Just to clarify something Ivan SC I have no time for the typical Djs who do weddings and similar functions, they're not musicians, they're not DJs in the true sense of the word - they put on records which you and I could do just aswell. If you have a PA system, some lights and a van that's the only skill you need. Its good to get points of agreement and a good function band does weddings etc. far better than these people who put on records. Now if you want to get a top club DJ for your wedding that's something else but few could afford her/him.

But as in music so in DJing, one of the in DJs at the moment apparently isn't very good live and has someone who does his production for him. I am not naming him as I sometimes get paid to imitate his style. Also I have had library music in his style accepted.

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No longer a forum member.

Quote IvanSC:

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...and a bloke playing bass lines using a recording of a cello is still a party piece, rather than a meaningful performance...

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This little snippet is, I think, the crux of the matter for me. It's not that I like an argument and I agree with much of what you are say but I just find this instinctively wrong.

To me this is fundamentaly playing the turntable as an instrument even down to the level that you are generating the wave form from scratch through the mechancial process of skillfully manipulating the needle through the grove (well, the groove around the needle I guess).

Sure, the original recording imbues a particular character because the grove pattern was created by a cello but the cello itself has that character as a result of it's shape, the materials used to build it and, to some smaller degree, the way in which it was bowed.

The turntablist has to controll the pitch and the rhythm completely and has to match those to the other instruments or sounds being played. I just can't see in what way that is not a fully fledged musical instrument perfromance. You could even bend notes and with a bit of volume control via the mixer could be really expressive. I would love to hear such a thing.

This is a good thread. I know it has been done before but it is making me think.

I wonder how long it will be before my submission of a carefully composited video of Justin Gatlin sprinting will get me accepted for the 2012 Olympics ... I'm even happy to jump around near the starting blocks if it'll make people happy.

I know, I know .... old argument, difference of opinions, difficult to quantify what a 'musician' actually is, etc, etc, etc...

M

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Been a while since I've posted..... and how come I'm still a new member?

i know, i know, copy and paste, copy and paste...

but This, from the music theory version of the thread, which has some interesting points not made here (I mean by other people...):


all good points, hussein.

I don't think that what you can do with a turntable has yet reached anything like the possibilities that people have wrought from more conventional instruments over the years - it's a primitive way of doing things, and precisely because of this, people are constantly pushing things forward in this area with a sense of urgency and invention that I can't help feeling is lacking in the retro-driven world of guitar bands.

I like to think that Harry Webley's comment about 'musicians of the future' referred to this bright future of invention that electronic music in general presents us with, rather than trying to put the fear of god into those more conventional instrumentalists who seem to think that the rug is about to pulled from under their feet by some ungainly imposter.

As far as skills vs. creativity goes, I should make it clear that I am not a DJ, I am a songwriter, guitarist, and piano player. I have always felt that songwriting is a matter of having one or two good/lucky/weird ideas and then using skill and craft to warp them into something well structured, rather than just sitting down and being inspired. I have all the time in the world for people who want to make music which is purely 'inspriational' (like... freeform improv?), but not only does music made in this way represent a tiny fraction of what happens in the world, it is also very difficult for most ordinary people to relate to. That's the main reason such repetetive patterns occur in what 'the masses' listen to. Creating music that is both inventive and has the power to stir emotions in somebody who knows nothing about how music is made, is a skill, because your listeners' ears and brains obey a lot of rules and conform to a lot of ideas. While just playing a C chord over a descending bassline is not composing, because evryone's done it, a writer has to consider these things a tool in their box, so to speak, and should know when to use it and when not to.

As well as highlighting the possibility of being creative in music using any noise-maker you like, it is also important to point out that whoever thinks they are going to write a good song by being creative, but without using ANY LEARNT SKILL-SET AT ALL is fooling themselves.

Good music, like good architecture, art, cooking, and that other thing, is the result of somebody who has a good idea, and the skills to make it work.

As far as Emin's bed goes, the skills involved in making that work as art are mostly to do with manipulating perception of what an installation like that is and why she did it, stirring of controversy and things like that. In that sense it's a great idea which only becomes good art on account of some very skilled PR and self-legend-building on her part. And I'm sure she wouldn't disagree that having two japanese guys raid it for a pillow fight only improved her lot.

Hector

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Anto mo Ninja, Watashi mo Ninja

Quote IvanSC:

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On the other hand the whole discussion is a bit of a waste of time, since there will always be those who stick on records and claim to be musicians and I will still get punters asking me to `put on XXXXYYY for the next record` when I am out playing live.

