The Matter of Atonality and Sampling
While the world mourns the loss of a funk icon, it’s a good time to remember that Sly Stone was also a pioneer of machine-made music and an O.G. beatmaker.
There are many reasons why the art of sampling cannot be understood (fundamentally) under the auspices of traditional music-making practices. But perhaps the biggest and most ignored reason is the fact that sampling has no partiality to traditional musical tonality. In the sampling process, samples of recorded source material are modified and arranged without deference to the tones of the chromatic scale. In sampling, there is no deference (or reference) to key or a tonal center. On the contrary, sample-based beatmakers are concerned with three things. First, whether or not a sample sounds and feels good. Second, whether or not the sample(s) fit with the drum framework (program). Third, whether or not the sample(s) and drum framework together ascribe to the aesthetics, priorities, and principles of hip hop/rap music. Sample-based beatmakers are not necessarily concerned with adhering to music theory or concepts and principles of traditional musical tonality.
Many traditionally trained musicians often fail at sampling, precisely because they attempt to approach sampling through the guise of traditional music practices. As such, they attempt to apply the rules of music theory to a compositional process that has no deferential regard for music theory at all. If there is anything that must be understood about sampling it’s the fact that sampling seeks, technically and theoretically, to simply use whatever works. If it uses any principles or concepts of music theory, it’s not out of deference, but out of prudence.
