segments of songs, like a four-bar break, as opposed
to merely linking whole songs. This is what the idea of the sampler was
based on, as well as hip-hop production (they are all closely
intertwined). So, the DJ is functioning on one level as a "live" sampler,
doing the work that an electronic machine would be doing in the studio.
Yeah, this whole discussion really does come down to a love of
music. I still feel we need to re-evaluate how a musician can create
music and what exactly qualifies them as one. A friend of mine said
"Music is any sound manipulated for pleasure, either for one's own, for
others, or both." The key word here is pleasure. Manipulating sound for
pleasure is probably one of the most spiritual and enigmatic processes
known to the human race. Forgive me for not knowing the origin of this, but-
"Rhythm is fundamental to the spirit, like the beat of a tribal drum. Let
it in and it will set your soul free. Ya dig?" Knowhatimsayin? Peace-
Bubblish Kid