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Well, I have to say it's pretty common to go into a pub where a really good local band is trying out what they think are great, original songs in a new style, and to hear them get barraged with requests for 'American Pie' or 'The Piano Man'. There's really not much difference here.

Quote IvanSC:

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I used to gig in my local area four or five nights a week without playing any pubs and without leaving the centre of the town. This was in the early and mid sixties, when local bands still played mostly covers of current chart material.
As the idea that bands ought to write and play all their own material became popular and the concept of twenty minute funky jams being creative (!!) came into existence, so the average punter stopped being interested in what the local muso`s were doing and looked fro something else. Lo and behold, the youth clubs that couldn`1t afford a live band had started playing records instead and from that humble beginning came the mobile DJ boom and with it the death of the majority of live music outlets.

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Are you suggesting that what you percieve as the 'downfall of live music' is the result of live bands' desire to perform their own compositions instead of someone else's? Thats what it sounds like your suggesting...

Quote IvanSC:

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Disco`s and their current counterparts have survived as a live experience for all the reasons given earlier in this thread, a dance gig IS an experience and generally easily repeatable because the inszpirational component is supplied by the DJ`s skill, not the playing ability and `on the night` mood of several co-operating musicians, most of whom have little or no interest in crowd reaction.

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co-operating musicians who collectively have NO interest in crowd reaction are both extremely unlikely to find themselves in front of a crowd, and should probably not be there. people who claim they have no interest in crowd reaction but persist in performing when they don't have to are, frankly, bullshitters. Performing your own compositions live is a stressful and emotionally exhausting experience which nobody in their right mind would do unless they enjoyed the amazing feeling a good crowd reaction gives you.

Quote IvanSC:

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A remix is still a remix and a bloke playing bass lines using a recording of a cello is still a party piece, rather than a meaningful performance, as were all those shite 20 minute solo`s in the old days.

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Every striking new development was 'a party piece' in this sense when it was first invented. Does nobody remember 'the christmas rap'? a total novelty record... and at the time most boffins would have laughed at the idea that a single further 'rap' record would ever sully the charts again.

Quote IvanSC:

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Oh and FWIW when you play a musical saw or other similar `wierd` instrument, let`s not forget that you are still generating the wave form from scratch, not just finding it oir `borrowing` it. Come to think of it, I`m not that keen on synths, either......

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O.K., Ivan, you don't like synths? if you're trying to persuade anyone on this forum, you probably want to keep this to yourself.

Here is a list of instuments with which you DON'T generate the wave form from scratch, even in the half-way you might on a guitar or a trumpet...

Piano
Xylophone
Tubular Bells
Flute
recorder
accordian
....

I am only stopping here because it's just occurred to me that the one instrument on which you can completely define every parameter of the original waveform you use is...... a synth.

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Anto mo Ninja, Watashi mo Ninja

FLUTE???? RECORDER???

Who do you think generates the column of air that vibrates and forms the musical note? Now if you had said melodica or stlyophone, in fact just about anything Rolf Harris has played.... (joke alert!)

Seriously, the point I was trying to make with the so-called original bands of the seventies was that most of what they were doing was not original in the first place and pretty boring crap in the second place, which is what alienated the punters.

Just to put this in perspective, I have done my share of being in original bands (!) and have charted in the USA, been on music TV shows etc and have also schlepped around doing functions gigs. More recently I have regularly recorded for hire on some Country & Western and Irish stuff and toured extensively at club level, so I am not `just` a pub MOR musician.

Having said this, I also have enough time in the business both here and abroad to make a realistic comparison between the live gigging scene in the UK pre "wow man I`m really expressing myself" and post. Sadly there has been so much rubbish music put out by musicians who feel like they should be able to write their own songs but can`t that the average punter has been thrown into the arms of mobile DJ`s for a reliable `big sound with yer mates` experience and the rave/club scene for the equivalent of the old live gig euphoria.

If only people would realise that there is no shame in not being able to write your own material and equally no shame in not actually playing an instrument, we might be able to lay this whole subject to rest once and for all.

Why can`t singers who only sing call themsleves singers, guitarists who only play guitar be guitarists and of course DJ`s that play records be DJ`s and scratchers be... er, turntablists?
Mind you, that does still leave an awful lot of room for conjecture over who then qualifies for the title `musician`....
Just so long as nobody suggests producers.

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Me? But I`m such a loveable old bugger!

You omitted the jazz funk bands, this same boring stuff that was just not as tight or energetic as the US originals, playing what the musicians liked but didn't come over to the audience. You would play functions or in high class restaurants and all through Forever End Ever or Strangers In the Night you would get bass slapping. This drove me wild. Put basically, people should do the job they are paid to do, these musicians would never have made it in America so why inflict it on people who want a good time and enjoy their meal.
I know a very good jazz musician who used to play good compositions by other contemporary jazz composers. then he started playing his own compositions, why? - ego, royalties - I don't know but they are just not up to standard - it is beautifully played [******].

Some people can't compose - end of story.

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No longer a forum member.

hooo boy yessss! I had forgotten all those turgid, endless funky jams over THE two chords.... And people STILL want to do it at jam sessions, like it is somehow cool!

I have pretty much given up on our local jam sessions, as they invariably seem to be a series of naff bands wanting to play `their material` in front of a live audience because nobody else will have them, or - worse- all the unemployables that can only do Led Zep or old punk covers. I have often likened the effort of trying to drag some of this lot through something other than a 12 bar in A or E to wading through a treacle-filled swimming pool with several three-toed sloths on your back. All wearing antique divings suits....

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Me? But I`m such a loveable old bugger!

A few years ago I worked for a ballet company's education department when the company were doing one of the American ballets on George Gershwin tunes. One of the sections used I Got rhythm played incredibly fast. The teacher kept apologising saying can she have it a tiny bit faster, almost in fear. I told her that however fast they could dance it, I could play it faster as I was brought up on stride piano and I often have to play at high speed in my other work. However the two musicians doing a children's performance at the Serpentine Gallery in London just couldn't play it (to me they're imposters) so the said that the children had a right to specially composed music instead of having American music forced on them so they would write music for them. How's that for using political correctness because you're a useless musician who can't do the job you are paid to do?

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No longer a forum member.

".....But it is wrong, the same as the image of drunken musicians who can't play very well and spend their time leching after females is a wrong image of musicians."

WHAT! So now I'm not a musician either?

"hooo boy yessss! I had forgotten all those turgid, endless funky jams over THE two chords.... And people STILL want to do it at jam sessions, like it is somehow cool!"

So then, damn those musicians that play new stuff that you don't like, damn those musicians that do old stuff that you don't like, damn the ones that play stuff that you don't understand, damn those that play stuff that's too simple for you, and let's not even get started on the buggers who play just because they love music?

A

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Andi, www.thedustbowl.net Mixing, Mastering, Audio Editing at The Dustbowl Audio

Quote Andi:

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".....But it is wrong, the same as the image of drunken musicians who can't play very well and spend their time leching after females is a wrong image of musicians."

WHAT! So now I'm not a musician either?

(Not my quote - Ivan)

"hooo boy yessss! I had forgotten all those turgid, endless funky jams over THE two chords.... And people STILL want to do it at jam sessions, like it is somehow cool!"

(My bit - see below - Ivan)

So then, damn those musicians that play new stuff that you don't like, damn those musicians that do old stuff that you don't like, damn the ones that play stuff that you don't understand, damn those that play stuff that's too simple for you, and let's not even get started on the buggers who play just because they love music?

A

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Nope - just trying to explain why the general public got fed up with live bands. I have no problem with funky jams as a means of amusement at what is officially a jam, just don`t like the idea of it being foisted on the paying public as an organised form of public entertainment.

For me, the whole live music biz started going wrong when it became de rigeur for acts to write their own stuff.
There are so many good players and singers out there that couldn`t write their eway out of a paper bag and unfortunately fashion dictated at the time that they SHOULD attmept writing all their own stuff, for quite a while. Result was that people turned their backs on the majority of live-oriented bands and instead looked to the DJ`s playing tunes the knew and more importantly wanted to hear.
Soooo... what you need to address is not my own personal taste, but WHY the DJ`s managed to take over the public`s desire to `get out and boogie down` from live bands.

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Me? But I`m such a loveable old bugger!

Quote IvanSC:

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Soooo... what you need to address is not my own personal taste, but WHY the DJ`s managed to take over the public`s desire to `get out and boogie down` from live bands.

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The lure of the familiar.

