Can I Get an Amen?
The Amen Break
The Amen Break is the Wilhelm Scream of modern music: these six little seconds of drum solo have been sampled — in both whole form and in Frankenstein-esque reconstructions — so often that it has practically become an instrument in itself. In 2004, Nate Harrison created an 18-minute documentary about the history of the use of this ubiquitous drum break. It’s a bit long, but at least listen to the first couple of minutes, so you can hear the break, say “oh yeah! I know that!,” and learn where it originally came from. The whole piece is interesting, though; toward the end, the focus turns to the implications of sampling and copyright laws on creative expression and capitalism. I first found it on BoingBoing a year ago, but was reminded of it today when Cynical-C posted it.
