I think it can be entertaining, and it is a talent. But necessarily it involves recyling other people's efforts and for me that will always impose a limitation (self-imposed by the DJs, I might add) which prevents the genre ever doing anything which will be remembered years down the line.

Indeed, by its nature, it's a live show and ephemeral, and any recording of a DJ's performance will omit that essential live element. (It's not hard to beat match in a studio!)

Historians, musicologists, Groves' Dictionary etc in say 200 years time may well make space for the Beatles or the Smiths or Pink Floyd or Dylan or whatever. I honestly doubt that any DJ would make the cut.

It's not for me about whether they deserve to be called musicians (that's a blind alley). It's whether the genre can ever hope to create something of lasting artistic merit that will make the world (rather than a somewhat narrow fan base) sit up and take notice.

Meanwhile, ephemeral is not necessarily a bad thing. It is of the moment and that can be interesting if it is understood by everybody (and the best DJs do understand this) that it is ancient history by about the middle of next week!

I concede one or two have made the leap into production, with some success. Some producers are musicians, some are not (and admit the fact). Brian Eno is an interesting question....

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

I see you put a lot store on what professed experts think music should be: Groves Music Dictionary, Future Musicologists, and your own opinion of 'what music should be'.

I would argue that even Mozart didn't write music to become an important entry in Groves, he wrote it a) because of an urge to compose (or was it his father's hothousing?!), b) to earn money (not much), and c) because people wanted to be entertained by his music (pretty ephemeral)

So, writing for posterity is not a good or proven motive.

"Historians, musicologists, Groves' Dictionary etc in say 200 years time may well make space for the Beatles or the Smiths or Pink Floyd or Dylan or whatever. I honestly doubt that any DJ would make the cut."

Well, you may be surprised and disappointed to learn that they already have. By virtue of the technique of simple beatmatching, the whole course of youth culture since the early 80s and it's music has changed. From the early days of American rap and electro like Afrika Bambaata and Herbie Hancock to it's current influence on both club culture and its more mainstream pop/rock, it has already earned it's place in the musical annals of history.

And Herbie didn't write 'Rock-it' to become important, he wrote for the kids to dance to. It is now regarded as a cornerstone of modern hip-hop/electronic music.

You'll say Herbie wasn't a DJ (and I don't know whether he dabbled or not), but the point is without DJs that music wouldn't have existed at all.

"I concede one or two have made the leap into production, with some success"

Well, here you reveal your lack of knowledge; virtually every top DJ on the circuit is also a producer of music (aka 'musician'). Norman Cook, Sasha, Paul Oakenfold (Big Brother theme anyone?!), Carl Cox, Coldcut, The Herbaliser, Paul van Dyke, BT, John Digweed, Ferry Corsten, ARmand Van Helden, DJ Scruff, Rob da Bank are only the tip of a vast iceberg of music made by DJs.

It's too soon to tell what will last, and if by lasting you mean Groves, who really cares what that stuffy old institution thinks. It's the equivalent of the French Royal Academy refusing to admit Impressionism as art. Keep up or die!

Many many DJs ARE musicians, they create contemporary, exciting music on the cutting edge of youth culture, and help mould the sound of the future.

So, denying that is a bit pointless really, hence my initial hackles being raised!

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Cassette Electrik

the obsession with originality is only a few hundred years old and probably connected to the development of royalties and the romantic idea of music expressing the individual artist. Baroque composers would take other composers tunes and use them in their own works. Earlier church composers would build their masses on other masses, an example of this is the numerous masses built on the In Nomine section of a John Taverner mass (not the contempoary composer Tavener). In the 60s and 70s classical composers ostentaiously quoted other composers' works, the most popular example being Luciano Berio's Sinfonia.
Jazz also has a long tradition of reworking other composers' themes. So What, from Miles Davis's Kind of Blue, a seminal 50s track was based around a double bass phrase taken from an earlier Ahmed Jamal composition.
That the modern mixes are mixing records rather than playing the compositions also has precedents in classical music such as Stockhausen's Hymen, an electronic work that uses recordings of national anthems.
We have gone from a communal culture based on taking ideas and giving back ideas to a me me me culture where you can get sued for sampling a short hit from someone else's track. The sampling culture revitalises music, means classic tracks can keep coming back in different versions and enriches everyone's music because sounds can be incorporated from other producers' tracks.
However who is going to take the risk when you have to deal with teams of lawyers and major labels' financial clout.
My advice - if you get worked up by someone sampling a short synth sound or hit from one of your tracks go to psychotherapy, it is possiveness in the extreme.