Take Madonna's "theft" (ahem) of the opening riff of Abba's Gimme Gimme Gimme for her recent single. Everyone knows the original, so there is an instant "tuning in" effect when Madonna's song cranks up, and already she's ahead of the competition. Tricks like this (and it is a trick, even if I happen to think Madonna has a genius for self-promotion) are the stock-in-trade of DJs.

And the reason live bands have all but died out is, as you say, because they cannot compete with this sort of Paul Daniels-style illusion, especially when they try to write their own "songs" and show no comprehension of knowing what a song even is.

I agree with you, live bands lost this battle at least 20 years ago. It's bleak, but probably irreversible.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote Steve Hill:

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The lure of the familiar.

Take Madonna's "theft" (ahem) of the opening riff of Abba's Gimme Gimme Gimme for her recent single. Everyone knows the original, so there is an instant "tuning in" effect when Madonna's song cranks up, and already she's ahead of the competition. Tricks like this (and it is a trick, even if I happen to think Madonna has a genius for self-promotion) are the stock-in-trade of DJs.

---

Iirc information technologists say that the ideal balance is around 70% familiar material, 30% new, so it looks as if the audiences are not at fault, its just how our brain is wired.
The standard of composition in the jazz world is abyssmal, truly abyssmal and has been so for over 20 years. The problem is imo composition is no longer considered a mixture of ideas, skill, technique and imagination aswell as hard work. It is a example of the curse of contempoary society - everyone has a right to express themselves. Sure - just don't inflict this substandard stuff on the rest of us, do it at home and leave it there.
I often wonder if it is the desire for royalties that makes everyone want to write the own songs etc.

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No longer a forum member.

There is just too much to read from the beginning of this thread so forgive me if I repeat anything already said.


These days any DJ who wants to make it in the industry and go far needs to be producing music. Very few big name DJ's have not hade tunes released. While its true that a lot of them use engineers not all of them do. For the scenes with underground genres like Hard house, hard dance, Drum & Bass, Psy trance and to a certain extent even mainstream trance there are guys who are learning to produce and including that stuff in their sets. I started to DJ many years ago and have now started to learn to produce. Probably the best thing about learning to produce music to play in my sets is that I don't need to study anywhere or spend ages learning an instrument. I am learning music technology and how to manipulate it within the software enviroment. I still don't consider myself a musician in the classical sense, but I have put a consierable amount of time and effort into learning to use Logic, my hardware synths and all the techno jargon and that is associated with music.

I think I can safely say that these days a lot of DJ's are going down the route I am on and learning to produce. The lines are becoming a bit more blurred between DJ's and musicians. You have to look a bit beyond what is happening behind the decks these days to get the full picture of how that DJ got there and what he's playing. It's true that most music is easy to mix (I said most, not all before anyone counters this), but any DJ with any ambition to reach the top needs to produce. So maybe its more apt to say they are producers rather than musicians? Would that keep the cellists and guitar players happy?

The emotion surrounding this debate arises simply because for some reason the term 'musician' has a certain cache. Surprisingly despite DJ's being similarly regarded as cool, creative and probably as easily satisfied after show's, this is not enough.
Musicians of course are the even cooler brother that everyone would rather be.
It is perhaps this myth that needs debunking. Music, and the ability to play it does not confer any god like or elevated state of superhuman ability to a person. Anyone who has worked for anytime in the profession knows this. Even if thier abilities put them beyond critique then nine times out of ten they tend to be self centered and intensly narrow minded, with an almost innate belief that simply playing music itself excuses them all types of social graces, whilst thier artistic output somehow saves the world.

If a DJ bleated on about how they were as important as the UN, or nurses then I would get a bit annoyed - but musicians!!!

There is no need to feel inadequate by not being regarded as a bona fide musician.

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Chaconne - assume you mis-typed cacheT?
I agree with you 100% - this is why it really pisses me off that the many of DJ fraternity are so insecure about their own title that they envy someone else`s, and is not even a particularly impressive one! Try telling the average prospective father-in-law you are a musician and see how impressed THEY are.
To me this makes rants like Mr. H.W.`s all the more pathetic in the first place.

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Me? But I`m such a loveable old bugger!

A strange post Chaconne. I'm a musician and have been for 28 years, I do not recognise myself in your description, nor any of my friends and colleagues. But you may have met a different sort.

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No longer a forum member.

To me, a DJ could be described at best as a performer/entertainer whilst a musician is a performer and an entertainer as well as being a Musician.

But there is no way a DJ can be described as a musician, however well he integrates tracks and spins his turntables.

