Memory Match (Mix-Tape Reflection)

For my mix-tape project, I compiled a series of tracks that were all themselves remixes of video game music from when my brother and I were younger. I'm thinking of making it into a surprise for him at Christmas. Nearly all the tracks came from a website devoted to remixing video-game music and distributing it over the web, www.ocremix.org. The high volume of work available on this site allowed me to pick and choose tracks from games we played together, tracks I knew he would recognize the sources for, and short enough tracks to hold his attention.

What creating the mix-tape helped teach me about the writing process is also one of the core philosophies surrounding the site: that the arrangement and rearrangement of ideas (or music) into coherent, whole arguments constitutes original work, even when the ideas (or sources) being arranged did not originate from you. Accordingly, although I made none of the musical pieces on the mix-tape myself, and even though anyone could obtain these songs the same way I did and stick them together on a CD, my own arrangement can be considered a piece of original work.