This chapter addresses the main substance of this research investigation: the interviews with the 6 participants and myself. The question of how to organize and present the material gleaned (to borrow from Varda 2002) through the process offered some unique sample-based opportunities, and these have been explored via the non-linear nature of this segment of the dissertation. Up until now, multimedia components (such as hypertext and audio links) have been added to this work in a way similar to sprinkles on a birthday cake--important to make it special, but not absolutely essential to its "birthday-cakeness." In Appendix A I have adopted a different, more all encompassing option. Reading this "chapter" of Selected Sounds involves an interactive construction on the part of the "reader," one reminiscent of sample-based musical production. Moreover, the non-linear structure of the appendix gives it a series of meanings that are constantly flickering. These are the candles on the cake.
The interviews were conducted through a series of 10 questions asked to all the participants. Recordings of these sessions were then transcribed before being converted into html code with a separate "webpage" for each participant's response to each question. These pages were then treated as a sort of database or sample pool.
The points of view offered by the participants, as articulate as they are, stem from semi-structured interviews. As such, the conversational flow and the particularities of each interview environment greatly affect the grammatical integrity of the transcripts. The answers have therefore been edited in order to make them more readable. This choice to subtly alter media in remixing is one of the hallmarks of sample-based composition. The degree to which samples are manipulated depends on one's personal code of sampling ethics and the particularities of each scenario. Composition can require substantial "cleaning" of samples before they are sequenced. This starts in the very initial recording and selection, where noisy, overly dense samples are often (but not always) avoided in favour of more minimal starting points for collage. The samples are then trimmed with exact precision so as to fit the various elements of an arrangement as well as shaped through volume control, equalization and other mechanism in order to blend well in a mix. In this case I have attempted only to render our somewhat meandering and grammatically loose discussions into a form more fluid for a reading audience. The participants have all been given the opportunity to exert ultimate editorial authority over these versions of the interviews, and any changes they requested have been duly executed.
The front end of the appendix allows access into the database via two different taxonomies - "By Keyword" and "By Question". The most straightforward, time consuming, and possibly uninteresting way to explore this sample-pool is to go through the answers to the questions one by one according to each participant. Even if this option is chosen, different answers will be juxtaposed against one another in a way conducive to the development of personalized connections in the mind of the reader. The network of concepts that emerges from each reading of the interviews will be unique depending upon how one surfs through the questions and answers.
This phenomenon is enhanced and multiplied through the addition of the second "Keyword" taxonomy. Small segments or "samples" of the answers contained in the database have been colour coded so as to correspond to points of view ascribed to each participant and in relationship to one of seven "keywords" - Technology, Community, Memory, Listening, Collecting, Ethics and Recording. These keywords are also revisited in the concluding chapter of this dissertation (Chapter 5). Hints at the content of each link have been provided in the form of mini-phrases attached to each of the colour-coded keyword entries. These mini-phrases should also be read as points remixed in the concluding chapter.
By developing this non-linear format, my aim is to highlight how we must make room for "the poetic sounds of quoted fragments" (de Certeau 1984, 162).
In his article, "Modernism's Sonic Waiver," Garrett Stewart makes the suggestion that the illusion of continuity produced by the sequencing of individual visual frames within a film or video (i.e., 29.7 frames per sec, NTSC standard) is similar to the rhetorical affect of words placed together in writing.
[J]ust as the photograms that we register as continuous film images are in fact incremental textual imprints s/tripping over themselves from projected frame to frame, so too is the apparent ribbon of syntax a continual overlap of lexigrams and functional blanks spliced by conventions that exert no absolute control over the disruptive overrun of one word upon the next in the inevitable slippage of subvocal response. (Stewart 1998, 238)
Stewart is the first to admit that film, video and text are silent mediums when compared with everyday experience. This can result in slippages of meaning in our responses to texts that could easily have been overcome by cues of verbal intonation. One might consider, for example, the differences in cognition between reading about an exchange of greetings such as "Hi, how are you?"--"Fine, thanks," versus hearing/seeing that exchange in person or through an audio recording. The same difference can be uncovered between reading interview transcripts versus listening to original recordings of the conversations. These slipages can be understood as productive if one thinks of the affective potential of non-diegetic sound, for instance. The only time that film or video are not silent is when location sound is recorded directly onto the same medium as the image, with the two sources of information locked in sync. Even then, this "real" sound can be muted or substituted with disquieting ease.