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No longer a forum member.

Some of the guys you name rightly belong in the canon of producers (as I would define them) - although one or two people may think you are reaching somewhat if your paradigm example is the Big Brother theme, however much it has earned....

Definitions of producer vary as much as producers themselves. My 2c worth would be someone who could accept literally any gig, if the price was right, secure in the knowledge that he would add something to the project - be it Westlife or West Side Story or anywhere in between. That something, if the paymaster is a record label, would represent a measurable increase in sales exceeding the value of the producer's fee/royalty.

On my definition, which is as debatable as any, most DJs don't make the cut (some do, I have already conceded).

Someosy getting up themselves producing their own music, as defined by them, and thereby giving themselves the "right" to call themselves a producer falls a million miles short of the definition I, and most dispassionate observers, would use. If you are a hot producer, people are queuing up to pay you to produce their music instead.

And Herbie Hancock is a stonking musician with a healthy openness to other techniques if they will help him do what he does. I wish I'd written Watermelon Man - and there's no DJ-ing in sight there!

I'm not "denying" anything - youth culture has always been what it is. I would however wager that my daughter (currently aged zero) will as a teenager shrug her shoulders with complete indifference at the mention of any of the names you list. Some other ephemera will have taken over. Whilst she will probably be able to sing a few Beatles songs backwards.... and that will be her choice, not mine.

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

yeah, whatever...the Beatles are the last word in music...I can see we're not going to get anywhere if you're just going to bleat on about the beatles ad nauseum.

I gave you a fully reasoned arguement previously which answered everything you've just repeated again, so if you're unwiling to even engage with any of those points so be it. I hereby sign off, and will get on with the enjoyable task of producing music people enjoy.

Have a good weekend!

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Cassette Electrik

Tell me how my respect for the Beatles (and a thousand other bands in the intervening four decades) compares with, say, putting out a self-published CD of Erasure covers rather than writing something yourself?

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote Steve Hill:

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Tell me how my respect for the Beatles (and a thousand other bands in the intervening four decades) compares with, say, putting out a self-published CD of Erasure covers rather than writing something yourself?

---

Oh - you went and checked ou this website, too?

This is actually all irrelevant to the actual subject of the thread, but somehow I don`t see this chappie letting that getting in the way of a good (if specious) argument.

At least we are still getting a few relevant posts from others, but still no real support for Harry Webley`s claim that DJ`s are the musicians of the future.
Lots of smoke and mirrors about HOW DJ`s do what they do and so far not much in the way of an argument in favour of them supplanting `traditional` instrumentalists as the future musicians of our culture.

Hopefully even MT will finally realise he is coming at this from totally the wrong direction and try to participate in the debate rather than dragging up all the old `yoof` vs `old farts` bollox.

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

Quote MagicTrumpet:

---

yeah, whatever...the Beatles are the last word in music...I can see we're not going to get anywhere if you're just going to bleat on about the beatles ad nauseum.

I gave you a fully reasoned arguement previously which answered everything you've just repeated again, so if you're unwiling to even engage with any of those points so be it. I hereby sign off, and will get on with the enjoyable task of producing music people enjoy.

Have a good weekend!

---

Not sure who you are replying to here, prolly Steve Hill, but I am still waiting for your arguments in support of H.W.`s claim that DJ`s will be the musicians of the future, as opposed to those who make music by more traditional means.

Believe it or not, I am not in the least anti DJ`s as a species, particularly those who can actually do something more creative than just stick records on. (I think we are all agreed on that)

Where you seem to be missing the whole thrust of my point is that I was initially commenting on the Opinion article in the current SOS written by Harry Webley in which he postulated that DJ`s are or are going to supplant traditional intrumentalists etc. as the musicians of the future.
I regarded this as asinine in the extreme and insulting to both sides as I don`t think it does the `creative` DJ`s any good to be seen as wannabe musicians, any more than it is appropriate to write off traditional musicians as being irrelevant. People with the creative ability and talent to create new interesting pieces of music and/or interpretations of existing pieces will always have a place in music, that place is just simply not exclusively definable by the term musician, which in my perhaps simplistic view is more appropriately left to be applied to people who play music rather than generating sounds from previously-created music. Even this is a little imprecise, but with a little volonte on your part I suspect you could probably `get` what I am trying to say.

