Mixing with quotations
Ragnhild Brøvig-Hanssen · 2019
This chapter explores restrictive A+B mashup production as an example of a creative practice in the studio, and positions this practice as an example of the exercise of creative agency within an intentionally limited aesthetic framework. While notions of studio creativity are often associated with using processing effects and editing tools in sophisticated, complex, or innovative ways, parts of the musical mashup community seem to favor mashups that use relatively few, only subtly edited samples. I argue that this minimalist approach to music production is characterized by (1) a subtle and transparent technological manipulation of the samples in order to highlight the samples virtual quotation marks; and (2) contextual transformationthat is, when content is significantly transformed by means of recontextualization. By introducing the concept of contextual transformation, I attempt to expand the abiding notion of studio-based creative practice by engaging with the creative process and interpretative act of detecting and combining musical parts in ways that make the preexisting music function anew. I further demonstrate that the particular intentionally limited aesthetic framework of the restrictive A+B mashup can foster manifold aesthetic effects and meanings via the profound potential of the samples contextual transformability.