Turntablism as musicianship

[ericuk]

"the world is still not sold on turntablism as a legitimate form of musicianship. DJ’ing, yes. Turntablism, no. While DJ’s are now multi-millionaire rockstars, most people could care less about turntablism, and other musicians still don’t respect us as peers."

 

I got a couple of theories about this.

 

Firstly, anything presented to the masses with too much technicality or complexity doesn't have much appeal. The general public cares more about what the mindless cretins on big brother have to say than any geniuses of our time. They would rather listen to Souljah Boy than immortal technique.

 

My experience has seen that most people can't understand the complexity of scratching, have no understanding of how the sounds are being manipulated and you may as well play them a fax machine tone, because it means about the same to them. Even my friends who like dance music, would prefer simple transform cuts over 2 click orbits, they can follow repetition but cant follow anything too improvised, syncopated or differently placed rhythms to the music.

 

Secondly, DJ Superstars of today are lesser known for their DJ skills, but now made famous for their tunes. Producers who make big hits get booked as DJ's. There are now fewer DJ's in electronic dance music that don't make music to become and remain successful. Mixing is a doddle now with the technology available and the level of modern production. I think it's deemed as being less skilful than back in the days of say, mixing jungle on vinyl (which was challenging).

 

I hate to admit it, but while I love scratching, I don't feel turntablist music a a whole. I loved the rock hard bastards tour in london, but there were even times there where I thought that turntables as instruments are pointless. Take the vestax turntables with the pitched buttons on them.... I'd rather learn to play a keyboard than get good on that. Turntable drumming is sick but I don't think it compares to real drumming. Someone cutting a bass sample on a turntable is limited compared to a real bass guitar.

 

In summary of my points, I think that turntablism is a highly skilled art form, grossly misunderstood and under appreciated . It demands creativity and new ground are always being broken, as it develops both technically and technologically, It is however possibly too technical for the dumbed down masses and can be restrictive compared to real instruments.

 

I can already argue against some of my own points, so I'm not looking to have my opinion challenged. I just wonder;

 

if this is how a scratch enthusiast can feel about something they do themselves, how might someone with little or no interest think?

 

Your thoughts?

 

 

[jam]

i dont think turtablism will ever b understood by the masses, and i hope it dont...

[Mike-L]

If you see technique as the end rather than the means, then you're not a musician.

[ericuk]

If you see technique as the end rather than the means, then you're not a musician.

 

I agree, in the same way that great special effects don't automatically make a great film.

 

So why/do you think turntablism has such a small appeal?

[Mike-L]

I think battling (as much as i've enjoyed it over the years) has played a part. Technique is easier to judge objectively and people focus on technique to win battles. Technique has fundamental limits too, given the limits of the the human body.Compare Q and Dstyles from 2000 scratchcon to people pushing technique today, the limits have not really been pushed much further - its like what J slim says in that article - people finding tiny combo variations in streams of 32nd notes.

 

I don't buy into the 'battling pushes the envelope' argument entirely either. The live at union square transforming by Jazzy Jeff was so progressive at the time - and still sound loads better than most people today, even really good people. I mentioned ages ago an A trak version of the dance to the drummers beat transform that didn't even come close to the feel of Jazzy's original. Jazzy in the 80's and Dstyles in the late 90's weren't pushing the envelope to win battles - they were doing it to sound dope.

[Danny Crash]

I don't think it's true that tablists are not respected by other musicians.. in recent years I have seen more interesting things like scratchers working with other musicians than ever before. Switch was playing with a whole orchestra on the BBC proms last year wasn't he? I reckon most regular mix DJs would love to be able to flex some proper skills, even if they don't admit it. I don't agree that scratch drumming is a pale imitation of 'real drumming' at all - they're completely different instruments and hence not comparable in a 'better than' way, just as a guitar is not 'shitter than' a violin in any way... I'd agree that most people don't really understand tablism though... but I wouldn't expect them to, because unless you're acquainted with how sounds are mapped on a record and how they can be manipulated it won't make much sense. Having said that I know loads of people who are well into C2C, nam nam, Perverts etc. but have never touched a turntable in their life. One thing I do think is now a problem is that with the introduction of DVS, the artform *may* become even more distant from the understanding of the general public, which is a shame.