Despite this persistent "silence," Stewart nevertheless articulates a position on the sound of the text, what he describes as the "phonotext", or the music composed through the underlying "ring of words" (Stewart 1998, 240). We are so used to speaking language that we cannot help but "hear" it, in some sense, as we construct the text into mental meanings in the act of reading. The same phenomenon occurs with silent film, video and still images. We fill in the sound that is missing, pulling from our own memory banks.
Writing about sensorial/mnemonic phenomena (i.e., media) such as music or conversations with research subjects is therefore a very delicate matter, as one must translate such multifaceted, heterogeneous experiences into sequentially-printed words. The transformation of oral (and aural) information into textual records involves a similar juxtaposition of authenticity and charlatanism as does the task of the translator, as outlined by Walter Benjamin (Benjamin 1969c, 1986 a,c) and others. Weaving together a cohesive narrative out of singular interviews--conversations that meander as interesting vectors were pursued--involves some serious decision-making. On this occasion, I have opted to leave the decision making to the reader through enabling a non-linear, interactive experience of the interview data, through hyper-textualizing the individual responses to my ten core questions.
I have interviewed the participants over the course of this project. This process consisted of one-on-one, open-ended discussions with each composer. These conversations were enabled through the following 10 questions:
The dates of each interview were as follows. All interviews were in person unless otherwise indicated.
I chose the 10 questions before beginning my initial interview with Anna Friz. They were the result of careful consideration of my own sample-based musical practices as well as what I knew of the work of others through casual conversation and the popular press. The questions can be loosely classified according to the four following categories:
My hypothesis was that these would be heterogeneous. This turned out to be quite true. Most of the participants had some musical training, but in a way very specific to each individual. Most came to their sample-based explorations post-adolescence. The most commonly shared characteristic is an interest in playful experimentation and problem solving with technology. Questions 1, 6 and 10 were most relevant to this category.
These were heterogeneous once again, always incorporating digital components, to be sure, but also substantial analog components as well. Many technologies were shared in common, such as mixers, microphones, turntables and vinyl records. More importantly, however, certain vocabularies, or even perhaps certain nebulous understandings are also shared. These phenomena are highly personalized, hard to put into words, but fun to discuss--a common feature for all the participants, i.e., enjoyment of the process of reaching out and sharing their sampling knowledge. Questions 2, and 7 were most relevant to this category, but discussions around technology and practice were frequent to the point of ubiquity. Ubiquitous, but always hyper-personalized, as is the case with so much technologically-mediated experience.
The most pressing reason for me to ask questions regarding length of samples stem from the discussions surrounding intellectual property and sampling. These notorious legal debates have historically relied upon quantifiable features such as the length in seconds of sampled material, only to fall short of resolving the issue as to what is stealing versus fair use of recorded sound (see Chapter 3 of this dissertation). Of late these debates have raged somewhat more quietly due to the industry upheavals currently experienced through peer to peer file sharing of copy-written media. In any event, it was my suspicion that many had moved towards using very short samples, very transformed samples (through digital signal processing) or samples created with their own instruments/sound sources in order to avoid copyright issues. This hypothesis proved to be correct, however, starting points that the group came up with tended to be longer than I would have imagined. This was the result, I believe, of many of the participants knowing each other well in advance, and wanting to provide many possibilities with their source material submission. This point of view is supported by the interviews, as are many other fascinating re-configurations of the appropriate length for audio appropriation. Questions 4, 5 and 9 were most relevant to this category.
Questions about these matters prompted some very long and fascinating answers, as I suspected they would. However, I was quite sure that most would claim that their source material affected their compositional choices a great deal, controlling much of what goes on in the mixing studio. This reflects my practice-based opposition to much academic literature about sampling, which more often than not places the subject at the mixing board in charge of the entire studio process, from original inspiration to final "well-mastered" mix. I have already articulated my position on these matters in Chapter 3 of this dissertation. Questions 3 and 8 provided ample opportunity for me to evaluate and remix this thesis, for in the end things turn out to depend very much on what the individuals perceive themselves to be doing within the context of a given piece and in relation to the particular sound sources chosen. I believe my hypothesis comes out strengthened, although soundly stretched, spliced and remixed into new variations.
It should be obvious from the content of the interviews, but just to be clear, each participant is known to me personally, with the exception of Jennifer Morris (a.k.a. [sic]), with whom I only corresponded by email). Each considers her/himself to be a composer who works with sampling, if not exclusively. The only universal claim made by all the participants was to say that they were speaking from their own point of view (as opposed to representing a particular genre of electronic music, such as hip hop, minimal techno, etc.) The database of answers (Appendix A) cannot be considered an exhaustive analysis of the possibilities and practices of sampling in contemporary musical culture. It only represents one small network of possibilities, but an exemplary one, in that the range of answers is quite diverse, while at that same time consistently recognizable as sampling-related. And even this small network of possibilities represents a vastly wider range of discussion than most of the works cited in Chapter 3 of this dissertation.
