RIP

I missed the class discussion on RIP: A Re-mix Manifesto, so here are some thoughts. Girl Talk, pretty genius. I like that he doesn't use a Mac, just a little thing that drives the point home that anyone can re-mix with cheap and readily available technology.) The mash-up. Haven't cultures always made mash-ups? Musically speaking, there are 12 notes in the Western scale, there is so much, or so little one can do with that. Folk songs, often are borrowed rhythms and melodies from other folk songs; words, contexts replaced by new interpreters. Isn't language a mash-up? We borrow words and terminologies all the time from other languages and cultures, updated all the time, edited as we see fit.

We define musical styles by their sonic nature, rhythmic qualities, etc. Certain periods have certain styles, each fit a kind of mode or sound that we can recognize. How many 12-bar blues songs have you heard that are all essentially the same? Are these artists ripping off each other?

Artists cull information from the world around them. We've done this from the beginning of time. Mongolian throat singers emulate the sounds of the plains, water trickling, horses... We speak of our experiences, that are common to a culture, and even across cultures. How many kinds of songs can you really write? There is the new found love song , the unrequited love song, heartbreak song... There is a common shared human experience that is expressed through art, translated, re-translated, it's not original as all our experiences and emotions are not unique to a particular person or culture.

There was some talk of ownership of information being an outcome of a capitalism. More on this later...