Now lets see if you can manage to respond to this a little less like a rabid dog and a little more like a human being.

I do not suffer fools easily but I am trying very hard to remain polite and objective here.

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

Okay, so musicians are the DJ's of the future. Lets accept that for now. Therefor in a hundred years time there wont be any musicians, they will all be DJ's.

So what will they play

ow forgot to ask: Does she also still live on just cokey-nuts and fish from da sea?

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

Quote hectormolecular:

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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.

---

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.

---

And too right they are. The television swallows whatever is going on and regurgitates it in near- real time, turned into excrement. But the material in question has to be "telly friendly" to start with. Making sure one's music is so that it would never, for no reason whatsoever, be liked by a tv producer is a good start, and is not as difficult and luddite an approach as it sounds. Captain Beefheart still would get no airplay, except in a documentary about Captain Beefheart, nor would bands like the Boredoms or Radioactive Sparrow. The music is just too good. Of course you will be making your life more difficult, but thats part of the fun. Unless you are deluded like Harry Webley, who thinks he's breaking new ground by overlaying Beyonce on James Brown, whilst he's just another musical whore (Stockhausen's insult, not mine)

If your worried about your CD Ivan C why don't you become a Dj as with an aging population you could use remixing and beat matching techniques on the tracks you really love. How about Secret Love over a loop from Bad Penny Blues.

Actually I did the music for a retired peoples dance performance and I took the loop from Fever and scratched in Peggy Lee's vocals on a scratch Cd deck aswell as adding techno stab chords. I thought it was really good but the director of the dance agency was a bit stuck up. Importantly thought the retired people liked it and danced well.

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No longer a forum member.

Quote noiseconjecture:

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If your worried about your CD Ivan C why don't you become a Dj as with an aging population you could use remixing and beat matching techniques on the tracks you really love. How about Secret Love over a loop from Bad Penny Blues.

IVAN RESPONDS::::

ROFL! Think you have me confused with my mum and dad!


Actually I did the music for a retired peoples dance performance and I took the loop from Fever and scratched in Peggy Lee's vocals on a scratch Cd deck aswell as adding techno stab chords. I thought it was really good but the director of the dance agency was a bit stuck up. Importantly thought the retired people liked it and danced well.

---

Ha Ha - by stuck up you mean he/she didn`t like your remix?
And remember the old adage - nobody ever failed through underestimating the depths of popular taste. I`m sure the old folks lapped it up, because you gave them something they vaguely recxognised, instead of (as my 88 year old dad in law puts it)`That modern racket - like somebody kicking cardboard boxes down a flight of stairs`.
The Irish have such a way with words, dont they?

I have GOT to ask - how did you ever get offered the gig and why did you decide to take it? Sounds like one of those `mygrandson is a musician` gigs to me . FWIW I got stuck by my mum lecturing her Womens Institute group on `being in a pop group in the sixties.` Give me strength!

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

Hi Ivan, I got the gig because I write a lot of music for dance performances and they really liked Peggy Lee's Fever - as do I (Shelly Mann's drumming is always beyond brilliant). This was part of the music, I also had an Ibiza style ambient section with them talking and arpeggiators etc. and another section I've forgotten what I did.
The strange thing is the director of the agency thinks she is really in tune with what's happening, however the dance group were mainly Caribbean as were the audience, including many teenagers who loved it. The final compliment was this really cool young Caribbean girl street dance teacher thought the dance performance was excellent - that's good enough for me.

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No longer a forum member.

Quote Steve Hill:

---

Tell me how my respect for the Beatles (and a thousand other bands in the intervening four decades) compares with, say, putting out a self-published CD of Erasure covers rather than writing something yourself?

---

Steve 'Hill', tell me how attacking my creative activities in any way enhances your standing in this discussion?

That's called an ad hominen attack and shows you've run out of arguments.

You can plainly see that the Erasure cover is one of the four tracks allowed on MySpace; the other three are indeed original. For what it's worth, we've had some stunningly complimentary comments regarding that version of the song - one couple (who I've never met) have even used it for their first dance at their wedding.

Sneer all you want, but even you should agree that touching someone like that is what music is for.

I may also add that Cassette is not my only music project; I am also making a documentary for Radio 3 about Brasilian drumming which I play, and having travelled to Brazil to interview and play alongside the musicians there, I can say that your possessive and elitist take on music is nonexistent in the poor communities who live for music there; where the music is a) not original - they play songs and rhythms 400 years old, b) where music is played for joy and celebration.

I'd rather not hear from you again to be honest.

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Cassette Electrik

Quote IvanSC:

---

Quote MagicTrumpet:

---

yeah, whatever...the Beatles are the last word in music...I can see we're not going to get anywhere if you're just going to bleat on about the beatles ad nauseum.

I gave you a fully reasoned arguement previously which answered everything you've just repeated again, so if you're unwiling to even engage with any of those points so be it. I hereby sign off, and will get on with the enjoyable task of producing music people enjoy.

Have a good weekend!

---

Not sure who you are replying to here, prolly Steve Hill, but I am still waiting for your arguments in support of H.W.`s claim that DJ`s will be the musicians of the future, as opposed to those who make music by more traditional means.

Believe it or not, I am not in the least anti DJ`s as a species, particularly those who can actually do something more creative than just stick records on. (I think we are all agreed on that)

Where you seem to be missing the whole thrust of my point is that I was initially commenting on the Opinion article in the current SOS written by Harry Webley in which he postulated that DJ`s are or are going to supplant traditional intrumentalists etc. as the musicians of the future.
I regarded this as asinine in the extreme and insulting to both sides as I don`t think it does the `creative` DJ`s any good to be seen as wannabe musicians, any more than it is appropriate to write off traditional musicians as being irrelevant. People with the creative ability and talent to create new interesting pieces of music and/or interpretations of existing pieces will always have a place in music, that place is just simply not exclusively definable by the term musician, which in my perhaps simplistic view is more appropriately left to be applied to people who play music rather than generating sounds from previously-created music. Even this is a little imprecise, but with a little volonte on your part I suspect you could probably `get` what I am trying to say.

Now lets see if you can manage to respond to this a little less like a rabid dog and a little more like a human being.

I do not suffer fools easily but I am trying very hard to remain polite and objective here.

---

Still waiting to hear from you, MT.

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

Quote IvanSC:

---

Still waiting to hear from you, MT.

---

Yeah, give me a minute...I do have other things besides the SOS Forum!! Like showing a very lovely Brasilian lady around London on the weekend. She's visiting me and my percussion group, and we did a great gig on the weekend. Brasilians sure know how to have a good party!

However - I have time just to mention that if the dude in the original article is making sweeping generalisations about the future, he's probably wrong.

1.
I think getting worried about who created the initial soundwave is a waste of time. Organising sound through the spatial dimension of time is what we humans like to do. Having a etymological debate around which particular set of soundwaves constitute the term 'music' really doesn't interest me that much.

2.
My other thrust has been to defend DJs against imperialist and elitist criticisms that they are not worthy of being spoken about in the same breath as the Great and Good of the Western Cannon. That really irks me (elitism, that is).

The Western Cannon is a temporary cultural bubble; it didn't exist 500 years ago, and it probably won't exist in 500 years time. Cultures come and go. Imagine how many thousands of human-years of music have been created and lost over the last 40,000 years. Each will have been as important to those people as the Beatles are to certain posters, but I am not going to stand here and claim the cultural heritage I happen to have been born into is the best.

So, in this context quibbling about who is allowed to call themselves 'musicians' or who has created something of 'worth' is pretty futile.

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Cassette Electrik

Quote MagicTrumpet:

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yeah, whatever...the Beatles are the last word in music...I can see we're not going to get anywhere if you're just going to bleat on about the beatles ad nauseum.

I gave you a fully reasoned arguement previously which answered everything you've just repeated again, so if you're unwiling to even engage with any of those points so be it. I hereby sign off, and will get on with the enjoyable task of producing music people enjoy.

Have a good weekend!

---

Tell me what consecutive three words of that post did not invite, indeed beg for, what you now choose to term the "sneer" response which you indeed got, and deserved?

--------------------
Dynamite with a laser beam...

