I’m late to the conversation, so this will probably go unnoticed but I feel compelled to throw in my deuce pennies. There seems to be a lot of confusion around here.

First, I find the joke title of the post a little lacking. I’ve never heard of someone who culls a riff being referred to as either a pirate or a remix artist. Over the last few years I’ve noticed a swell of groupthinkers whose goal it seems, to me at least, is conflating the issues of piracy with infringement with remix with inspiration with fair use with whatever else weakens the concept of individual expression. This attempt to oversimplify issues will not lead to greater understanding or goodwill.

Full disclosure: I’m a musician. I’ve toured as a turntablist, a button-pusher for MCs, a back up musician (bass and guitar), a songwriter, a singer (I prefer “vocalist” since I don’t sing all that well)… I’ve written and released my own music, as well as performed as a session musician. I’ve made strictly sample-based music, and I’ve made original recordings. I’m not trying to say my opinion is more valid than anyone else’s, I just want y’all to know from where I come.

Since it seems important to some people here, here’s a link to some of my sample-based work from several years ago:
hosey.bandcamp.com/track/tesseract

To begin with, even among sample-based artists there are myriad stylistic variations; and there are heated arguments between the practitioners about what’s “real music.” Loopers are a different breed than Choppers. There are Screw artists. Chop and screw artists. There are producers and “producahs.” That’s without even delving into the styles of turntablism that exist outside of the use of samplers. And I haven’t even left the field of hip hop. There’s musique concrete, collage artists, there are found sound artists, field recordists. And for the unimaginative: Mash-ups [I kid! I kid! But seriously…]. To try to corral all these stylistic forms under some imagined banner, tying them together because they share a single characteristic, i.e. that they are technically illegal to publish in many cases, is to grossly oversimplify the rich musical history that led us to where we are now.

Is playing with a sampler different from writing a tune on your piano? I would say so. I’m not sure they even activate the same brain regions. They definitely don’t require the same kind of knowledge. Sample-based art requires much more post-production know-how than it requires knowledge of music theory. And I would be hard pressed to equate the heart of sample-culture, “digging,” with the heart of musicianship: “jamming.” They’re extremely different endeavors. One looks inward through the appropriation of outside influence, while the other projects outwards from the appropriation of inner influences. (Side note: I once wrote Daniel Levitin, of This is Your Brain on Music fame, to find out if there has ever been any research as to whether a person chopping samples utilizes similar regions to a person playing guitar. I received no answer, but as far as I can tell no research has been done.)

Is sampling harder than playing an instrument? Not at all. Anyone can “play” any instrument they can get their hands on. The hard part of music is coming up with something good. That’s not an easy task in any creative field.

Now, if the question is “Is creating something listenable/releasable easier with a sampler or a piano?” then the answer is yes, sampling previously released, professionally recorded sources is an easier route to a “professional” sounding final product. But, and this is where I’m sure people around here will fume, that’s because the samplist is not tasked with the hard work or costs of actually capturing the sounds he’s releasing. Anyone who has spent any time in a professional studio knows that making great recordings is several layers of arts unto themselves. Don’t even get me started on the “Dark Arts of Mastering.” Samplists benefit immensely from this leg up on their songwriting peers. I know, because frustration with meager recording budgets is one of the reasons I got into sampling in the first place. But that’s just me…

Now, I find turntables to be an interesting anomaly in this discussion. Are they instruments? I think so, but with one caveat: they are “inverted” instruments. What I mean by this is that a turntable makes sound without your input, the technique of a turntablist is knowing how to creatively stop the sound, and how to “break” it in intriguing ways. That’s why I find the artform so fascinating. Turntables are the only instrument where the musician’s job is to stop the instrument from making the sounds it is “programmed” to make.

Ultimately, whether musician, producer, beatmaker, writer, painter, etc, the entire point of the endeavor is to communicate something with somebody. Even if that person is yourself. I know that I write music for the 13-year-old inside of me all the time. Getting hung up on labels, and degrees of difficulty is to miss the point. I might not consider all the sample-based art I enjoy to be music–lord knows groups in the vein of Negativland strain my tolerance for what I’d consider music–at least not in the traditional sense, but it does communicate with me. That’s as much as any artist can reasonably hope for when they lock themselves away to create something new.

To close out my overly long novellette of a comment, I wanted to post this quote that has resonated with me for a while now. It’s just something some older producer said reference to the abundance of kids trying to copy [latest producer X]’s sound, and the proliferation of hipsters who think that replacing the bass with a tuba is original or unique. I printed it out and it hangs right above my turntables:

I know I am going to upset some people for daring to tell the truth, but here goes.

The problem is that far too many people lack any genuine musical talent, and aren’t inclined to work – at all – to gain musical ability. As such, most of the work being produced in some genres relies 100% upon “having a unique sound signature” rather than having strong original ideas and solid songwriting or musicianship.

If all you can do is play one-finger lead lines over TR808 drum loops, that one-finger better playing a damned-interesting unique noise … ‘cuz there really isn’t anything else about the song that would/could keep the interest of anyone over 10 years old otherwise.

In that environment, sounds get “played out”.

When you write quality material it doesn’t need gimmickry to succeed. It’s no accident that some of the top-selling albums every year are things that were produced over 20 years ago, when none of this currently available technology existed.

If you want your artform to grow, count the cost and act accordingly.