[Vekked]

Re: turntables being limited. Obviously turntables have their drawbacks, sure, but so does every instrument. It's a bit of a "glass is half empty" type thing to compare playing bass on turntables to playing bass on guitar, since it's pretty obvious that it's not going to be better than the original instrument at playing the same music, but compare it's strengths. If you took at loop station and had to make a composition using only a turntable, vs. making a composition with only a bass guitar, which one is going to make you feel more limited now? That's the beauty/strength of the turntable. IMO people have kind of forgot why the turntable is so cool: you have infinite samples and can manipulate them to fit nearly rhythm/tempo you want. Think of how many people use the turntable and barely touch any sound that isn't on a scratch record any more. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of being the same most of the time, but from a music perspective THAT is our strength, and imo it far out weighs any other single instrument. Sure you're never going to do crazy guitar solos, drum solos, or super melodic basslines, but the turntable isn't supposed to replace those, there's tons of other really cool stuff we can do that they can't, which is what we should try to do.

 

Re: technicality. I think the too technical thing is a bit of a cop out. Obviously being technical doesn't really appeal to the masses, but there are tons of virtuoso's with every instrument that appeal primarily to the nerds. It's not the issue with the artform, and let's face it, pretty much the "face" of turntablists to the masses is Qbert. Who's more technically focussed these days than him? Yet he's making all the money in the scratch game.

 

RE: battling. Although I obv think battling is sweet, and I love old school battles and battles in theory (in practice lately I think there just hasn't been many good DJs lately who are really trying to take things to push the boundaries and such). I think there IS a big problem with battling that could be overcome that hasn't though, and that's the transition from battling to music. It's such an obvious transition. Once you spend half a decade or more honing your craft until you're one of the most technically sound in the world at it, and your primary purpose has been trying to make original short compositions with the turntable given limitations, it seems like a pretty obvious step. Historically the next step after battling was to become a club DJ, but I think that ship has kinda sailed (I mean it's not impossible, but I don't think it's as efficient to try and get a name in DJing through battling these days), and now just being a tablist is the way to go. But for some reason it seems like a lot of battle DJs get to the top and have some sort of identity crisis and don't know what they're doing. Guys like M-Rock and I-Emerge were really dope and had a lot of potential, then just dropped off the planet after they reach their peak. It's kind of mind boggling that these guys would spend nearly half of their life getting sooo good at a certain art, then just being like "fuck it, next thing". I think guys like Tigerstyle had it right, going from scratching into music. But for him, if there is any problem maybe he's doing fine, I feel like the problem is with the fans and such. Probably not all that many guys who were a big fan of his battling and routines went on to check his music. Elaborate Experiments was fucking dope, but it seems like almost no one was even aware it came out. Look at the Allies, they hit pretty much the peak of turntablism through battling then all jumped ship to something that has next to nothing to do with it. Overall I think the strict separation between battling and musicianship is kind of a problem, so many guys with heaps of potential to make dope turntable music just... don't. It's not because they can't, but I think it's because they just never wanted to, or never thought of that, like they wanted to become DJs and decided this route to do it, not realizing it's not really the way to go anymore. I think if battling and turntable music came together and tablists realized that it's all really the same thing, and that battling is the end goal of their craft, then it would be better off. One day maybe.

 

Re: the masses not respecting turntablism as musicianship. Umm, fuck em? I mean again to me it comes down to a sort of identity crisis between the DJ and the turntablist. I've been doing a lot more turntablist showcases since winning DMC last year, and I've played for a variety of crowds. It seems that at nearly every hip-hop show I play, people are mind blown and I get nothing but props and people coming up to me offering me gigs and getting my contact info (even stuff like a cypher where I'm just mixing instrumentals and doing the odd bit of looping/trick mixing, it just goes over super well). Whereas any time I've played in a club at an average night, people are super confused and sometimes people start yelling shit and stuff. The same thing happens every time though, I get introduced, I start my routine, and people start dancing as if it's any other DJ up there, then they soon realize that it's not top 40 pop songs, and that there's interludes and stuff, and they're like "wtf is this shit??". I've even "dumbed down" my routine, and basically don't juggle unless it's a well known song, and try to keep it scratchy, and it still just doesn't work. Stuff like my junglebook routine that my friends asked me to show people nearly every time someone new came over until I was sick of it for most of last year, and probably the only routine that my parents like/mildly understand, I've had people boo/shout shit at me in a top 40 club. I'm almost positive if you put those same people in a different situation, they'd be like "hey this is kinda cool", but it's the fact that they expect a DJ, and get a turntablist, that they're not down. They expect to dance, and when someone starts playing stuff that's not dance music, they're not down. I'm probably still going to keep doing showcases in those situations because it's a pretty good way to toughen up for harsh crowds, but it's just made it even more apparent that DJing and tablist stuff are an entire world apart more than ever. Turntablism isn't meant to be done on a club night, and forcing it down people's throats doesn't really help promote it too well, but when it's done for people who are open to it or expecting it, it does have a pretty big appeal. Look at some of the tablist videos on youtube that have millions of views. They wouldn't get that way if there wasn't some degree of mass appeal.

