VARIATIONS #6. The Library
Type
Audio/Visual
Authors
Category
Podcast
[ Browse Items ]
Publication Year
2011
URL
[ private ]
Duration
58:37
Tags
Abstract
Variations is a seven part series history of appropriative collage in music, compositions made using recordings of older ones. It's a practice that in the '80s became known sampling — after the digital sampler — a breakthrough instrument which was designed to mimic traditional musical instruments by allowing the player to trigger recordings of them back on a keyboard. But it didn't take long for musicians to realize that the true strength of the sampler was the way in which it made it easy easy to collage and manipulate the best sounds from their favorite records into new pieces of music. This practice entered the popular mainstream by the 80s, long after observers had already identified collage as the defining new art form of the 20th century — and the roots of this music go back just as far. Over the course of this series, Leidecker looks at these roots, as appropriative collage developed across experimental and mainstream paths.
Sounds increasingly detach from their sources and are used by new authors less as references than as simple objects.
We encounter the establishment of sound libraries, collections explicitly curated for further use: sound objects presented as authorless, unfinished ingredients. Though some libraries contain newly commissioned generic sounds, specifically designed for maximum flexibility, the most widely used sounds are often sourced from commercial recordings, freed from their original context to propagate across dozens to hundreds of songs. From presets for digital samplers to data CD ROMs to hip-hop battle records, sounds increasingly detach from their sources, used less as references to any original moment, and more as objects in a continuous public domain.
As hip-hop undergoes a conservative retrenchment in the wake of the early 90's sampling lawsuits, a widening variety of composers and groups expand the practice of appropriative audio collage as a formal discipline. The aesthetic of the sound libraries gives rise to recombinant genres like drum and bass, the use of sampling as romanticized representation leads to the first quadruple platinum World Music collage, and we encounter a novelty single that quietly heralds a musical form that would soon become known as the mashup.
Sounds increasingly detach from their sources and are used by new authors less as references than as simple objects.
We encounter the establishment of sound libraries, collections explicitly curated for further use: sound objects presented as authorless, unfinished ingredients. Though some libraries contain newly commissioned generic sounds, specifically designed for maximum flexibility, the most widely used sounds are often sourced from commercial recordings, freed from their original context to propagate across dozens to hundreds of songs. From presets for digital samplers to data CD ROMs to hip-hop battle records, sounds increasingly detach from their sources, used less as references to any original moment, and more as objects in a continuous public domain.
As hip-hop undergoes a conservative retrenchment in the wake of the early 90's sampling lawsuits, a widening variety of composers and groups expand the practice of appropriative audio collage as a formal discipline. The aesthetic of the sound libraries gives rise to recombinant genres like drum and bass, the use of sampling as romanticized representation leads to the first quadruple platinum World Music collage, and we encounter a novelty single that quietly heralds a musical form that would soon become known as the mashup.
Description
https://ubu.com/sound/leidecker.html
Number of Copies
1