Recent bios of the participants in this project have been reprinted below. I would also like to go a little further in articulating the work of these sound artists through briefly comparing and contrasting the different members of the group.
Bios:
Anna Friz is a sound and radio artist who divides her time between Montreal and Toronto. For the past eight years she has predominantly created self-reflexive radio for broadcast, installation or performance, where radio is the source, subject, and medium of the work. Anna has broadcast and performed across Canada, and in the US, Mexico, and across Europe. She is working on a Ph.D in Communications and Culture at York University, Toronto.
Deep in the analog cabin, she records and processes the sounds through a variety of ornery effects mechanisms. The final product provides a refreshingly soothing atmosphere in which one can bathe, exercise, or make love. When [sic] hits the road, her eerie soundscapes are accompanied by equally arresting visuals, comprised of digital imprints from her sordid life. The [sic] roadshow has travelled extensively in Europe, from tiny Ilirska Bistrica to bustling Berlin, where she performed at the 2004 and 2005 Transmediale festival. www.squirrelgirl.com
Jennifer Morris (a.k.a. [sic]) works mostly with field recordings (such as the one she submitted to the project) as well as sounds that she records by close-micing instruments such as the Japanese koto. Her answers reflect a deep respect for the individual character of the sounds she chooses to work with. At the same time she is not afraid to alter samples in the search of new experimental mixing trajectories. Morris starts with short samples or recordings that she then transforms with the aid of various pieces of sound software and hardware to the point where her original sources are barely recognizable. She will often discard her initial sound selections as new timbres emerge through her experimentation. Nevertheless, Morris claims that this process is guided by her sources completely. In so doing she ascribes to them a type of agency. There is a reverence in her words even in the way she describes the process of collecting sounds for future use. Instead of seeking out samples that fit the musical plans she has in her head, Morris waits for sounds to set off her "sampling radar". A figure quite different from the "Keyboard" magazine-toting consumer of pre-packaged sounds outlined by Théberge, Morris' sort of sample-based musician positively revels in finding sounds for recording that would otherwise have gone unnoticed. The sounds she selects are then treated and mixed according to aesthetic considerations such as sonic density, frequency range and mood.
For Anna Friz, however, the material she starts with when creating sound pieces sometimes end up driving the work, other times not. With very emotive or affective samples, her tendency is to want to protect their indexical nature through the construction of sensitive aural contexts (or mixes) to help these sounds reveal their stories. In the case of this project (Selected Sounds), however, Friz maintains that her choice of submission was motivated more by the desire to ensure that a type of sound with which she had developed a certain proficiency at mixing would be a part of the sample-pool--i.e., radio static. This is one of her favourite sound sources, as the sonic density of the material provides many different possibilities for specific manipulations on the part of the savvy radio artist. Friz's comments are also particularly of interest to me as she is someone with whom I have collaborated a great deal, and who is also pursuing a PhD in sound studies. And as the first person I interviewed, her articulate responses to my initial 10 questions became reference points for many of the interviews that followed. Friz also introduced me to many of the other participants, including Jennifer Morris and Richard Williams. Lastly, Friz and I also worked together in 2004 on an audio performance piece entitled "Locking on Popping" which served as a prototype for Selected Sounds. Each of us chose 4 samples related to the theme "pop". We then exchanged sounds and each used this common pool of 8 pieces of audio to construct a remix.
Bios:
Alexander Moskos, aka O.G. Danglers, is a member of the Unireverse and Thames and performs solo under the name Drainolith. He is presently working on his Great Work, a levitational, exercise/positivity record called Tranquil Heat as well as an epic tone poem for Reel to Reel tapes, rumbler machine and small bells called "Bendy Princess: Travels in a Jambodian Province."
Richard Williams is a Saint-Henri gardener, bike mechanic, experimental sound artist, DJ, guitarist and drummer, who approaches all these activities with the same fearless and exploratory mindset. He's also the sometime host of Suburban Soundlab on CKUT 90.3 FM.