 

The last point I have is kind of related to battlers not transitioning to music, or tablists in general not really pushing the music angle. Dudes like the X-Ecutioners, Kid Koala, Cut Chemist, Dexta (the Avalanches), Kentaro, even Cold Cut themselves and probably a bunch of other good examples that I'm not thinking of right now kind of paved the way for getting scratchy music accepted on a wider scale. X-Ecutioners were fkin signed to Sony and did a song with Linkin Park, and Kid Koala has heaps of tracks and I know tons of people that are into his music that know nothing about turntablism. Even if there were people who copied them and tried to follow their formula, they opened the door for people actually listening to it as music, but basically no one followed in their footsteps. They did/do their thing, but how many guys that aren't from their generation tried to do it as well? The opportunities are there, but tablists in general aren't taking advantage of them. Part of it's the identity thing, part of it's the battle scene/scratch music segregation thing, and part of it is that making scratch music is actually pretty tough and takes a lot of digging to do properly. The amount of digging DJ Shadow had to do for Endtroducing is pretty unreal and most people can't imagine doing the same, but I feel like for tablists it's almost necessary to do that. I think one of the biggest things that those guys I listed have in common is that they're almost all crazy diggers. That's the big advantage we have with turntablism, and the coolest part, but most of us (including myself) don't take near enough advantage of it.

 

There's one huge hurdle for turntable music that could inevitably be the reason that even if everything I listed above changed, it still wouldn't get as big as it could, and that's sampling laws/copyright. But given that our instrument depends on using samples, and I don't think we've even got to the point where we have to worry about those laws putting pressure on what we do, that's kind of the state of where we're at.

 

TL;DR

[Jon]

I think Vekked touches on a really important point here. Most people who do well in battles have spent a good ten years (on average) preparing for those battles and then don't do anything much using those abilities after that (Kentaro/C2C/BirdyNamNam being huge exceptions from the past 10 years). For some, battling is the be all and end all, and that's fine, but it'd be great if some people pushed scratch composition as equally as much as they practiced routines during their battle careers (something that I'm pretty bad at doing myself these days.

 

@Vekked- are the clubs you're getting showcase spots at top40 type places? If so, no wonder they don't go down well man. If someone got on stage playing keys and nailed a killer performance most people there wouldn't be into it, but they would happily go apeshit if you replaced the keys player with David Guetta and the killer performance with him miming to a mixcd. Scratching definitely does work in a club environment, in moderation and to the right crowd, you just need to research and find the right crowd for you (or get a booking agent to help you out).

[Vekked]

I think Vekked touches on a really important point here. Most people who do well in battles have spent a good ten years (on average) preparing for those battles and then don't do anything much using those abilities after that (Kentaro/C2C/BirdyNamNam being huge exceptions from the past 10 years). For some, battling is the be all and end all, and that's fine, but it'd be great if some people pushed scratch composition as equally as much as they practiced routines during their battle careers (something that I'm pretty bad at doing myself these days.

 

Yea for sure. I recently met DJ Brace and we were talking about battling/making music and such. The DMC Canada organizer has been trying to get him to get back into battling and I asked him if he's gonna, and he said he considered it but he said with the same energy it takes to make a 6 minute routine, he could make an entire album. It's very true, but how many tablists take the energy they put into making routines and re-direct it towards music? If they did I think we'd have a lot of cool stuff.

