Music follows us throughout our daily lives, from tunes played in grocery stores to songs blasting on car radios, with millions of tracks just a click away on the internet and streaming apps. In this workshop, we explored music “sampling”, which involves extracting a segment of audio from a different source and integrating that clip into the production of a new track. For example, this may look like grabbing a clip of another song and remixing it into a new song, such as in Daft Punk’s “One More Time,” or it may also look like recording a sound heard in the environment and reusing the sound to produce music, such as in Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy.” This workshop enabled students to explore the creative process of sampling, understanding its ethical considerations and learning the skills necessary to create their own compositions using sampled clips.

History & Distinction

Perhaps the first examples of sampling in music occurred in jazz improvisation in early 20th century New Orleans, where players borrowed each others’ melodies, hooks, licks, or progressions. “Musique Concrète,” led by Pierre Schaeffer, came about in the 1940s, which used pre-recorded samples to manipulate those sounds in a variety of ways (Joe 2018). The concept of digital sampling in music came about in the late 1970s, when DJs would mix and scratch records on two turntables, isolating and looping instrumental sections to create transitions between songs (Culture: A walk down the history of sampling). Portable digital samplers became increasingly popular during the 1980s. Since then, sample clearance systems and copyright holder laws have been implemented to protect artists and composers. Much of music sampling’s history lies in hip-hop and rap genres, so many of our class examples and beginning loops were pulled from those and related genres.

Methods

Based on my experience having taught another music workshop during my sophomore year of the Arts Scholars program, I pulled some inspiration from the resources I used to teach that workshop. I notably used the same music technology software, “Soundtrap,” since it was quite user friendly and easy to navigate for students with little to no music composition experience. In developing content for this workshop, I pulled a lot from my background as a music education major. In these courses, we have researched and practiced ways to make a classroom environment the most productive and enjoyable through a variety of techniques, most notably hands-on activities or discussions that ask students to think critically about music. Each lesson, we typically began with a discussion-based warm-up activity that focused on collaborating with other students and sharing opinions about music. Then, we moved into a lecture activity that focused on a topic of music technology or a technique used in music sampling. Towards the end of class, students either worked in small groups or individually to write music in unique and creative ways, and then discuss their ideas, thought processes, and compositional strategies with their peers. By ordering the class schedule in this way, students felt knowledgeable enough to be interactive with each lesson and activity, making the class accessible to students of all ability and experience levels. Throughout the workshop, I provided many opportunities for students to provide feedback, and, in addition to my own assessment of student learning, I used this information to research more into topics that students were interested to incorporate into future lessons. Overall, I gave students a lot of agency in creating this course so that they had the option to cater their learning towards the topics they were interested in, which thus made activities more enjoyable and meaningful. 

Audience and Impact

This workshop mainly targeted the audience of Arts Scholars members who attended class each week, as well as their Arts peers who they have either directly or indirectly shared their knowledge and artwork with. A large portion of this class was focused on community building, thus emphasis on working together was crucial to my vision as the workshop leader. This way, students not only grew individually, but they shared their ideas, skills, and feedback with others to help them feel empowered in the same ways. As a future music educator, I was truly inspired by the way that students formed genuine connections with their peers through music, and their interest in learning more about music analysis and composition through technology. Leading this workshop definitely helped me grow as an artist and a scholar, both in preparing material for the workshop, as well as the things I learned from students in our weekly discussions.

References

Culture: A walk down the history of sampling in hip-hop music production. Ego Expo Australia. (2023, March 10). 

https://www.egoexpo.com.au/post/entertainment-a-walk-down-the-history-of-sampling-in-hip-hop-music-production

Joe. (2018, July 1). A Brief History of Sampling. t.blog. https://www.thomann.de/blog/en/a-brief-history-of-sampling/ 

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank everyone in the Arts Scholars program for all of their advice, feedback, and motivation; my TA Jordyn Salow for helping each class run smoothly; and all participants in the workshop for being enthusiastic learners and talented composers every Monday night. I also want to thank my family, friends, and music education faculty, past and present, for their knowledge and support that has helped me produce this workshop. I am sincerely grateful for this incredible opportunity.