Multi-Voice Commentary for Sample-Based Music: An Inclusive Approach

Blackburn, Manuella

Abstract

Discussions of sample-based music are traditionally single-authored, despite the frequency of multi-genre content found within this repertoire. This article builds a case for a new approach for future analyses, justified by highlighting repertoire that embeds samples from different genres, times, and cultures and that calls upon a variety of disciplinary expertise to attend to these disparate contents. Multi-voice commentary is an approach that includes insider voices to speak to the content of sample-based music, building a reception network that runs counter to single authorial modes, broadening the narrative around sample-based music and its lineage. Certain sample-based works are most in need of this new approach, based on situations of ‘sampling up’, ‘down’, or ‘sideways’, tendencies developed from Nader’s concept of ‘studying up’ and Walser’s writings on ‘appropriations from below’. Theoretical ideas from Fish and Barthes are also brought into this discussion to further the case for a multiplicity of readings.

Citation

Blackburn, M. (2025). Multi-Voice Commentary for Sample-Based Music: An Inclusive Approach. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, 150(2), 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1017/rma.2025.10034

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 12, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Jul 10, 2025
• Publication Date: Jul 10, 2025
• Deposit Date: Dec 16, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 17, 2024
• Journal: Journal of the Royal Musical Association
• Print ISSN: 0269-0403
• Electronic ISSN: 1471-6933
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 150
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 1-24
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/rma.2025.10034
• Keywords: sampling, commentary, reception, interpretive communities, musical borrowing
• Public URL: https://keele-repository.worktribe.com/output/1018597
• Publisher URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-musical-association/article/multivoice-commentary-for-samplebased-music-an-inclusive-approach/6EF09A4C3150F4C9D9F0D3C484786A43
• Additional Information: This is due for publication in Vol.150.2 (Autumn 2025). A DOI has not been provided yet