Scribner Seminar Program
Course Description
Music: MIX AND REMIX
Instructor(s): Sarah Day-O'Connell, Music
Today, many techniques used to create music (sampling, remixing, and mash-up, for example) often give rise to high-profile debates. A song may be described by some as an homage, or evidence of a productive cross-fertilization of ideas—but by others as plagiarism, theft, or cultural appropriation. In fact, musical borrowing has a long history, which can be traced from Plato to anonymous medieval troubadour songs, classical oratorios and symphonies, ragtime, jazz, soul, and rock-and-roll. In this seminar, we will take a historical and critical look at shifting understandings of what constitutes creativity and originality in music, drawing on insights from history, musicology, anthropology, ethics, law, economics, and cultural studies.
Course Offered: