DJs aren’t Musicians - $1

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  • GrafwritahGrafwritah 4,184 Posts

    Turntable: backwards, forwards

    2 things.

    Fuck, I wish it was that easy.

    ps--obviously you're not wedded to this half-assed argument. you can do WAY better.

    Yeah, not really.

    Djing is kind of a gray area for me, it's not that I don't like it, but then again I'm not willing to say they're full on musicians, but then again they're musical... I have no hardcore stance on the topic.

    So... yeah. Not really.

  • billbradleybillbradley You want BBQ sauce? Get the fuck out of my house. 2,905 Posts
    DJ's don't really create anything new.

    Some DJ's don't create anything new. Other DJ's mix and cut records up into something completely new by playing the records like you have never heard them before.

  • Birdman9Birdman9 5,417 Posts
    DJ's don't really create anything new.

    Some DJ's don't create anything new. Other DJ's mix and cut records up into something completely new by playing the records like you have never heard them before.

    This has probably been said before, but most shitty bands don't meet my criteria for 'musicianship'. Hell, I sang professionally(in the strictest sense of the word, I got paid)for years, and yet I really consider myself more of an entertainer than a musician. And DJing is the same in my case, I do it as an entertainment for myself and patrons as opposed to being involved with it as an artform or technique. I leave that to the talented and the oblivious.

    Personally I think it's a riduculous argument.

    "What's better, a car or a bike?"

    Jesus, who really gives two shits?

  • GrafwritahGrafwritah 4,184 Posts
    Jesus, who really gives two shits?

    Shhhhh, if people start asking that question, this whole BBS will shut down!!!




  • Sun_FortuneSun_Fortune 1,374 Posts
    Djing is kind of a gray area for me

    for me as well, but I have a couple of thoughts that may clarify some shiz. Basically to deny "musician status" to a DJ in 2005 seems pretty narrow minded. Music already had its dada type movemen with John Cage n' company. Those guitar toting die hards feel like neo-classicists or landscape painters to me. Playing a traditional instrument and applying a DJ type mentality to music may be two different things, but to deny one as musicianship is a little nutty. A dj may be playing other people's performances, but a classicly trained violinist is playing other people's notes -- meaning that she didn't come up with tuning or the several hundreds of years that went into crafting the violin.

    In history, we tend to look back on the things that push society as the avante-guarde -- we place importance on them and study them more than the 'already done its.' I'm not sure what the whole Dj/hiphop modus will lead to, but I'm sure in 30 years djing will be regarded legitimate, and DJs as musicians. That will probably be cause then fools will be making music with some holographic sun glasses and thought alone.

  • AaronAaron 977 Posts
    I'd call DJs nothing more than percussionists.

  • ReynaldoReynaldo 6,054 Posts
    Musician: a composer, conductor, or performer of music.

    DJ: one who plays recorded music for dancing at a nightclub or party [etc.].


  • Sun_FortuneSun_Fortune 1,374 Posts
    Artist: One who manifests paintings or scultputres from her imagination.
    Photographer: One who records reality.

  • I'd call DJs nothing more than percussionists.



    As far as scratch music goes, this was for the most part true up to only very recently. But cats are learning how to compose and play melodic music and harmonies now, using soundbites, tones, pedals, etc. I play in a band with one drummer and 3 other dj's, all tonal music by rearranging and playing notes off records live with no wicki wah played out scratch samples. I don't know if this counts a music to a lot of folks, but it sure sounds like it to everyone we've gotten feedback from. I wouldn't consider it "djing' however.

  • FlomotionFlomotion 2,390 Posts
    Those rapper dudes aren't musicians either. They don't even sing, they just talk funny.

    It ain't what you play it's how you play it. Musicality is a state of mind.

  • BelsonBelson 880 Posts
    It ain't what you play it's how you play it.

    Tell me you're not serious, right?

  • emyndemynd 830 Posts
    This discussion is fascinating

    Wrong.

    -e

  • Strider79itStrider79it 1,176 Posts
    I'd call DJs nothing more than percussionists.

    As far as scratch music goes, this was for the most part true up to only very recently. But cats are learning how to compose and play melodic music and harmonies now, using soundbites, tones, pedals, etc. I play in a band with one drummer and 3 other dj's, all tonal music by rearranging and playing notes off records live with no wicki wah played out scratch samples. I don't know if this counts a music to a lot of folks, but it sure sounds like it to everyone we've gotten feedback from. I wouldn't consider it "djing' however.

    let's hear it.


    Djing is different than playing an instrument....is like comparing apple and oranges...

    .....the sad thing is that Djing became a cool trendy status, and really well payed,

    instead playing new music is frustrating,conisidered a nerdy thing to do, (cause you have to practice alone for some hours a day at least a bit)
    and really you have no hope to make a buck.......

    still I'm always partial to people willing to do their "own thing"
    (possibly with a rhodes under their hands)

  • FrankFrank 2,373 Posts
    I don't understand the person who was quoted in the initial post.
    Why should it be a better thing to be a musician than being a DJ?

    It's always shocking to me that there are still people left who think
    that in a world littered with the horrible exploits from the past 10 years
    of so called modern civilisation it is a good thing to further add on to this
    pile of cultural garbage.

    The fact that most DJs do not create anything new is the by far biggest
    advantage of this locust-like flood of DJs we are experiencing nowadays.


  • Birdman9Birdman9 5,417 Posts

    .....the sad thing is that Djing became a cool trendy status, and really well payed,

    instead playing new music is frustrating,conisidered a nerdy thing to do, (cause you have to practice alone for some hours a day at least a bit)
    and really you have no hope to make a buck.......

    still I'm always partial to people willing to do their "own thing"
    (possibly with a rhodes under their hands)

    Firt off...well paid DJ comprise MAYBE the top 5% of the sum total of all working DJs, just like working bands/musicians. The one thing that seems to be at the exact same level right now is that it's a hustle.

    Second, being in a band is still considered as 'cool' as DJing, probably 'cooler' by like 98% of mainstream society. People on this board's perspective is different(there are a lot of ex-band dudes on here, obviously that paints it's own picture)and although I would consider most of you thoroughly 'mainstream', your opinion on this matter would not fall into that category.

    Without music being recorded and performed DJs(even musician DJs)would have nothing to play...if they were not musicians, they would not know how to even compose a beat(provided they make beats)...and if the non-musician DJs did not play the music, then what?

    Seperating this stuff out is truly pointless and counter-productive to whatever SKILL you are trying to achieve. Get out and start a band if you wanna meet girls/guys, start DJing if you wanna meet girls/guys(just please develop some taste along the way) and if you have the time and inclination...hey DO BOTH! Crazy notion, huh?

  • I'd call DJs nothing more than percussionists.

    As far as scratch music goes, this was for the most part true up to only very recently. But cats are learning how to compose and play melodic music and harmonies now, using soundbites, tones, pedals, etc. I play in a band with one drummer and 3 other dj's, all tonal music by rearranging and playing notes off records live with no wicki wah played out scratch samples. I don't know if this counts a music to a lot of folks, but it sure sounds like it to everyone we've gotten feedback from. I wouldn't consider it "djing' however.

    let's hear it.

    Since you sound SOOO enthused I'll be sure to do the 100 yard dash with our finished demo straight to yousendit so you can all over it. Fucking negative nancies.
    Somebody please remind me why this board is a good thing cause I'm not loving it lately.




  • emyndemynd 830 Posts
    How is this even a discussion?

    Isn't it obvious that the question of whether or not a "DJ is a musician" is pretty pointless? After all, it is painfully obvious that DJing isn't "musicianship" with respect to an older (and, of course, primarily European) aesthetic criteria, but the much more interesting question to me is: how have DJs helped redefine what "musicianship" is and/or could be?

    -e

  • I don't think the term is changed, I mean musicians play music live where as DJ's program music (blending records can be musical and some DJ's have a strong sense of musicality within their mixes/scratches, but generally 'notes' are not played.)

  • How is this even a discussion?

    Isn't it obvious that the question of whether or not a "DJ is a musician" is pretty pointless?

    Yes, when considering DJing in the traditional sense.

  • emyndemynd 830 Posts
    I don't think the term is changed, I mean musicians play music live where as DJ's program music (blending records can be musical and some DJ's have a strong sense of musicality within their mixes/scratches, but generally 'notes' are not played.)

    Perhaps it hasn't "changed" yet, but it's certainly "chang-ING." Definitions like this are always in flux.

    Frankly, I always think it's a mistake to think of terms like "art" and "music" and "culture" (and an endless list of other abstract concepts) staticly.

    -e

  • asscheeseasscheese 15 Posts
    but there's really only so many things you can do with a guitar and most of those things have been done already.

    for real. I mean after 30+ years still not even a close second to Hendrix.

    there will never be another hendrix, but that doesn't mean that the guitar is dead. check out ben monder, kurt rosenwinkel, adam rogers... any of these are amazing guitar players that are doing things that were never done on the guitar before... it doesn't mean that you'll love it or find it nearly as funky or as cool as hendrix, and you can't get it on wax, but the guitar as an instrument is still innovating. check out fareed haque and goran ivanovic, they're doing shit mixing classical, jazz and traditional indian music that hasn't really been done before, not like this anyway (although ignore fareed haque's jamband group- awful). to say that the guitar isn't going anywhere doesn't have anything to do with the instrument itself, only those who play it, and the people who are trying to push the instrument forward aren't generally being recognized (as was much of the obscure funk and soul music that many dj's are trying to find now never got recognized in the past). as for hendrix, he was amazing and that is a testament to how great he really was, period. and there hasn't been a john coltrane since john coltrane, that doesn't mean that there will never be (check out eddie bayard). people were saying that there'd never be another lester young at one point, then charlie parker came along, then they said the same shit about him, and coltrane came along... put it in perspective, it's highly likely that there will be another highly influential guitar player like hendrix, but it also might take a long time for that to happen- and it most likely will not be anything like hendrix stylistically (i.e. funky- pentatonic shit IS played out- as are hendrix wannabees).

  • DenmarkVZDenmarkVZ 397 Posts
    never said guitar was dead. BUt Hendrix caliber performers on that instrument are non-existant theses days. I'm waiting.


    Now, turntables...that's a whole nother shit! DJ Lethal!


  • grandpa_shiggrandpa_shig 5,799 Posts

    Photographer: One who records reality.

    LIES

  • hogginthefogghogginthefogg 6,098 Posts
    I'd call DJs nothing more than percussionists.

    As far as scratch music goes, this was for the most part true up to only very recently. But cats are learning how to compose and play melodic music and harmonies now, using soundbites, tones, pedals, etc. I play in a band with one drummer and 3 other dj's, all tonal music by rearranging and playing notes off records live with no wicki wah played out scratch samples. I don't know if this counts a music to a lot of folks, but it sure sounds like it to everyone we've gotten feedback from. I wouldn't consider it "djing' however.

    let's hear it.

    Since you sound SOOO enthused I'll be sure to do the 100 yard dash with our finished demo straight to yousendit so you can all over it. Fucking negative nancies.
    Somebody please remind me why this board is a good thing cause I'm not loving it lately.


    What he meant to say was...



















    POST A FILE, BITCH!

  • The_Hook_UpThe_Hook_Up 8,182 Posts

    The fact that most DJs do not create anything new is the by far biggest
    advantage of this locust-like flood of DJs we are experiencing nowadays.


    game over IMO
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