The Technique of Sampling in Music and Notions of Authorship - Essay Example

? The Technique of Sampling in Music and notions hip by ID Module and number of Module The Technique of Sampling in Music and notions of Authorship The technique of sampling music is one that challenges our notions of ownership and authorship. In a world where music was a form of art that was in some cases considered to be as divine and exalted as poetry, painting and sculpture, the process of sampling does not need to be one that causes a descent in its status. Sampling is a technique whereby a part of a certain recording is used as a part of another song that may be the composition of an entirely different person who is then the ‘author’ of that particular song. The credit for having composed the piece of music that was borrowed may or may not be explicitly given to the person who had originally composed it. This technique offends the sacrosanct position that music is given in the lives of many. Issues of plagiarism arise and royalties are almost never offered to the composer of the original tune. This leads to many problems within the music industry as well. This paper shall however, focus on how this technique affects the aspects of authorship that are associated with music. The paper shall look into the history of the song called Amen Brother and the ‘Amen Break’, a portion of this song that was used in the beginning of several other genres of music. The extensive use of this song and the attitude of its author shall also form a part of the analysis in this paper that shall attempt to dissect the issues of ownership that this song and the technique of sampling destabilize. The metaphorical death of the author that Roland Barthes talks of in his essay, The Death of the Author is one that can be seen in the extensive use of the technique of sampling in the music of today. A particular portion of a song may be used in another as a part of it. The now ubiquitous discotheque where tunes and songs are mixed and remixed are places that question the notions of ownership that artists may raise when their tunes are being reworked. In today’s world, however, exclusive ownership of a work of art is impractical and is not enjoyed by anybody. A shared ownership of the music or any other work of art that is all that an artist can expect. This is tied in with several notions of authorship that have emerged in the modern world. In his seminal essay that was referred to earlier, Barthes talks of how the interpretation that a reader provides a text is what provides the text with its meaning (2004). The meaning that the author intended for a text only forms one of the many meanings that may be attributed to a text. The creation of meaning and essence, the till then inalienable right of the author and owner of a text, thus passed on to the person who received the text. A piece of music is according to modern theorists, a cultural text that allows for multiple interpretations. The theory that applied to traditional texts, that is, books, would thus be applicable also to music. Music videos and recordings are thus texts that are able to elicit multiple interpretations from its audience. The destabilization of the roles of authors thus extends also to the authors of these cultural texts, musicians. The creation of these new roles for the audience and the artists is a modern phenomenon. The modern age is characterized by the rise of science and technology and it is widely agreed upon that technology has had a great part to play in the way the modern age functions. The technique of sampling is a very good example to prove this point. The technique of sampling makes the ‘primary text’, the original recording, available to the world to twist into any shape that it wants to. Each version or song that features a portion of the original song can then be considered to be an interpretation of the original by the person who creates the new version. As Andrew Goodwin puts it, in “an age of electronic reproduction”, it is the reproduction of music that is important rather than novelty. He uses the examples of marginalized political alignments in music entering the mainstream as proof of the fact that the age of digital reproduction in music has led to what he calls a “stasis”. The authorship of the original “traditional” versions of songs passes into the hands of the people who make it a part of the mainstream. The Pogues, Los Lobos, Ruben Blades and so on and so forth are according to Goodwin examples of musical groups where the marginalized political alignments have passed into the mainstream (Goodwin, 2007). The rise of subcultures as a result of the mixing and remixing of the traditional and the marginalized with the modern and the mainstream thus creates situations where the nature of authorship changes such that the song is not owned even by a particular community of people and is continually spawning new cultures and subcultures. It is in this context that one needs to analyse the song called Amen Brother. This song was originally performed by the band called ‘The Winstons’ in 1969. The song itself was not entirely an original and was a version of a song called Amen by Jester Hairston. The beginning of the history of the song itself, thus is based on an interpretation of another work of art. Any argument on the part of the author of the ‘Amen Break’ of plagiarism would thus be hypocritical. This is not