'Piracy' That Creates Amazing New Music
from the here-we-go-again dept
More than five years ago we first wrote about Kutiman, an Israeli musician who created an album of incredible new music simply by editing together a bunch of unrelated YouTube clips. The end result is... astounding. I still listen to it frequently. In some ways this is a "mashup" or a "remix" but it's unlike most that you've heard. Many remixes take a known recorded song and change it around or take a few different recorded songs and mix them all together. Those can be amazing too. I've found that by artists like Girl Talk or D.VELOPED often create music that I, personally, find to be more enjoyable than the originals. But Kutiman is different, and takes it to a new level by taking totally random bits of music -- often amateurs messing around -- on YouTube, and converting them into astoundingly complex and beautiful songs.We've highlighted some of the examples in the past, but here are two examples from that first album, of taking a random video that most wouldn't consider to be anything all that special and turning into a part of an amazing project. We'll start with taking a simple kid playing a scale on a trumpet which becomes integral to an entire (great) funk song. Here's the trumpet bit:
Unfortunately, however, there's already been some (now resolved) controversy with this new work. One of the cello players, Deryn Cullen, featured in this work apparently complained to Kutiman. It's this video in which she plays Bach's Prelude from Cello Suite no 2 in d minor. She apparently was initially upset and felt that Kutiman should have first asked permission to use her performance. After they talked it over, and she understood the nature of the project (and, perhaps, because she saw how much positive attention it was getting), she agreed that she was happy to be a part of it. It's good that they were able to have a discussion on this and come to a mutual appreciation -- but it's yet another unfortunate situation that one comes to when we live in a world of "permission culture," where some people feel that you should always get permission first. And to sort of prove how silly this is, one need only ask whether or not Cullen received permission from the estate of Johann Sebastian Bach before performing his piece.
I'm happy it worked out in the end, but imagine if every time someone wanted to create new music they had to get permission from everyone up and down the chain whose work played a part? What's happening here, with Kutiman, is so blatantly obviously brilliantly creative, new and original -- and yet, under our broken copyright laws it might be deemed "infringing" by some, "derivative" by others, and illegal by many. Isn't that a problem? Isn't the idea behind copyright law to encourage new and beautiful works like these? Adding the friction and tollbooth of "permission culture" to the process would make this kind of artwork impossible, and that would be a loss to everyone.
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Filed Under: creation, creativity, culture, kutiman, mashup, music, piracy, remix, youtube
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Taking a part from one song, adding a "wuush" or an "nz" then putting a part of another song on top of that and let it repeat while adding yet another song/effect.
I definitly see why people would cry COPYRIGHT!!! but the work it takes to create the new song might be as much or even more in some cases as the original pieces. Finding them, fitting them together in a way that doesnt make your ears bleed seems like a lot of work.
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This is Art...
Anyone who says otherwise needs to be drinking and eating from a bottle.
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My favorite sample based album
DJ Shadow - Endtroducing on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpCVdBe5uJo
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holy crap, this is the ultimate in 'found art'...
da-yam ! ! !
2. i would bet that he puts in 100 times the amount of time/effort in any one of his compositions, than a 'regular' musician devotes to any particular song...
3. like the lady who figured exposure in such a form was better than nothing, but even better if she realized that beforehand... c'mon, how many of us are chomping at the bit to hit up that new cello clip on utube ? ? ?
yeah, no one...
very cool...
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For GoT fans
http://youtu.be/0OWQXQgHgq8
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100% sample based stuff isnt new, but still not fully explored
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100% Samples since 1998
https://buttressokneel.bandcamp.com/
http://aliasfrequencies.org/releases/buttress-okneel/
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