it's funny, I don't really know what to write here. I'm pretty hesitant about the kinds of posts I make and the things I talk about. kind of ridiculous, really. who's gonna see this? who's gonna read through this and think, "what a fucking idiot?"
me, probably, in a year.
for now, this is a place for me to let loose some ideas. I need to get inspired. I have too much time. it's always either too much or too little.
my greatest fear is accomplishing nothing, I think. in this short life, I want to do something. I want to change the world. I want to make an impact on people's lives. I don't really know how I'll do it, but I hope one day I do. they say practice makes perfect, so here I am. today is december 26th, a tuesday, and I am trying to hone my skills. I am dedicating my time to writing, playing the piano, reflecting on myself, and using my time wisely, instead of looking at memes all day. in the past few days, I have worked on a lot of different skills I want to improve on to help me become a better, more wholesome person, in order to accomplish something, one day.
boredom is killer. I want to socialize as much as I want to be alone, as well. I guess I just need to be well-rounded and practice everything a little bit at a time: cooking, music, writing, reading, exercising, meditating, all of it. don't get bored. find some time to do something.
check this out. pick a song, any song. in fact, let's pick this one.
take a look. we're gonna make a web of music, starting with this song. we're gonna work backwards. I want to look at the evolution of music and, more specifically, the ability for people to take a work of art, appreciate it, and make it their own.
this song is hardly original, to be frank. in my opinion, though, one of the most beautiful things in hip-hop and rap is the art of appreciation. in the rap industry, to adopt a song is to appreciate it, to love it so much to want to make it your own. it happens all the time, and almost every artist has done it at one point or another. take this song, and ask yourself, "what is this about? what does this make me feel?" think about it, and then listen to this song.
different artist, different song. if you listen closely, though, you might hear some familiar guitar riffs. it is, in fact, the same guitar riff, sampled from the same song. to me, this exhibits two beautiful things about rap and music in general. the first, as mentioned earlier, is the appreciative aspect: two completely different artists have chosen this song to become part of their own work of art. two artists think that this song is integral to the things they want to do with their own music, and they make it happen. ask yourself again, "what is this song about? how do I feel when I listen to it?" if you feel the same things when listening to each song, I would probably listen again. this, in essence, sums up the second thing of beauty about musical evolution: the fact that two songs can utilize similar elements to create such diverse feelings in their tones. keep that in mind as you listen to this next one.
an international reach. the guitar sample is probably becoming more and more distinguishable from listening to it so intently. this song is in Portuguese; I invite you to look up a translation of the song's lyrics in order to understand the full intentions of the song, past the instrumentation. after reading along with the lyrics, again ask yourself those two questions. this is something completely different entirely, coming from Brazilian culture. so where did this sample come from? who actually created something?
here it is. this is the original. it would make sense that, looking at the song we started with, a sample would be taken from a downbeat soul/blues record from the 70s. that's just the nature of afro- and latin-american music: the tradition of sticking to and appreciating the roots. of course, it's not all like that, but I think this web goes to show that a lot of it is.
for shits, I'm going to post a few more songs that have deep connections to the ones already listed. keep thinking about those questions. keep thinking, even past these songs. think about where your music comes from, about who your favorite artists' favorite artists are, and about the beauty of the evolution of music.