What do you mean by a musical instrument? You mean a means through which someone can express themselves musically, like... a record deck? Maybe you just haven't seen someone play decks properly...
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Why Purchase Vinyl?
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What do you mean by a musical instrument? You mean a means through which someone can express themselves musically, like... a record deck? Maybe you just haven't seen someone play decks properly...
I was around when the 'dub' thing started. I have listened to people like Xenakis and Stockhausen, and folks that did Musique Concrete that were pretty inventive. I think it's quite interesting when you take 'found' sound and make music with it, that is, make music with natural sound, recorded from one's environment--not something built on the work of previous musicians and recording artists.
The scratchers never did anything for me, any more than Warhol's Xerox's and soup cans did. Some DJs have some chops and maybe a few are imaginative, but artistically they've always left me cold.
...and the majority of DJs aren't even as good as the better 'scratchers'. They just match beats and play other folk's recordings, in order to keep the party going.
All instruments are built from the work of previous musicians.
Cellists never did anything for me, does that mean the Cello isn't a real instrument?
I bet you're the type of guy who points out that the wedding photographer is using the wrong lens.
I must say that I really wish I was born in the late 40's. My father and uncle were born and raised in liverpool around that time (uncle actually had Epstein manage his band) and I've been told countless stories of the great era when 'clubbing' meant going to a club to enjoy band music and dance to them.
Apparently when it came to the Beatles, there was no dancing whatsoever. Even when they were just a local band, Cavern would be completely packed with people, so many people in fact that the heat and humidity caused dew to drip from the ceiling onto everybody.
I do respect certain DJs but usually I get the feeling of 'wow, that's crazy/cool!' watching those guys as opposed to the pure adrenalin rush or a feeling of euphoria when watching great musicians.
Just two very different things, apples and oranges I guess, but I do wish the oranges hadn't completely taken over the club scene from the apples.
Apparently when it came to the Beatles, there was no dancing whatsoever. Even when they were just a local band, Cavern would be completely packed with people, so many people in fact that the heat and humidity caused dew to drip from the ceiling onto everybody.
I do respect certain DJs but usually I get the feeling of 'wow, that's crazy/cool!' watching those guys as opposed to the pure adrenalin rush or a feeling of euphoria when watching great musicians.
Just two very different things, apples and oranges I guess, but I do wish the oranges hadn't completely taken over the club scene from the apples.
Most musicians don't build their own instruments, except that percussionists seem to hit just about any object.
About 'self expression'...that's all fine and good...express away. That doesn't necessarily mean that your 'expression' is the pinnacle of the art world.
Of course it is. Your argument is specious, and not only because there's several hundred years of performance practice and tradition that says the cello is an instrument. It takes a great deal of skill and practice to play the cello, so you should respect the craftsmanship of the player. I appreciate the relatively little craftsmanship it takes to manipulate a turntable, but I just can't put it (and I admit that there may be a bit of art in its most skilled practisioners, although the 'gee whiz' factor gets in the way) in the same class as a string player.
And, Sesschi, I do NOT understand your point. If I were a photographer, I certainly would feel qualified to judge whether or not a wedding photographer was using the incorrect lens. I might or might not choose to point this out, depending on circumstances. This is besides the fact that your comment is meaningless in discussing the merits of DJs learning to play a musical instrument.
It's obvious that I've hit a sore spot here. This is much the same types arguments you will hear about whether or not it's advantageous to read music when among musicians.
My advice and opinion stands, and I will add to it further.
If you DJs want to better learn your craft, learn to play a real, traditional musical instrument. Learn to read music. Learn math and (acoustical) physics, and improve your general knowledge of the world. Get out of the city, and take your iPod earbuds out of your ears and listen-leave them out when you get back, and listen to your environment.
Since this portion of this thread has devolved into ad hominem attacks, I will withdraw.
Oh, don't say that. Fight! Fight!
Killyp thinks you're a moron and Sesshi's slept with your mother and threw up in the process.
Go on, bite!
The problem is that the ad hominem attacks seem to be accurately targeted ad ignoramus, especially given the above response.
A creative turntablist doesn't follow a score. A talented turntablist has far more creative freedom in terms of creation of music as opposed to someone more respectable in your view perhaps, who for the most part has to take place in the reproduction (no matter how passionately executed) of music. He takes something already there, and repurposes it in real time or via extensive editing without the need to adhere to a written record of how it should be done.
