Sampling is for everybody
Here are three ways I incorporate sampling into my musical practice
Advanced Sampling Techniques: Sample Yourself is this Saturday!
I’m getting really hyped for this class, y’all! My first live Zoom class runs Saturday, December 2nd from 10 am to noon PT. We’re going to talk all about how to sample your own music, ideas, and parts. You’ll walk away with new creative ideas and a methodology for finishing music faster.
This class will only run live once with the recording available for life afterwards. If you sign up for the deluxe edition you’ll get a pdf class companion and access to my private Discord community, The Living Room. I hope to see you there next week!
Sampling has become an integral part of my composition and production practice
I am recording almost everything these days. I have Voice Memos at the ready and my trigger finger is itching to capture new sounds. I’ve had an interest in sampling for as long as I’ve been working in DAWs but it has only been in the last few years that it has become an elevated and integral part of my creative practice as a composer and producer.
Sampling materializes in my workflow in three distinct ways:
Sampling as a documentarian practice
I have been recording more of the small moments of my life. Conversations with loved ones, the sonic landscape of the world around me, and interesting sounds I find along the way. They are small memories, separated from the passing of time, and interwoven into new expressions of time when they become elements of my compositions. I’m fascinated by the timbral possibilities of environmental recordings and composing alongside or against the cadences of speech.
Sampling as thematic development
The concept of “the theme” in music is well-trodden at this point. However, most composers I know still view a theme exclusively as a significant sequence of notes and thematic development as the manipulation of that significant sequence of notes. In my work, I’ve been taking a more expansive view. Why can’t a theme be a significant recording and thematic development by the manipulation via sampling of that significant recording?
I explored this idea pretty extensively in my E.P. Fever Dreams at Ruger Place and in no song more extensively than my song “It All Comes Back to You in the End.” The vocal melody that we hear at the beginning is resampled, manipulated, exploded, and reconfigured all throughout the song. This is the song I’m going to be breaking down in Advanced Sampling Techniques: Sample Yourself. (Don't forget to sign up!)
Sampling as a vehicle for new instruments I create
I love making my own instruments. I love finding small moments, like the resonance of a metal poll or the sound of a cicada buzzing overhead, and exploding them into a universe of performable, infinite, and expressive sonic possibilities. Similarly to my draw to sampling as a documentarian practice, I’m fascinated by playing with my memories in this way and I’m always surprised by the sonic elasticity present in them. And, while all of that sounds really profound, it can sometimes be the opposite of that as well. Subscribers to this newsletter know that quite well considering you all now have access to my Vibrator Piano instrument.
Though, to be fair, I do think that instrument is quite profound!
It’s all about taking an expansive and exploratory view of music
The more I listen to the world around me, the more I hear music in all of it. Sometimes, it’s overt, like the calls of birds or the rhythms and hums of machines. Other times, it’s covert, like I hear hidden within the world the instruments, sounds, rhythms, and textures that I can draw out of it. I grow less interested in creating distinctions between what is and isn’t music by the day. Instead, I grow more curious about the ways in which all sound is music and how I can shift my own perspective to hear the multitude of musics around me.
Perhaps, that sounds a bit academic or new age-y of me (not that either of those things are bad) but for me it’s quite grounded and practical. I have an endless supply of sonic resources all around me. It would be a shame to limit myself. And even beyond that, sampling myself and the world around me is a way for me to have a sound of my own. It’s something I want to write about more in the future but creating your own sounds and instruments is the most practical way of “finding your own sound” as an artist.
May we all find more music deeper within our own work and the world around us.
Until next time.
Quick Hits
I was interviewed on the Sound Business Podcast. Akash and I chatted about how to break into games, finding clients, and a lot more. Listen here.
I wrote music for the first VR Barbie game. This month, Peeka and Mattel released Barbie: You Can Be a Fashion Designer VR. Learn more here.
Do you need help with your music production or composition skills? I offer private one on one lessons over Zoom. You can sign up for lessons here.