Funnily enough there is a letter in this months DJ magazine from someone wanting to hear more proper DJ's - i.e. no producers with current hits taking to the decks to promote thier music!

People in clubs dont give a hoot about these discussions, they want proper DJ's with the skills to select cutting edge tunes, mix well, read and work with a crowd. So you see sometimes the backroom boys who play all the parts and get studio tans want in on the glamour!
Yeah there will be countless vice versa examples of producers and musicians who are good DJ's but the point is made - each skill is what it is and needs no respect or 'props' from others.....

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I did once see the epitome of the DJ and musician. It was a friend and he DJ's while playing live electric guitar over the top. That takes some talent!! Pity he retired

The art of DJing does not lie in beatmatching and scratching anymore.

It's all about putting together a coherent set, with a consistent character and mood, and being able to search, find, select and mix the tracks that work for this set.

Putting a successful set together is as much of an art as is painting.

H.

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H.

Quote Comet315:

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Putting a successful set together is as much of an art as is painting.

H.

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Agree completely.

I'd just point out that bands were doing exactly that in the 1920s, and classical conductores were doing the same with programming much earlier. It's not exactly cutting edge is it?

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Ok not taking anything away from DJ's as I respect the music. You only have to watch people like

Qbert
Mix Master Mike

to see that the turntable is a very powerful instrument "capable" of being used as an instrument.

I think incorporating things like "scratchin" makes the instrument interesting, sorry but this so called "beat matching" isnt a rocket science because being a musician first and a DJ very distant 4th I also know that it isnt a piece of piss.

Yes making a set of choons is quite useful, but tbh I really dont think taking the best "new" songs in a particular genre and then throwing in some "classics" is really very difficult, its like putting together a "set list" most bands know the rules of

Starting Off well, Finishing well, so you always put ya best songs first and last.

If anyone watched a little program called "Faking It" a while back they had a girl who did DJ task, she was a Cello player with some big ass orchestra and she was at like Trinity or something. Anywho I digress, she was capable of doing the mixing and had a panel of 3 full on DJ's not knowing she had only been at it for 1 month.

Reverse that situation to a DJ trying to Fake It in a Orchestra as a Cello player? Are you having a laugh

Anyone would be able to spot the person who took up the instrument 1 month before and this is simply the case that although DJing is a form of musical expression, I would not call it a musical instrument, unless your doing things which are classed as "specific style". For example

Could you tell the difference between Judge Jules and some other DJ playing the same song? Cause I dont think I could. On the other hand, if i heard Slash and Vai play the same song I would be able to tell them apart instantly.

I dont doubt people practice their "technique" for beat matching etc but I really dont think that it qualifys in my eyes as a "true" musical instrument.

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There is nothing Grim about this Reaper
We Fell From The Sky

Edited by Henry-S (09/08/06 11:40 PM)

Quote Steve Hill:

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Quote Comet315:

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Putting a successful set together is as much of an art as is painting.

H.

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Agree completely.

I'd just point out that bands were doing exactly that in the 1920s, and classical conductores were doing the same with programming much earlier. It's not exactly cutting edge is it?

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Hmmm.... so if I can`t play a note but I can write out a good set list, I am a top muso, then?

In the 1920`s and so on, they were called bandleaders and right - some of them didn`t play, but they weren`t called musicians unless they were also musicians.

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Me? But I`m such a loveable old bugger!

So, where are these DJs claiming to be top muso's then??

Personally I have never met a DJ who had any pretention or suggestion that they were a musician at all (unless they were also a musician, which many of them are). I am sure you could dig up a few but in the general case I suggest that the concept is a myth.

It seems to me that IvanSC and Steve Hill are fearful. Yes, they are very scared indeed.

They are scared by a modern world they don't understand and aren't a part of. It is symbolised for them by young DJs entertaining large numbers of young men and women by engaging in that wonderful pasttime of playing and dancing to music.

"It isn't right!", they say, "These hateful individuals are using the word musician to describe themselves!".

Yeah – that’s really an issue isn’t it? DJs are playing records, and the more creative of them, who may in fact be producing their own records or using a turntable creatively might say they think of themselves as a musician. Oh, the horror.

What’s really bothering them, of course, is the fact that other people are enjoying themselves in way they don’t approve of.

There really isn't as much difference as they like to pretend between a big-band of the 20s trotting out the same standards week in week out to a DJ of today spinning the week's best sounds. Or indeed to a punk outfit of the 70s or a wig-out jazz jam of the 60s.

