Composers can expand their musical possibilities by borrowing samples of pre-existent music. For instance, Noah Creshevsky's Borrowed Time samples music from the twelfth to twentieth centuries. By incorporating a variety of disparate samples, one can represent the multicultural society in which we currently live. The revolution of technological media has made sampling equipment readily available. Creshevky's compositional processes have changed in reaction to this technological shift, in that the samples used are often so short in duration as to obscure their origins. Sampling an entire stanza from an aria would be a quotation, belonging to composer and librettist, but sampling just a syllable is an unidentifiable form of sampling and musical borrowing. Whether in times of bounty or scarcity, composers should borrow music, for there is plenty to go around.

Works: Noah Creshevsky: Borrowed Time (91, 96).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Kerry O'Brien