Quote IvanSC:

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ow forgot to ask: Does she also still live on just cokey-nuts and fish from da sea?

---

Thanks for asking after her. Yes, she does - with a rose in her hair, a gleam in her eyes, and love in her heart for me.

Quote Steve Hill:

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At least we are still getting a few relevant posts from others, but still no real support for Harry Webley`s claim that DJ`s are the musicians of the future.

Lots of smoke and mirrors about HOW DJ`s do what they do and so far not much in the way of an argument in favour of them supplanting `traditional` instrumentalists as the future musicians of our culture.

---

You've missed a couple of my posts...

I was supporting exactly that comment: 'musicians of the future'.

The thing that seems to me to be obvious rubbish is the idea that ANYONE would say that DJs are going to supplant traditional musicians. Of course they won't, and naturally Mr Webley doesn't insinuate any such thing in his column. I think the reason some people have accused you of being 'afraid' is that you have clearly read 'DJs are the musicians of the future' as 'DJs are the ONLY musicians of the future. I don't think this was the attitude of the column at all.

The reason they might be 'THE' musicians of the future is not because everyone else is going to be rounded up and gassed, but because turntables present us with the first real possibility of a 'new instrument' (NB, I say POSSIBILITY) since the invention of the synth. Alright, it's hardly a pipe organ, yet, but why get so worked up? Let DJs take their place in the future, there's plenty of room for both of you...

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Anto mo Ninja, Watashi mo Ninja

My dad was a Jazz musician and hated The Beatles and rock music in general because they basically destroyed the Jazz crest of a wave, and his livelyhood, by pandering to the lowest common 'three chord R'n'B denomenator.
He had a point, but I used to say that it was impossible to stick to the classic western 'art music' based theory of a music heirarchy, simply beacause logically you could only listen to classical music, and classical Opera at that, maybe Wagner the late Romantics and Richard Strauss. Once you start saying a certain level of 'skill' or complexity is required for music validity then problems arise simply because there is always someone above you, looking down on you considering your art as some lesser form for lesser beings.

The other arguement I used to give was that lets say you hate country and western music, and consider it and its plodding fifths basslines is simply a musical abomination. Well that cannot mean that those that somehow enjoy it and put thier hearts into it are somehow stupid. Same with those that like pop music. You have to realise that there is SOMETHING in it, some genuine creative spirit. If you make the effort to understand this then even if still think it only contributes .001 to the general artistic well being of mankind, understanding it at least makes you .001 smarter than the person who just snears with a snobbery "it's rubbish".

--------------------

If you put Harry Webley into Google the first thing you get is this thread.

Well, having finally tracked down the original article, it seems the only mildly controversial thing Mr W says is in the final pay off line: "some even say the DJ is the musician of the future".

And he's right, some people do say that. He doesn't even claim necessarily they will himself - it's merely a journalistic device to end the piece on a grand statement. Read any newspaper or magazine article, they all do it. Seems some people fell for the oldest journo trick in the book.

So I can return to the original thread question: "Harry Webley - patron saint of pretentious platter spinners?"

And it's clear the answer is no, he not pretentious. He's merely enthusiasing about a form of musical expression.

I challenge anyone to find any other sentence in his piece, which is even remotely pretentious.

I'm still not particularly interested in scratching as an artform, but it's there and I respect those who are into it. I'm pleased I leapt to the defence from those who think they are 'pretentious' and all the other insults tossed in their (and my) direction in this thread!

Good Work SOS, still able to produce a little controversy (or storm in a tea-cup as it's also known)!

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Cassette Electrik

Quote MagicTrumpet:

---

Well, having finally tracked down the original article, it seems the only mildly controversial thing Mr W says is in the final pay off line: "some even say the DJ is the musician of the future".

And he's right, some people do say that. He doesn't even claim necessarily they will himself - it's merely a journalistic device to end the piece on a grand statement. Read any newspaper or magazine article, they all do it. Seems some people fell for the oldest journo trick in the book.

So I can return to the original thread question: "Harry Webley - patron saint of pretentious platter spinners?"

And it's clear the answer is no, he not pretentious. He's merely enthusiasing about a form of musical expression.

I challenge anyone to find any other sentence in his piece, which is even remotely pretentious.