 

@Vekked- are the clubs you're getting showcase spots at top40 type places? If so, no wonder they don't go down well man. If someone got on stage playing keys and nailed a killer performance most people there wouldn't be into it, but they would happily go apeshit if you replaced the keys player with David Guetta and the killer performance with him miming to a mixcd. Scratching definitely does work in a club environment, in moderation and to the right crowd, you just need to research and find the right crowd for you (or get a booking agent to help you out).

 

Yea they're def top 40 places, that's just about the only type of club where I'm from. I can definitely see where it'd work in certain club environments, but I guess when I say club I mean top 40 club, because where I'm at it's one and the same. Personally I'm down to showcase for any crowd, I think it's good experience, and it's a challenge to try and figure out how to switch things up to appeal to certain crowds a bit more. In general I think that any crowd that is looking to dance/for dance music isn't really going to be down for too much tablist stuff (unless you're using that music I guess), but I'm not too interested in making routines JUST for top 40 clubs when I'd feel dirty using them anywhere else, I'd rather make stuff that I enjoy doing.

[Steve]

I don't understand why anyone would think it would ever have mass appeal. It's like asking why albums of bagpipe playing aren't as popular as Justin Bieber.

[ericuk]

Was there ever a time when turntable culture was more popular among the general public?

 

What about the 80's and 90's?

 

I've always thought that being a Dj was cooler and more attractive/interesting/appealing when I started in the mid 90's compared to now.

 

 

[Steve]

I dunno if turntable culture was more popular, but there was more coverage on mainstream TV back in the 80s and 90s. MTV used to show bits of the DMC and New Music Seminar and they sometimes had guest DJs in on Yo! MTV Raps. There was a 30 minute Behind The Beat special on BBC2 at 6:30 in the evening that covered the 1989 DMC world final (which I still have on VHS). You'd never see something like that now. Cutmaster Swift was a guest on Wogan FFS, lol.

 

I think a part of it is down to how much hip-hop has changed. Look how big Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince were back in the 80s for instance. The DJ was still a big part of hip-hop back then, so if you were into it you were hearing scratching on pretty much every album. Westwood used to have guest DJs in that were actually decent, or he'd occasionally play a good mixtape, but now even he is just pushing buttons to play MP3s and there's no DJs on his show any more. Hip-hop no longer leads folks towards scratching and turntablism IMO - or nowhere near as much anyway.

[kut_class]

I don't understand why anyone would think it would ever have mass appeal. It's like asking why albums of bagpipe playing aren't as popular as Justin Bieber.

 

Interesting statement as both are equally shit or as good as each other, its just that Bieber is the end product of a billion dollar industry that spends most of it money on telling the public what their tastes should be. Its a bit like saying "i can't understand why that rhyming gibberish from the new york ghettos would ever have mass appeal". I think these kind of things dont gain popularity by chance , Graf, breaking and MC'ing have all been picked up by the media , developed and marketed, but for some reason turntablism never did, but i have no idea why .. but i have a feeling turntablists could be to blame ..

 

Also you kind of raised a point that certain instruments kind of sound shit when played by themselves, while can work much better accompanying other instruments. Turntablism with MC's or Turntable bands , are a bit of a rarity these days, but would seem a more palatable way of presenting to the mainstream and acclimatise for the more techncal solo compositions i.e. most people reject foreign ideas, so by creating a proxy to acclimatise you could push the real agenda at a later date or at least leave poeple suggestive to the notion.

[Steve]

I don't understand why anyone would think it would ever have mass appeal. It's like asking why albums of bagpipe playing aren't as popular as Justin Bieber.

 

Interesting statement as both are equally shit or as good as each other, its just that Bieber is the end product of a billion dollar industry that spends most of it money on telling the public what their tastes should be.

 

The old "sheeples" argument. People aren't THAT dumb. It's not like hip-hop didn't exist until Rapper's Delight was released. Rapper's Delight was released because hip-hop was already massively popular.

 

You couldn't take a bagpipe player and turn them into Beiber (in terms of success) by throwing money at their career. The potential would have to be there to do that and it just isn't.

[kut_class]

agree, but you could throw bag pipes behind Beiber and open peoples eyes to the bagpipes. kinda like you said , turntablim isn't even getting the minimal exposure like it was back in the day

[Jon]

 

^this has more views than all my scratching videos combined

[Steve]

agree, but you could throw bag pipes behind Beiber and open peoples eyes to the bagpipes. kinda like you said , turntablim isn't even getting the minimal exposure like it was back in the day

 

That's a fair point, but I don't think the problem is exposure. Everyone here has heard bagpipes being played. Everyone I know has. Who's buying CDs of it though? Not one person I know.