to suggest that any such accusation exists but the cultural phenomena that have arisen as a result of the ‘Amen Break’ are something that the creators of the portion have not commented upon very favorably (T.N, 2011). A reason for this may be the fact that the human brain is often not able to adjust its pace to the pace at which technology develops. This is pointed out by thinkers like Franco Moretti who point out how this manifests itself in the terminology that is used for several activities that are associated with technology (Moretti, 2005). An example of this may be how we refer to operating a motor cycle as ‘riding a bike’. Even though the creators of Amen Brother were essentially creating a new version of a song, a repeat of the same action on the part of others is not an unproblematic action from their point of view. The fact that they have never attempted to get royalties is an indicator of the fact that musicians have made their peace with a situation where their music is not entirely theirs. The musician as an author thus has rights over a particular song or its portions in only as far as he creates the original version and he is informally acknowledged to be so without the possibility of any monetary benefit to the creator. ‘Amen Break’ came to be used as a part of hip-hop music that incorporated into it many influences. Disc jockeys were an important factor in the increase in the popularity of hip-hop and consequently, the drum solo that came to be known as the ‘Amen Break’. It influenced many forms of music and the songs that employed it were themselves amalgamations of several forms of music such as rave, Breakbeat hardcore, reggae and so on and so forth. These forms of music incorporated different forms within themselves and took aboard forms that were largely considered to be traditional forms of music. With the incorporation of different forms, as said earlier, the marginalized sought to make a transition to the mainstream. Most of this happened during the 1980s and 1990s. The presence of the ‘Amen Break’ in many of the songs that came out during this period caused the song to attain iconic status in the music industry. Oliver Bown, Alice Eldridge and Jon McCormack, in their essay, “Understanding Interaction in Contemporary Digital Music: from instruments to behavioral objects” (2009), talk of the increase in the role of software in the music industry. As a result of this, they say, there are changes in the roles of the performer, the composer and the listener as a result of the alterations in the “social-artistic” relations that form the work of art the way it is. The pieces of music that were formed out of the fusion of the different forms of music created a new revolution in the world of music. The portion of music became almost a symbol for the technological advances that made it possible for composers and performers to borrow music from each other and produce music that was essentially without any owners or authors. The lack of an author in the case of the music that was thus produced tied in with the ideas that Barthes ushered in that concerned the relevance of the author in the modern world. The history of the sound portion named ‘Amen Break’ confirms for us the importance of technology in today’s music industry. A single interpretation of an art form would arise from a society that is able to define itself in a concrete and unitary way. The technique of sampling and the use of ‘Amen Break ’ is evidence of the multiple interpretations that characterize the multiplicity of the world that exists at present. The criss-crossing of identities and the fusion of identities in a globalized world where people of different races, linguistic and cultural groups interact and seek to live together make it inevitable that multiple interpretations of any form of art would arise. The issues of authorship and ownership of a certain piece of art are thus problematized. This definition and description of art forms is applicable to music as well and this is seen in the technique of sampling and its extensive use in the music industry. The history of ‘Amen Break’ is a fascinating one that closely follows the rise of the technique of sampling and the practice of borrowing music from different sources to create new pieces of music which would then be recognized as works of art in themselves. The questions of authorship that such modern practices throw up are extremely relevant and point to other characteristics and problems of the modern age and the nature of the music industry at present. The fusion that is effected problematized the role of the artist and the connoisseur, both of which were changed forever. Reference list Goodwin, A., 2007. Sample and hold: pop music in the digital age of reproduction [Online] Available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-8705.1988.tb00315.x/pdf [Accessed 11th January 2012] Moretti, F., 2005. Signs taken for Wonders. New York: Verso. Barthes, R., 2004. “Death of the Author”. Image, Music, Text. New York: Hill and Wang. T.N., 2011. “Just a sample”. The Economist [Online] Available at: http://www.economist.com/node/21540676 [Accessed 11th January 2012] Bown, O., Eldridge, A., McCormack, J., 2009. Understanding Interaction in Contemporary Digital Music: from instruments to behavioral objects. Available at: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=5882396 [Accessed 10th January 2012] Read More