I'm still not particularly interested in scratching as an artform, but it's there and I respect those who are into it. I'm pleased I leapt to the defence from those who think they are 'pretentious' and all the other insults tossed in their (and my) direction in this thread!

Good Work SOS, still able to produce a little controversy (or storm in a tea-cup as it's also known)!

---

Congratulations! A rational, well-expressed post, finally!
I have been trying to direct people back to the original title of this thread, as the debate had sort of fallen into being a slagging-off session, whereas the original intent was to engender a discussion about the likelihood that DJ`s would supplant conventional musicians and how.

I have coincidentally hijacked someone else`s myspace account to invite mr. w. to join in the discussion, so with a bit of luck he might show up here and give us a more expanded version of the original article.

Oh - just one minor point: the title doesnt ask if HW is pretentious, it asks if he is or will become patron saint of those platter spinners who ARE pretentious.
Because they will perceive his off-hand comment as licence to call themselves the musicians of the future or some other twaddle.

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

Just to round off this tour de force of a thread, lets take a deep breath and ponder over a quote from the man responsible for starting it all off, the Harry Webley

"Many of the greatest musicians have no musical training, they can just feel when something is right. From the seamless blending of two songs to to the complex arrangement of super- fast scratch patterns a gift for music theory is essential".


Keep up the hard scratching Harry!

Quote whawha:

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"Many of the greatest musicians have no musical training, they can just feel when something is right. From the seamless blending of two songs to to the complex arrangement of super- fast scratch patterns a gift for music theory is essential".

---

I love this thread, it's the gift that keeps on giving!

Whawha, agreed that is a beautiful example of garbled English, but surely you have the cognitive ability to realise he's saying 'Some DJs have no formal training, but acquire musical understanding and a sophisticated feel for rhythm despite that.

Sheesh!

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Cassette Electrik

I think I do, I'm not sure he has. I particularly like the sublime inconsequentiality of "a gift for music theory". That gift should save many people years of studying.
And this is my last word.

Quote MagicTrumpet:

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Quote whawha:

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"Many of the greatest musicians have no musical training, they can just feel when something is right. From the seamless blending of two songs to to the complex arrangement of super- fast scratch patterns a gift for music theory is essential".

---

A gift for stringing two coherent sentences together is obviously not required. I cant beleive we got so animated on this, it makes me feel stupid. I'm sorry if I was a bit obnoxious, I'm normally a nice person, I blame it all on Harry.

I can't believe how bitter this debate is getting, and how closed-minded some people are being (whose opinions on these boards I generally respect)! This are my feelings about some of the points people have made, not being a DJ myself I haste to add:

1. There are good musicians and bad musicians, and famousness rarely correlates with this. This applies to DJs too, so citing many popular DJs as poor doesn't invalidate the claims of the entire species to musicianhood!

2. Recycling has been a musical fact since the beginning of music itself. Sample-style recycling is merely an extension of this and doesn't preclude creativity.

3. Live v recording and the argument that beat-matching is easy in studios. Firstly, good DJing is about a lot more than beat-matching. Secondly, it may well be easy to fake up matched DJ tracks in the studio, but with well-programmed modern synths this applies to pretty much any instrument. Good DJing (eg Coldcut-style) will still have it's own sound and feel.

4. Turntables are too limited to be an interesting instrument. Rubbish. What about a drum? Doesn't play melodies or chords. Flute? Only monophonic. An integral element of good music involves working with and pushing the limitations of the instrument in interesting ways. The typcial tuba line isn't exactly mr interesting, is it? A turntable can make any sound in the world, but you have to be very good to put them together creatively.

5. Musicians and DJs at the creative end of the industry are not in opposition. Listen to the brilliant NuYorican Soul, by Masters at Work in collaboration with some excellent jazz/latin musicians (George Benson, Roy Ayers, Eddie Palmieri), to see how they compliment each other to create a seamless whole.

6. There is a distinction between DJ as a performance artist
and DJ as a producer, failure to recognise this is confusing the issue, as whether producers are musicians is a separate debate (I would say yes, definitely).