And the truth is that the best DJ's have exposure to a huge range of musical styles - because the essential nature of it is to work with something there and find something new. And the fact is that DJ's don't just spin records - A DJ these days has a major arsenal of repurposing tools at his disposal.
You haven't hit a sore spot at all. What you've hit is a 'WTF' spot directed at you.
Would you like me to make my lens comment more transparent? It was that such a person would roll out their blinkered treatise borne out of a completely irrelevant set of experiences in front of someone else who had a far better idea of how to do things in the real world than they seem to have, and their opinions would be worthless even at the most 'I do this to eat' levels of any profession.
Something that I can ascribe to the most rabid of the Apple Fanboys on this forum, but clearly not just them.
Since this is the only part of your invective that is not a personal attack, I'll address it.
There are many 'improvised' forms of music that do not have to 'repurpose' a recording that a recording artist provided them. That's the limiting factor for 'turntablist', just as a score may be for the 'classical' musician'.
Your description of the 'creative' process matches somewhat the process that creative jazz musicians use, except that jazz musicians usually prefer playing in real-time, face to face groups.
Now that's for the 'artistic turntablist'. The run of the mill, high school/fraternity dance/wedding dance/rager/rave variety of DJ's that, in my experience, are people that own a relatively large cd collection, make an investment in some equipment to reproduce that music-sometimes even learning to hook the equipment together properly, with generally a cheesy light show, and charge the client enough to keep him/herself in gear, while undercutting any 'band' that might actually have worked out a different take on that same music.
I admit that I have retired from city life, and have not attended a dance club in a few years. Have I really missed some exciting, creative music being created by 'turntablists'? If so please direct me to an example.
Hakukani's already addressed this bit by mentionig jazz, but god you really must have a ridiculously limited knowledge of music if you really believe what you just wrote.
Yes - but it's not just that the players can riff off each other, it's also simply that the density of the sound achievable by a single instrument typically used in Jazz is not enough to carry a performance. If your instruments are of a more electronic nature, you're not necessarily limited in that respect. There are e.g. many jazz pianists who can play by themselves. A DJ's creative dynamic can also be very similar to that of a jazz musician.
You could say the same for any band of live hacks. Would you base your opinion of classical music on music from a cobbled-together youth orchestra? Or getting back to the wedding scene, a hired quartet who look the part but have more than the hint of tortured cat in their performance? There are degrees of any profession / skill.
Try edIT for something accessible.
I didn't put it into context but what makes you think that?
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Zimv20, I can't believe people are still falling for this NPR april fool's joke:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1216161
That's what I was afraid of...
"What I do find a cause for concern, or at least it seems to be much more rare with all of this otherwise generally wonderful technology, results from the degree to which people now tend to start with a supplied sound, usually a loop, and then build in reaction to what they are hearing. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing this of course. But I fear that music comes from inside us much less often than used to be the case. The experience of listening to your own mind in silence and forming, clarifying, holding in your mind a spontaneous evolving sonic vision, of listening to your own personal musical imagination as it processes what you are feeling within yourself, this is being drowned out of our musical culture by the ways the purveyors of today's music tech make it as easy as they can to start a new piece and keep it going so that you'll buy more of their stuff. I am hearing more and more editing, selection and juxtaposition in the new music I run across, and less of what feels like genuine self-expression from within the individual, though I certainly do hear that at times in new works too."
-Laurie Spiegel (emphasis added)
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wait -- are you saying I fell for it? I think not -- my friend did that piece.
here is a short blurb on the LOC's CD preservation program.
It's not a catch-all, and you elect to apply it to anything you don't like.
I don't know who, in junior's words, understands music less here. Music to dance to necessarily has repetitive elements to it. From court music to backwoods fiddling to the clubs, it's the same.
As a matter of interest, what instruments do you play?
I admit to being an academic, with a degree in Music. I compose a bit. I have had experience with playing most traditional western musical instruments, and some folk and 'ethnic' instruments.. I was originally a woodwind specialist, primarily saxophone, but I got interested in electronic instruments when I first heard Stockhausen, Messiean, and Pierre Henry. I played with analog tape editing and Modular Synths.