It is ALL music, guys. Everyone is a musician. If you enjoy music and you can organise waveforms in such a way that other people appreciate, enjoy or otherwise engage with your creation (even if based *shock* on someone elses creativity), then go for it. You’re a musician.

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Cassette Electrik

Well, wether they are his school friends, his squash team mates or his second cousins (they definitely manage to sound like sequenced samplers though... what a feeling), I have to agree with what Matango said - I just cant help feeling that the prominence given by the media to acts like Mylo or Roni Size is a victory of PC trendiness over good music and common sense.
A.

Quote whawha:

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Well, wether they are his school friends, his squash team mates or his second cousins (they definitely manage to sound like sequenced samplers though... what a feeling), I have to agree with what Matango said - I just cant help feeling that the prominence given by the media to acts like Mylo or Roni Size is a victory of PC trendiness over good music and common sense.
A.

---

All you've told us here is that you don't like their music, which adds precisely no information to the argument.

There is no artist 'X' whom 100% of the population agree is good. That goes for Mylo, Roni Size and Mozart equally, so why not have another go at arguing why we should care about you not liking Artist X and Y?

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Cassette Electrik

Edited by MagicTrumpet (10/08/06 03:51 PM)

I have... on page one of this lenghty thread

I'm not a fan of Mozart, he's not among my favourite composers, but to be honest, if you dont get why Mozart is just better than Roni Size and/ or Mylo there's no point in explaining it... if it can be explained.

Quote Squarepeg:

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So, where are these DJs claiming to be top muso's then??

Personally I have never met a DJ who had any pretention or suggestion that they were a musician at all (unless they were also a musician, which many of them are). I am sure you could dig up a few but in the general case I suggest that the concept is a myth.

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You obviously read neither the heading, beginning or most of the body of this thread. The title (did you even read that?) refers to the backpage article by Harry Wosname in the current issue of SOS.

Unfortunately we now have dickheads like Magic Trouser Trumpet and yourself airing off halfway into what has been until now a pretty interesting thread without taking the trouble to read it. I for one am getting to the point where that particular smell is making me slightly queasy. Where`s the fabreze when you need it?

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Me? But I`m such a loveable old bugger!

Quote matango:

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I'm not a fan of Mozart, he's not among my favourite composers, but to be honest, if you dont get why Mozart is just better than Roni Size and/ or Mylo there's no point in explaining it... if it can be explained.

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You can't read. I didn't make a qualitative statement: I said that there isn't one single musician or composer who everyone likes. Which you proved by saying that Mozart wasn't your favourite either.

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Cassette Electrik

Quote IvanSC:

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Unfortunately we now have dickheads like Magic Trouser Trumpet and yourself airing off halfway into what has been until now a pretty interesting thread without taking the trouble to read it. I for one am getting to the point where that particular smell is making me slightly queasy. Where`s the fabreze when you need it?

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Yeah, well, you've been sounding off in pretty feeble manner for the last 3 pages (I have read it all, thanks) and I thought I might attempt to point out just why your reactionary point of view is quite so feeble.

I mean, really, what is your beef? People playing records? Get over yourself!

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Cassette Electrik

Edited by MagicTrumpet (10/08/06 08:08 PM)

Quote MagicTrumpet:

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It seems to me that IvanSC and Steve Hill are fearful. Yes, they are very scared indeed.

They are scared by a modern world they don't understand and aren't a part of. It is symbolised for them by young DJs entertaining large numbers of young men and women by engaging in that wonderful pasttime of playing and dancing to music.

"It isn't right!", they say, "These hateful individuals are using the word musician to describe themselves!".

---

Grow up, and don't put words in my mouth when you don't have a clue what I'm talking about. Or maybe what you are talking about.

I make a living at this, I run a studio, I work with artists from 17 to 70 (in the last month), and the only thing I fear is crass ignorance as demonstrated by your post.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

When i were a lad back in ye olde days, DJ's had a sort of reputation for being wannabe musicians. Of course musicians love DJ's really, particularly when they play their records. But they hate it when they turn em off before the end. Which is possibly why pop records are three minutes long. Because you cant shut the bastar*s up for more than three minutes at a time!

I'm going to brave the fray again briefly to point out to steve that I chose flute for exactly the reason you said - the player blows over it. You don't sing into it or anything.

