There are a few examples of musicians that have used tape recordings as a musical base, like Steve Reich and Kronos Quartet did in Different Trains or Brian Eno's use of an evangelist preacher. I heard once a British recording of a homeless singing and a cello accompanied him which was great but I haven't found it again. Could you give me some more examples?
2008-12-11T12:08:10Z
I didn't know the name so I've already learned something. I'll check on your suggestions.
2008-12-12T08:04:16Z
But using another song to make your own is also the definition of a cover. I'm really only interested in using non musical recordings specially when it's actually a document recording.
thenwhen2008-12-10T10:18:55Z
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When a musician inserts pre-recorded bits into their music, I think it's called sampling. Usually they insert bits of music but the line gets blurry sometimes. For example, Primitive Radio Gods sample Ray Charles in the song Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand - but if you didn't know who the inserted clip was, you might think Ray was a preacher, since the sample is more "hollered" than sung.
Artist that are famous for sampling include:
Moby - Natural Blues, Honey, Another Woman Massive Attack - Lately, Safe from Harm, Teardrop, Heat Miser Tricky - Pumpkin, Council Estate Fat Boy Slim - Praise You, Right Here, Right Now LL Cool J - (just about everything) Madness - My Name is Michael Caine Emenim - My Name is, Mosh, Crazy in Love Madonna - Sanctuary, Human Nature Negativland - Lots of talking samples, old radio shows - cool stuff
You also might like some of the songs from the soundtrack to The General's Daughter - which were sampled from Library of Congress files. (Check out Seal Lion Woman, in particular)
Here's a great wikipedia entry that has lots of examples: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(music)
WhoSampledWho - is a user created database that keeps track of what used who, where: http://www.whosampled.com/
Here's a compilation of source songs (many are better than the songs they were sampled into!): http://www.amazon.com/Sampled-Various-Artists/dp/B0000506E8
And finally, oblique to your question, but related to the homeless guy and the cello, here is a really cool new music documentary that's being made - where they have musicians from all over the world connect and sing different parts of the same song: http://www.playingforchange.com/
Cheers
Edited: Sampling is to cover as collage is to sketch...
When an artist samples a piece, they insert the original recording (sung or spoken by someone else) into their new song. When an artist covers a piece, they re-sing it with their own voice.
But this definition doesn't help you to find music with spoken bits inserted. Here are two discussion threads about songs that have bits of spoken samples, along with links: http://www.last.fm/group/AFTER+THE+POST+ROCK/forum/164/_/455373 http://www.last.fm/user/VeryFuzzyBunny/journal/2006/07/15/110e_a_different_sort_of_lyrics_quiz...spoken_word_introssamples
Also, you might have a listen to negativeland - nearly everything they do is based on tapes of speakers. Here's an iTunes link for them: http://ax.itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/browserRedirect?url=itms%253A%252F%252Fax.itunes.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewAlbum%253Fid%253D288412117%2526s%253D143441