This article about Lessigs Comparing culture: Remix: Making Art and Commerce thrive in the Hybrid Economy discusses two different cultures. He talks about the differences between RO and RW. I like how he talks about how you have to understand the culture. The remark “It takes extraordinary knowledge about a culture to remix it well” is very interesting in the reading I think its saying that you have to understand the culture and the music before you have the ability to remix it well. Even if you only think they’re a certain amount of ways you can remix the piece before they all start sounding similar. To remix it well you have to have a different outlook on the piece and to do that you have to have a good foundation first. I think to a certain extent there is a line where we cant remix it anymore, even if you do have a lot of knowledge and understand the culture completely.
When i have tried to rewrite songs, and make it my own. I feel as if its nearly impossible to not make it just like the old version of it. which in a way maybe its because i don’t really understand the culture of the song. I think people who have the ability to remix a song and do it right, are quite talented.
I also was intrigued by Lessig’s statement that “it takes extraordinary knowledge about a culture to remix it well” (93), many people who criticize remixes don’t consider the amount of research. It can be argued that a person who creates a remix has more knowledge about the original subject than the person who made the original object. I would argue that there is not a limit of times that a certain thing can be remixed, it all depends on the knowledge and work that the person creating the remix has put into creating a work that is original to the creator while incorporating aspects of someone else’s work.
I have never really thought that you need to “understand the culture and the music before you have the ability to remix it well,” but I believe what you say is very true. There is a lot of electronic music that is all about remixes. I feel like a lot of the artist become famous from mixing other people’s work, but it is that they know the music so well they can make it sound possibly even better than the original to some peoples ears. In the Lessig’s TED talk he says that “tools of creativity have become tools of speech” and I think this goes with what you bring up. In my example of electronic music, the artists’ are expressing themselves in their own language that some of us may not understand or may not be able to tell the difference between. But the fact that they can distinguish between each others sounds could be their own way of communicating.