Both are currently residents of St. Henri (one of the oldest neighbourhood's in Montreal) and both have at one time been students in the Communication Studies Program at Concordia University (as have Friz and Bernadette Houde). Both have a penchant for field recording and record collecting. Williams has worked extensively with the Ninja Tunes record label, one of the most recognized and successful sample-friendly music labels in the world, with artists on their roster such as Amon Tobin, Kid Koala and Cold Cut (although there is not a single female artist represented by the label, contributing, perhaps, to their declining record sales of late, along with digital file sharing, but I digress...). Williams' insider exposure to the international sample-based musical scene has affected his own personal production in some remarkable ways. Many of the artists on Ninja Tune are known for their hyper-precision when it comes to "chopping" samples, and their attention to detail in terms of layering and sequencing these pieces into complex poly-rhythms of inhuman proportion. Williams' own practice begins, therefore, with a quest for rich and textured samples to then turn into longer musical developments, featuring incremental (as opposed to percussive) feelings of change. This means opting for much longer starting points than many of the Ninja Tunes artists he listens to, many of whom work primarily with short sounds ten seconds or less. Williams is also extremely proficient at both DJing and live drumming. He is currently part of a post-rock group called Triceratreetops and also does solo work under the name SUPERULTRAMEGA.
Alex Moskos plays a variety of instruments and is also involved in many different musical projects in the Montreal area such as the Unireverse, and Goa. The youngest member of the Selected Sounds group, Moskos maintains that sampling was always a part of the music he listened to growing up and in his adolescence. Precocious musical tastes led him to begin his compositional trajectory with longer, 20-minute drone-based tracks. An expansion in musical influences fueled by employment at local record shops and indie radio stations has had a remarkable affect on Moskos' work, transforming him into an utter noise enthusiast.
Bios:
Jackie Gallant began her musical career as a drummer for several Montreal rock groups. In 1991 she joined La La La Human Steps as percussionist and performed in their production Infante -C'est Destroy until 1994. She has since turned her attention to film, video and dance using samples and loops in conjunction with more traditional instruments to create sound scores. Recently, she has been performing improvised pieces using an electronic drum kit programmed to trigger rhythmic loops and samples. She performed some of these works at the St. John’s Sound Symposium in 2006. For the past three years she has been recording and touring North America and Europe with the Montreal band Lesbians on Ecstasy. She continues to compose for dance, video and film as well as performing her own solo work.
CO-ED is made up of Bernadette Houde and Lynne Trepanier. The duo share a love for strong coffee, open spaces and a desire to make weird and wonderful bass heavy music. You can often find them jumping around as parts of the Lezzies On X and Boyfriend.
The Lezzies On X are a plunder music project, taking inspiration from the lesbian back catalogue by referencing folk artists and punk bands alike, re-writing lesbian history for the dance floor. They use the source material in a musical collage that crosses a wide spectrum of musical styles, all within the dance genre. One of their obsessions has been to develop their own way of playing dance music live, using an electronic drum kit, bass guitar and an array of synths. The insistence on such a strong technological presence in their music serves to highlight the absence of technology in the majority of lesbian music, which privileges acoustic sound as authentic lesbian expression. Bernadette Houde is the main technological and concept innovator within the group, and is a longtime friend. She is also currently finishing an M.A. in Media Studies at Concordia University. Her answers are very articulate in relation to the history of recording, sampling and the gender dynamics of digital sound manipulation.
For more information on The Lesbians on Ecstasy project, please jump to A brief introduction to "The Lesbians on Ecstasy," (Appendix B)
In my own case I feel as though my habitually-chosen source material (i.e., musical fragments lifted from vinyl records) dramatically affects the work I end up producing. I'll start by sampling a short passage uncovered on one record and, through working with it, be led towards other parts of my collection in search of sounds to mix with it. The process of composition unfolds organically as each new insertion into the mix reveals hidden aspects of the samples already selected. At the same time mimetic relationships between these newly arranged sounds and other records in my collection are called forth, sending me back into the crates to search for the sources of these recollections. I have also recently been drawn to playing live instruments once again, and learning new ones, all the while recording and remixing the new possibilities for sound they offer. This is what sampling "is", for me: a practice of collecting and recollecting sounds in a way that treats them as participants in an ongoing conversation.
For more information on my own approach as a sample-based musician and ethnographer, please jump to Reflections on My Interview With Jackie Gallant.
A rainy day cab ride. (7 secs- J. Morris)
A curse-infused drum break. (7 secs - A. Moskos)
The intro to "Autumn Leaves". (20 secs - O. Chapman)
Café-latte bound milk (20 secs - J. Gallant)
A two-note guitar riff. (9 secs - B. Houde and L. Trepanier)
An amp switched on/off. (11 secs - R. Williams)
Radio static. (55 secs - A. Friz)
Sound sources ripe for the plunder? Precious aural jewels? Strict limitations? Infinite possibilities?