I knew that people manipulated records and turntables to create a new sort of music but I never though of it as sampling. The sampling I’m used to is, of course, all done digitally and often times includes samples of sounds from pop culture; for example audio from a commercial or TV show or bits and pieces of theme songs. From the video’s I watched of sampling that used actual records it looks pretty difficult, it certainly takes a lot of speed to be able to do it as a performance rather than just as a recording.

The origins of sampling definitely make sense and I’m not surprised that it developed; it seems as if it were almost inevitable. People who wanted to make music but didn’t have the money for instruments or a band found a very creative way to do so. Of course as it caught on technology developed to make it easier and more versatile.

It really is a shame that sampling was ruled illegal. I personally think that it is unjust. It doesn’t seem to me that musicians are really stealing other people’s works, they’re using it and building on it; they’re creating something else with it. It is not illegal for artists to use magazines and other media in collages. It reminds me a bit of the way software is treated; people copyright it and no one is allowed to try and improve it and share those improvements, even if they are not for profit.

I’ll be honest, I didn’t really understand the reading for this class. It felt very information heavy and I am really not well versed in technological language. I also do not really understand what it had to with sampling. The best connection I could make is that they were developing software that searches and categorizes bits of information and sampling also extracts bits and pieces from a whole.