A NEW FOUNDATION OF MUSIC: SAMPLING AND ITS IMPACT ON THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Abstract

The term “sampling”, when talking about music, has taken on a number of differentmeanings to reflect its many usages in recorded and electronic music. These meanings and definitions are as varied as the individual sampling practices, but all of them are born of the capabilities, limitations and product design of specific pieces of hardware. Drum machines and samplers have become so ubiquitous across all genres of music that we often take for granted the seismic shifts in the conceptualization of primary musical materials that are a result of these developments in music technology. These shifts don’t only manifest in recorded music or live electronics music, they are also plainly evident in notated concert music. While the rise of the microchip and the resulting technology of the 1980s made electronicmusic more accessible to musicians outside of academia and high-end recording studios, the groundwork for the musical developments of that era was laid over the course of almost forty years, from musique concrète all the way through DIY DJ-ing. This dissertation isn’t a historical recounting of these developments, but instead analyzes the manner in which specific design choices encouraged musicians of all backgrounds to think outside the electronic box.