I’m pretty sure the debate of whether sampling is suitable in church hasn’t been raised too many times before. Hopefully we’ll see the debate appearing more as – like it or not – the appearance of sampling has forever changed the way we hear and think about music. Read below for my thoughts, and feel free to contribute yours!

What is sampling?

Sampling is a technique of using short snippets of existing music as a part of new musical creations. Sometimes they last up to bars in length and are looped repetitively. Other times they’re milliseconds in length, being short, sometimes percussive bursts of sounds.

These recordings are often manipulated in a variety of ways and readjusted to fit the context of the new recording. Of course, some samples are a little more transparent – they can be whole loops taken from songs, using a great hook or instrument part and using reusing it’s effectiveness. Whatever the case, it’s entirely likely that you hear samples in music multiple times every day. It’s just a fundamental way of how many producers and musicians work, even if you can’t recognize the source.

If you want to know more about sampling, you should read the Wikipedia article on the subject.

Is sampling legal?

Sampling has been a controversial artform for as long as it’s existed. There have been many controversial tunes that “borrow” substantially from existing songs, effectively using a key aspect of the song’s success to leverage their own (a popular example would be “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice, which used the bassline from “Under the Pressure” by Bowie and Queen). Of course there are examples of the same happening with less popular songs that then go ahead to bolster the original artist’s success – Massive Attack sampling Billy Cobham on their essential 1991 album Blue Lines introduced the jazz fusion legend to an entirely new generation of listeners. Dodo can thank Eminem for his plundering of her song “Thankyou” on “Stan”, which effectively rescued her flagging career.

Sampling has become a widely acknowledged concern in the music industry. It can be a money maker: prominent samples in recordings are often cleared by the original writer’s publisher, giving them a cut of the royalties earned from the song. On the other hand, many samples aren’t cleared – being either modified to be unrecognizable or being a non-central part of the source material.

Some sample-based records (albums which are entirely built from samples of other music) have attracted much attention due to a few prominent samples and have ended up being required to give writing credits to the original artists. The Avalanches had to clear many of the samples on their seminal (and highly recommended) album Since I Left You. DJ Shadow, on the other hand, a key pioneer in sample-based music, had barely any controversy surrounding his (also highly recommended) Endtroducing album despite a large number of samples being quite recognizable.

All this being said, the answer to the above question of legality is ostensibly “kinda”. No one can deny that sampling has opened an entirely new palette to music. It’s fueled creativity and has often served as a way to bring new life into recordings and performances. The sampling that is largely frowned upon is wholesale theft: using an obvious, easily recognizable part of an existing song to profit from its strengths.

Jesus reinforced the Old Testament law of “do not steal” (Matt 19:18) and we want to stay true to that. However, given the place that sampling has found in culture today, it’s fair to say that there is a wide band of “fair use” cases that it can be used in.

So is sampling OK in church?

Well, now we’re getting to the heart of it! This is an issue that had a little debate when it was first aired. Generally, our congregation and musos were quite receptive to the idea. I was eager to explore it because I felt it opened a whole new possibility for creativity and new sounds. Here were my key concerns and resolutions:

• Sampling should never be distracting. No one wants to be singing praises to God only to have the atmosphere shattered by a loop from a prominent Top 40 song, no matter how great it sounds. If the sample in question is a central part of popular culture, it’s bound to have other associations in the listener’s mind. I remember hearing once about a worship band that decided to lift the bassline from “Groove is in the Heart” for an arrangement of a worship song, with uncomfortable results. We don’t want to be dragging that into our church meetings, and as a result I’ve decided to not go using popular hooks and melody lines.
• Sampling should be creative. Sampling shouldn’t be used as a crutch – so keep it interesting, and keep it creative.
• Sampling shouldn’t be used to create “noise”. Given the church band exists as a vehicle for the congregation to sing to, there still needs to be enough “space” for people to be able to hear themselves and enjoy singing. It shouldn’t be flashy or full of bizarre and disjointed fragments – keep it simple.

How does the Soma Music team use sampling?

We’ve done a fair bit in the way of sampling already, though we’re still exploring new ways to use it.

In many cases we have taken drum loops from old funk records and used them underneath our arrangements – they provide a wonderful, organic atmosphere that can’t as easily be reproduced with straight drum programming. Generally we’ve stayed away from extremely well-known drum breaks (a key exception being a time that we used Led Zeppelin’s ubiquitous “When The Levee Breaks” drum loop, which when slowed down had a wonderfully powerful dynamic.) Often these loops can be sped up or slowed down to change the emotional nature of the sounds.

We’ve also started splicing up some recordings and using strings sections and guitars from different places to add some interesting texture to our sounds. It’s generally very exciting and rewarding and provides a whole new dimension to the sound of what we’re doing!

Sounds interesting! Is it worth me exploring this?

Why not! Easy ways to play with sampling are to download trial versions of programs with sampling features like Ableton Live or Native Instruments Battery. Many advanced synth workstations (keyboards) also do this.

It’s not too difficult to play with sampling in a band situation – just make sure you’re fitting in with the group’s overall sound and that all the musicians can lock in with what you’re doing (and vice versa). If you’re playing loops, it may be worthwhile getting your drumming to wear headphones with a “click track” (metronome) so that he can make sure he’s playing in time.

Main thing is – be creative, and use your creativity to add to the vitality of what you’re doing as a band. And seek to bring glory to God through it!

Got thoughts? We’d love to hear them!