Participatory Culture in Music: Sampling within EDM

## **Sampling in Electronic Music as Participatory Culture**

The technique of “sampling” in the music world has been around for decades.  Artists utilize numerous pieces of music from previous tracks and put them together to create new and original sounding compositions.  Historically, this technique has been used frequently in genres like hip-hop, in order to create repetitive tracks sufficient for rapping over.  However, in the height of the emerging genre of EDM, or electronic dance music, amateur producers are beginning to utilize this technique to create beats made for their audience to move to.  This form of participatory culture is blowing up as a method of production within a rapidly developing and emerging genre of music.  It has been said that electronic music has “legitimized sampling as an art form”, because the primary beats and breaks of the tracks are taken from previous recordings (Ceri).  Although technically illegal, amateur producers and DJs are utilizing sampling to produce new compositions and posting them on music sharing sites, such as Sound Cloud or Datpiff, for listening or downloading.  Sampling within EDM is an emerging form of participatory culture in which the knowledge and use of technology is quite essential.

Although sampling has been around for quite some time in the musical production industry, it is just beginning to find its way into the relatively new genre of electronic dance music.  Many amateur EDM producers utilize this tactic to create the repetitive beats, breaks, and vocals of their tracks.  Sampling is a form of participatory culture in the sense that numerous original tracks are taken, altered, and put together to make an original composition by an artist.  Although many musical production connoisseurs view sampling as a lazy or unoriginal way of producing music, I would most definitely argue that it is a legitimate form of creating.  Featured below, Marvel Years, an amateur producer, would also argue that although his tracks feature many other artists sounds and vocals, they are indeed original.  Marvel Years utilizes other artists’ sounds to create the repetitive break or vocals of his tracks, however he puts his own electronic sounds and beats over them to make it his own.  Marvel Years uses SoundCloud as his platform for sharing new music with his fans.  Pushing 7,000 followers, this amateur DJ has worked to gain a fan base and following in which he is able to share his new tracks, remixes, and mash-ups.  From Marvel Years’ "Whistle and Bump" track below, you can most definitely hear the original tunes and vocals provided by Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre's "Nuthin' But a 'G' Thang", but the electronic flavor is also very prominent. Because Marvel Years sampled from numerous tracks to compose this piece, it is not referred to as a remix but rather an original track with a new name. To compare, you can reference this wiki page that goes into depth about the details of remixes, mashups, and mixtapes (Mixtapes and mashups-What's up?!?) . Although very similar, an original track with many different samples is not one of these. This form of participatory culture in music highly involves technology and requires knowledge of music producing applications, as well as a familiarity of musical networking sites such as SoundCloud.

**Marvel Years- "Whistle and Bump"**

Snoop Dogg "Aint Nothin but a G Thang"

As EDM grows and becomes more popular, amateur DJs everywhere are beginning to produce tracks with only their computer and various applications for mixing.  In order to share music, these many artists are utilizing sites such as SoundCloud, Facebook, Datpiff, Spotify, and so on.   According to Henry Jenkins’ *If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead* series, reaching out to these communities of music lovers is an active way to spread media content.  As mentioned previously, amateur producer Marvel Years’ SoundCloud profile is similar to a “hub”, in which fans are loosely centered around himself and are able to download and listen to his music free of cost.  SoundCloud is an efficient and easy way for new artists to share their compositions with their fan bases.

## **Conclusion**

Although the technique of utilizing pieces of previous material to compose an original track has been around for decades, it is just now finding its way into electronic dance music.  This new genre is blowing up at a rapid pace, thanks to countless amateur producers and their ability to use technology and social networking to their advantage. According to Henry Jenkins' definition, sampling within a musical genre and sharing it with others constitutes as a form of participatory culture, as it involves new forms of media technology and allows average consumers to recirculate, archive, reppropriate, and annotate the content in powerful ways.  This form of participatory culture is indeed an active way of creating music and sharing it with others. Sampling in electronic music is an emerging technique in which nearly every music lover is able to participate in with the knowledge and ability to use technology. For more information, consult these articles: Remixes and Genre Shaping , Participatory Culture; music, Music and participatory culture- Instructional Cover Videos and Participatory Culture in Music: Online Music Collaboration.

## **References**

☀Jenkins, H. (2009). *Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture.* Retrieved from https://learn.colorado.edu/d2l/le/content/90699/viewContent/1998813/View.

      Jenkins, H. (2009, February 20).  *If It Doesn’t Spread, It’s Dead (Part Five): Communities of Users.* Retrieved from http://henryjenkins.org/2009/02/if\_it\_doesnt\_spread\_its\_dead\_p\_4.html

Ceri. (2013, January 24). *The Use of Sampling in Electronic Music.* The SubBass Blog. Retrieved from http://www.subbassdj.com/blog/the-use-of-sampling-in-electronic-music.