Honestly, despite the denials some people here are definitely dangerously close to Grumpy Old Men syndrome: - I suspect, without even knowing that much about the subject they are slating. Remember the wedding/radio/crap club DJ is a totally different breed.
Based on my own jazzy leanings, here are some records worth checking out if you are sceptical about considering DJs to be musicians. I won't emphasise technical skill, more creative musicality:
- Aforementioned NuYorican Soul album - producer/DJs and turntablism combined, it's great jazz.
- Herbie Hancock - Rockit. Old, basic but introduced a brand new sound into mainstream consciousness, the turntable as an instrument. Also see Future2Future live DVD
- Coldcut - Timber. An entire piece of music made from samples associated with logging and the environmental lobby, creating real music from non-musical sources. Integrated music and video in a very original way too that emphasised the interesting sample-layering structure.
- Coldcut - More Beats & Pieces. Shows how short samples can take on a totally new musical meaning when used in a different context.
- Kid Koala - Drunk Trumpet. A whole new blues tune made from scratching a trumpet sample to create a novel melody. Very innovative.

I hope some people who are sceptical actually bother to check these out, I'm sure they'll help change your mind!

1st DJ: Fancy going to the cinema later?

2nd DJ: Dunno - who's the projectionist?

Quote Virtuoso:

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1st DJ: Fancy going to the cinema later?

2nd DJ: Dunno - who's the projectionist?

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Now that's funny

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Big George

Quote Big George:

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Quote Virtuoso:

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1st DJ: Fancy going to the cinema later?

2nd DJ: Dunno - who's the projectionist?

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Now that's funny

---

Except if the Projectionists are world acclaimed duo Addictive TV, who use film as their source material, as reported by Wired:

Wired Article

Now those are projectionists whose work I'd like to see!

Edited to add: and Hexstatic actually - 'Natural Rhythm' with Coldcut was one of the finest cut up videos I've ever seen, and it was done in the days before imovie or whatever. That was an awesome piece of work.

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Cassette Electrik

Edited by MagicTrumpet (16/08/06 08:25 AM)

Hexstatic = wicked.
Ah well, their loss I suppose. Took ages to convince my dad that some DJs were proper musicians - he was too used to doing sound for functions bands, so the types of DJ he encountered were 'DJ Dave and his Wheels of Steel, bringing you the Sound of the 70s' and such-like. However, he changed his mind once he heard a decent turntablist playing with a band.
I think that (completely innacurate) perception of what modern DJing is about must be quite common on here! Must be the oldies...it was all better in my day...pop music meant something back then...they've conveniently forgotten Clive Dunn's 'Grandad'.
I hope at the next gig when they're debuting their latest masterpiece, some old git comes up and asks if they'll play a Status Quo cover. Proper music

I'd definitely pay to hear someone do a DJ mix of "Grandad" and "Rocking All Over The World"

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Dynamite with a laser beam...

Just MHO but pretentious DJs?

Pretention, I think is hardly limited to DJs. How many utterly pish, so called musicans can you think of? Just listen to some of the crap on myspace or some of the demos posted here. I guess it comes down to what you define as an instrument,playing and music. If this isnt playing an instrument, I dont know what is:

http://www.pioneer.eu/files/eur/TV/DJ/james_djm800.html

and

http://www.decks.co.uk/products/mixers/pioneer/djm800

I also think that a lot of this it all just recycling other music is ill informed crap. Of course you play others music as part of a set. In modern terms either adding FX, looping, or adding parts to create new versions of the tune. how many people on this forum make a living doing exactly the same as part of a covers band? Most modern DJs
,unless doing a compilation, will be using their own riffs, loops and samples etc to complete completely new music. If you think its all just beat matching, have a look into harmonic mixing.(There, I just managed to get some theory in as well. ).

Just for clarification, I happen to DJ (minimal house and trance, mainly)and write. I also happen to have trained classicaly in piano and guitar. I also passably play a few other instruments. Almost the same things still get said about guitar players and "traditional" Irish and Scottish music, where a guitar player at a session can be looked at like a loud laugh at a funeral service. Even if it is Arty McGlynn or Paul Brady. In trad music, the fault can often be layed at the feet of guitarists who battered out chords with no real understanding for the music they are backing. The same can be said of many DJs. Battering out [ ****** ] tunes for the hard of diserning. Musicians of the future? Yes and no, those who solely spin others music, no. Those who create, learn and challenge,yes. Do they/we need a patron saint? Not, if the likes of Carl Cox, Van Buuren, Teisto et al continue to get £10,000+ a night. Just a good accountant.

Sorry for the rant.....