I started messing with computer music around the time the first Mac came out, and the first MIDI spec, interfacing the Mac with DX7's and Prophet 600's and started editing 8 bit samples on a Mac, bouncing to a Prophet 2000 sampler.
I lost interest for the same reasons that Laurie Spiegel did, and went back to my saxophone roots.
I made a living several years doing live sound, along with general stagehanding and grip work. My specialty was sound for Musical Theater. Injuries and age made it difficult for me to continue in that profession.
But enough about me...
All people need in order to dance is a pulse (literally and figuratively). Most music, in my experience, has a pulse. My objection to most of the xxx-hop music is that the pulse is too forward. I personally enjoy a little subtlety in music. It's not that I don't like the music per se. It's pretty harmless. I'm actually pretty indifferent to it. I've been indifferent to dance clubs since the Disco Era.
Zimv20, I'm aware of the problems of storage mediums. Tape has oxide shed, wax melts,shellac shatters easily, cd's have acid bleed, vinyl scratches relatively easy.. We've had these same storage problems since clay tablets and Papyrus. Information gets lost/destroyed (some probably should--do we really need to preserve the episodes of 'Manimal' and 'World's Funniest Video'?) I don't agree that vinyl is the answer to the storage problem.
My original note was to ditch the vinyl. Phonograph recordings have a ton of crosstalk, a limited dynamic range (of course that doesn't make any difference to DJs, I suppose), and are phasy sounding (unless you have a great turntable) from the RIAA curve. They also lose high end response as the stylus gets towards the center of the record. All in all, not very high fidelity. Analog tape is MUCH better than records, but there is the issue of oxide shed and random access.
If you're going to 'repurpose' existing material, one of the many applications written for computers are much better, IMO. It's much faster than cutting tape, that's for sure. My opinion remains that learning a traditional musical instrument can only have a positive impact on creativity.
And yes, cover bands sometimes suck. I know a core of people including myself that would rather hear a sucky cover band playing live than anything recorded. In addition, cover bands or even original bands don't get the exposure that they did at one time, so they don't get a real chance to suck less.
Not so much slanted, but simply old fartism kicks in for many. And unfortunately, all the clever talk in the world can't really compensate for when you've lost your ability to adapt and continue learning in the most fundamental way. It's not long until I'm hakukani's age - and I hope I'm not like him (or like my uncle was / friends's father etc ad nauseum) when I am.
Just because you reject certain notions does not mean that you're not adaptable, or losing your ability to adapt.
According to your way of thinking, I've been an old fart since I was in my twenties, and was railing against Discos, whose banality has been revealed over the years, except for those lovers of kitsch.
Yes, the longer you're involved with something, the more clear your notions on those issues, and the more discerning your tastes become. If you call that a 'slanted' view, then sure, guilty as charged. I've never seen the advantage or desireability of wide-eyed acceptance of every 'art' form that comes down the 'pike. If the emperor has no clothes, I have no problem pointing that out. It doesn't mean I have an axe to grind with the emperor.
I can see that there may be a bit of 'been there, done that' in my attitude.
I wouldn't recommend being 'agist' (especially since there are plenty of boomers around).
No-one is saying these these are necessarily enduring art forms. But as a form of creative expression and as a demonstration of musical skill they are absolutely valid. And it's not my problem that you've been an old fart since your twenties. And at almost your age, I'm not being ageist - if anything, based on what you've written so far I'm being blowhardist.
I'm not sure I'd call it 'musical' skill--but I'll stipulate the creative expression, as I did previously.
As far as being a blowhard-one of the definitions of being a blowhard is feeling the need to give one's credentials before speaking. YOU asked for my credentials, and I didn't even give many details. The agist comment was directed at KillyP anyway, not you.
I still contend that a 'turntablist's' 'creative expression' would certainly be improved by studying a traditional musical instrument.
I really am trying to say this in a way that promotes understanding and the discussion of ideas, rather than personal attacks. I've noticed that folks here seem to prefer the clever bon mot over the content and/or validity of their positions.
My first statement was intentionally provocative, because I was in a prickly sort of mood at the time. It also addressed performance (meaning live performance), and being a better (real, in the sense of a real man/woman), not creative expression. I apologize for not being clearer in my original post.
I have always embraced the old fart in me. If you don't, that's fine.