 

DJing has the right image - people see it as a "cool" thing to do. If you use turntables, even more so. And yet, hardly anyone gives a shit about turntable music. I've posted numerous threads about it on DJ Forums, which is a site full of DJs of various types so you would think that those people would be more receptive to it than your average "I only really like the pop music I hear at work all day" person, and yet nobody really cares about it.

 

To me, it's because the sound of scratching is the equivalent to the sound of bagpipes. The vast majority of people who hear it respect the skill it takes, but really don't like listening to it for anything more than a short period of time. A tiny number of people love it. I don't see that ever changing.

 

I don't agree that scratch drumming is a pale imitation of 'real drumming' at all - they're completely different instruments and hence not comparable

 

I disagree with this too. While they are completely different instruments, the goal is essentially the same and scratch drumming is incredibly limited in scope compared to real drumming.

[Vekked]

The scratching sound effects on keyboards are far more limited than real scratching.

 

...

[Mike-L]

I think scratch drumming is more akin to playing percussion.You have much more control of pitch than you do with kit playing - but generally it's done with just the hands and sonically it has less umph. You might have kick and snare sounds but once you start cutting them , it all gets more mid-range sounding than a drum kit.

 

I guess when turntablists started playing with 'kick snare sounds' they were consciously trying to do simple drum styles - mainly hip hop kick snare patterns.But you get cross instrument influence in other areas too - think acoustic guitar players who 'drum' on the body of the guitar.

 

Claim to fame - 2000 UK Finals was on MTV .I missed it but my sister saw my set and texted me. Apparently my style was described as an "eclectic music mix"

[Mike-L]

Incorporating turntables with other instruments is not easy if you want to be creative. I'm not talking busting out a solo with aah fresh : other instruments can contribute to a song without having to solo, we should be able to do that too.

Ive done gigs with jazz musicians before. I've really enjoyed it if we've had chance to work with some simple frameworks first. Bear in mind their instruments can play in any key , they can switch key at a moments notice, and the keys on the intstruments are always in the same place. For most real records you dont know if your in key with the band til you put the headphones on and try to tune it to the band (btw Eric: thats one really good reason for the C1 and PDX3000 midi capabilities). furthermore they have a repertoire of chord progressions and standards that they can dip into etc. In a hardcore improv setting by the time you've got something that works harmonically - they've all buggered of into something else! Hence the importance of prepping with the musicians first. The last couple of times i did something like that i hated it , because we didnt get chance to prep first.For the band thats no problem : they can fall into their usual soul/funk/jazz improv repetoire and your left like a 'cool' prop on stage to prove how modern it all is - meanwhile your left doing really uninspiring stuff with generic battle weapon sounds. Its an unconventional instrument that needs a lot of mutual understanding to make it work.

[ericuk]

Have you seen the dude who modded his vestax 06 so that the crossfader slides up and down to produce different pitches?

 

I gotta give props for that!

[jam]

u mean jon b? yep, seen that a while ago. id like one of those.

[Guest Symatic]

yeah i saw the fader thing a while back. it's cool as fuck but its a whole new thing. i think the limitations of the turntable/mixer are one of the things that make it so unique.

[Vekked]

the scratch bandits fader thing is sick too, same idea as the fretless fader but digital so it's more versatile in some ways (way better for cutting traditional samples or samples that depend on being tempo matched), but probably sounds a lot worse if you're pitching up or down too much like the synth tone solo stuff

[Steelio]

I don't understand why anyone would think it would ever have mass appeal. It's like asking why albums of bagpipe playing aren't as popular as Justin Bieber.

 

Exactly this. The same could be said about someone button mashing on an MPC for 5 mins. Or 5 hour super-technical saxophone solos. The kind of things most people will watch for 30 seconds and say "Wow, that's good." but they'd never listen to it in their headphones. You can use turntables in the studio to play a sample on your latest pop hit and get away with it, I don't see how its any different to a regular sampler in that respect, but 'turntablism' and long 'aaah' solos are never going to be anything more than a niche.