>new context that forced you to re-interpret it as a juxtaposition to the
>the original composition.
el> That's an excellent point; Jazz music itself was the original music
el> form which "stole" from previous works.
um, you might want to do some research on european art music (aka
"classical"). several famous pieces are based on pre-existing songs, etc.
naturally, i can't think of any now, but talk to your friends that are into
that bag. it was very common to take a folk melody and elaborate or
extrapolate on it. i believe that beethoven wrote a movement based on a
melody of brahms--or was it the other way around? anyway, composer b took
the
top notes from a composition of composer a, and wrote something around it.
if
that's not a precursor of sampling, i don't know what is--keep in mind, this
precedes not only sampling, but *sound recording*--and i would venture it
precedes jazz by a few hundred years...
el> Of course, sampling technology didn't exist back then, and no one ever
el> dared thought of manipulating and cueing a disc on a grammophone :)
el> But look at how many tunes use the chord changes from "I Got Rhythm"?
no one talks about "blues artist a" biting "blues artist b's" changes.
think
about all the blues tunes based on the "hoochie coochie man" lick!
el> Similarly, when the Fugees do Bob Marley or
>Roberta Flack, or when US3 uses "Song For My Father," the music becomes a
>completely new vehicle for the artist.
el> Although the Fugees may uses
>easily recognizable resources for their music, people often don't notice
>the more obscure music used in hip-hop used to as obvious an extent.
"i only have eyes for you" might have been obvious, but the way they used it
wasn't! my dad is an o.g. doo-wopper so i knew that tune immediately, but
when the beat dropped, so did my jaw... the original is done so perfectly,
that there's no reason to cover it, you can't add to it, you can only sample
it and come up w/anything worth listening to!
el> True, though I appreciate a more obscure sample than an easily
el> recognizable one. I guess that what's makes a Tribe Called Quest tune
el> sampling Ron Carter more cooler than Queen Latifah sampling Diana Ross.
ron actually has played w/tribe...
el> Actually, I appreciate it when a sample of a non-funk/soul tune is used
el> in a funk/hip-hop context, for the pure reason that whoever wanted to
el> put that sample in there has a better imagination and sense of
el> creativity than someone who wants to put something more obvious.
then there's taking something everyone knows and completely fucking it up so
that it is truly worth having done--sorry, no examples right now, but maybe
i'll be inspired after my set tonite...
t-bird
... the revolution will not be televised--it will be live-g. scott-heron