I know this is a whole other argument, but all music involves a person interacting with a mechanism of some sort - some rudimentary, some highly complicated. That's why you get some crap flutes, and some beautiful sounding guiros.

Before you respond that a turntablist can only make beautiful sounds if he uses a beautiful record which has already been made, I think this is sometimes true, but by no means necessarily true, ie. purely in virtue of his/her using a turntable. All musicians try their best to use what they can, but you know as well as I do how hard it can be to play expressively on a cheap instrument. All musicians (barring vocalists, and...uh...hand clappers...oh, and if matango is reading, onanists) rely on using something which turns their physical actions into sound, so, depending obviously on the extent to which a turntablist is able to contort the waveforms some cello loop, e.g., provides him with, I don't see how claiming that he is not 'generating' those waveforms himself is relevant.

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Anto mo Ninja, Watashi mo Ninja

Quote Steve Hill:

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Quote MagicTrumpet:

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It seems to me that IvanSC and Steve Hill are fearful. Yes, they are very scared indeed.

They are scared by a modern world they don't understand and aren't a part of. It is symbolised for them by young DJs entertaining large numbers of young men and women by engaging in that wonderful pasttime of playing and dancing to music.

"It isn't right!", they say, "These hateful individuals are using the word musician to describe themselves!".

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Grow up, and don't put words in my mouth when you don't have a clue what I'm talking about. Or maybe what you are talking about.

I make a living at this, I run a studio, I work with artists from 17 to 70 (in the last month), and the only thing I fear is crass ignorance as demonstrated by your post.

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Wow, you make a living at this! I had better not voice an opinion then.

All you've tried to do in these posts in denigrate what other people enjoy doing. Namely playing music. And their only crime is to be DJs, who you don't think are worthy.

I don't give two hoots who might have paid you to stick a microphone in front of them in the last month, it doesn't give you any right.

I've played Brixton Academy and seen 3000 people cheering for more of my music. Big deal. I've also been to Brazil and seen how people REALLY enjoy music, and how, actually, we in the west could learn a great deal about how music can enhance people's lives and tell themselves about their histories.

And that is why I accept music in most of it's forms.

Perhaps I've come across a litte 'forward', for which maybe I apologise, but it comes from a place of passion not passivity.

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Cassette Electrik

If you believe playing the flute does not involve singing into it, I suggest you go back to flute 101. I've worked with some great flautists and it is ALL about singing!!!

Magic Trumpet: you can voice an opinion. That's what this forum is for. Just don't presume to tell me what my opinion is, OK? You don't know, and you will guess wrong.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...


Edited by Steve Hill (10/08/06 11:13 PM)

Quote whawha:

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Well, wether they are his school friends, his squash team mates or his second cousins (they definitely manage to sound like sequenced samplers though... what a feeling), I have to agree with what Matango said - I just cant help feeling that the prominence given by the media to acts like Mylo or Roni Size is a victory of PC trendiness over good music and common sense.
A.

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This is a total no runner. Anyone who is given media prominence is a victory of 'pc trendiness' over 'good music'. When was the last time somebody shot to fame with their first album and the whole world went 'good on ya'?

Possibly in america, but here, the minute something gets used on the telly, all the people who liked it suddenly decide they don't anymore, because being a serious music fan in britain is, by and large, not about liking good music either, but about having something on your ipod that the guy next to you has never heard of.

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Anto mo Ninja, Watashi mo Ninja

Quote Steve Hill:

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Magic Trumpet: you can voice an opinion. That's what this forum is for. Just don't presume to tell me what my opinion is, OK? You don't know, and you will guess wrong.

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Fair enough! I'd just like say I was kind of on one yesterday, and perhaps regret some of the stridency of my tone; nothing like a beer at lunchtime is there?

So, to clarify - what opinion did I misrepresent? I thought generally you were of the opinion that DJs were overhyped fools who didn't deserve attention by serious musos? If that's wrong, please let me know & we'll see where we are.

For the record, I can't say I spend much time listening to DJs anymore, nor do I bother making the club music for them to play, and neither am I particularly captivated by 'turntablism' either. BUT I do think it still represents in all those people a love for their kind of music, and who's to say that today's 18 year 'mobile disco' DJ (as Ivan quaintly has it), won't be inspired to move onto to other forms of music making or to make an unknown-as-yet Artform from it? I for one, certainly am not going to piss on their bonfire or tell them they have no right to the enjoyment they get from DJing.

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Cassette Electrik