A brief history of DJing, courtesy DJ Hero

You've obviously never been to a good party, club, or rave. I guess if you're not into dance music at all it will all sound like noise to you but it can be pretty fun. :)

I don't go to raves or clubs with DJs, I have a soul.

You know, Shaggi, I agree with you to a point in that there are far too many DJs who fall under that category, but time and time again I see you act as though DJ is synonymous with 'no artistic talent', which only shows me that Sagittarius is synonimous with 'person who passes judgment on something he knows nada about'.

Hey you could sculpt with any medium and create art. If you chose Play-doh I'm going to question your choice of medium.

And as for "talented DJs" I suppose thats relative. I sucessfully plunge a toilet every once in a while but I don't go around calling myself a competent plumber.

Here we go again. Fernando posted the exact same thing, verbatim. Here's the thing. If I sculpted with Play-doh and created something thought provoking and relevant, you could go ahead and question my medium but that wouldn't mean what I made wasn't art, wasn't good art.

A lot of DJs concentrate on the art of entertainment, and in doing so they don't create very good music. However, there are many DJs out there, like Edan and Frane, that make fantastic music. These are people who have just as much understanding of music theory and what works/what doesn't in the world of music as any other musician, and can create beautiful pieces as a result.

Oh, and, uh, there's more to DJing than crossfading. I've said this to you before too, but you like to ignore that. Again, I agree that DJs who call themselves musicians, who simply crossfade, are questionable. But that's not quite all there is out there, and blanket statements like yours? They're more questionable than ever.

I believe what your referring to is actually 'producing' not DJing. The moment you stop using samples of music you didn't produce your not really DJing your arranging and producing with someone elses music.

This is a talent but I personally don't consider the person who did an artist more than I consider the person who typesets a newspaper a writer.

I guess I'm just a traditional instrument fanboy.

"The moment you stop using samples of music you didn't produce your not really DJing your arranging and producing with someone elses music."

DJing and producing are tightly knit these days. Many DJs are producers, and vice versa. Regardless of whether they are or not, though, I usually hear ignorant choruses of 'DJ! oh they must not have talent' whenever they come up in an article.

"This is a talent but I personally don't consider the person who did an artist more than I consider the person who typesets a newspaper a writer.
I guess I'm just a traditional instrument fanboy."

Seems like it. What you don't understand is that a lot of DJs out there make new music, music that sounds completely different from the source material, music that can evoke emotions and touch the listener, etc. It's not quite the same as typing an exact copy of the source material, and comparing it to such would only go to show that you don't really know much about the culture. Understandable. The DJ community is represented by a bunch of shitty musicians and club musicians. At the same time, though, you're using blanket statements and generalizations as though the whole of the DJ community aren't 'musicians' when that's not the case.

DJ Frane is a good example of someone who uses an absolute myriad of samples from completely different genres to create new tunes that not only sound completely independent of any source material involved, but have plenty of musical credibility and artistic value.

Man invents music

Man invents internet

Kids find internet

Kids ignorantly post shit they don't understand and make sure to throw enough of a angry biting twist on it that helps prove what they don't understand what they're ignorant about

And thus the history of your post.

DJing is not about playing records and making 2 tempos match and cross fading between songs. DJs play crowds. A good DJ will have an arsenal of vinyl to take the crowd on a rollercoaster of dance, slowing it down when the audience needs a rest and building the intensity up into a crescendo that has the audience exploding with energy.

I'm sorry you can't appreciate a talent that doesn't involve plucking a string or tapping a surface, but the world doesn't move to the beat of just one drum.

Sorry man, you run a good fight but real instruments don't have 'Play' buttons on them.

Look, There are songs of course I like that feature DJs, I just see them as amusing, as one might view a parody song. Anything you spend time to make with a turntable you could have actually composed a meaningful piece of music yourself that wasn't someone elses borrowed sentiment transformed. Its lazy music for a lazy generation. Its a parody of art that's imitating life.

So, you think that music can't be meaningful if it was made by a DJ using any combination of samples and original music?

You clearly haven't heard much of it, then, and you won't, because you'd rather bask in your ignorance. 'It wasn't played on strings, so it can't be music!' No matter how much knowledge over music theory and music as a whole that a DJ or a producer could exhibit, folks like you'll simply act as though they're not worth your time without even listening to the music at hand. Lazy music? Hardly (I mean, much of it is, like I said, agreeable to a point. Do not generalize, though. That just makes you look stupid, which brings me to...). Lazy argument? Definitely.

lolz

Power chords and Drop D are not exactly awe inspiring talent.

The flexibility of a turntable is seriously lacking. When playing a guitar for example, you can get an idea in your head on a whim and end up saying something completely different with your music than you intended to before you did it. With Djs Everything is a cut and dried routine, rehearsed to at least some degree in the fact that the exploring of rhythms and samples took place before hand or at the very least were created to say something else by someone else before hand.

There is nothing that is truly live or off the cuff in DJing, its an inherently inferior medium to make an emotional connection with your audience with. Thats also the reason why most DJs do dance music, theres really only one instrument in DJing and thats the rhythm section, even music and samples are used rhythmically instead of the rhythm just being a component of a larger statement. It's like painting a portrait on a small canvas with a paint roller.

"With Djs Everything is a cut and dried routine, rehearsed to at least some degree in the fact that the exploring of rhythms and samples took place before hand or at the very least were created to say something else by someone else before hand."

That's where your understanding of turntablism is limited. Many DJs compose their music, too, and then find samples and write original music to compliment each other, change and adapt to new ideas that hit their minds as they're writing. It's a lot more like making music for traditional genres than you think it is.

"There is nothing that is truly live or off the cuff in DJing"

And there it is - a generalization you made not out of an understanding of the method in question, but a lack thereof. In a lot of club DJing this is true (and club DJing is by no means all the culture has going for it, it'd be cool if you'd stop acting like that was the case), but good DJs and anyone who knows anything about turntablism knows that there's a lot more to it than that.

Shagittarius, you are a bitter, bitter man. Did a DJ steal your woman once?

"even music and samples are used rhythmically instead of the rhythm just being a component of a larger statement"

another statement that is incorrect (sadly, it is correct in quite a few cases, but again, you're trying to justify generalizations, which in any case is stupid and you know it). Man, you need to actually know about turntablism before you go around preaching how talentless or artistically inferior it is. I hate it when people do this with any genre or method of making music and art - not just turntablism.

So I see; during a performance a DJ may come up with something totally unrehearsed from somewhere that isn't on a record that someone else recorded at some point and work it into their music live? I suppose they could bring a guitar in and play some riffs along with the music...

Which brings me to another point...the best music (my opinion) is a collabrative effort performed live. And I'm not talking about a bunch of people collaborated on a song at some point and you mixed it up from a record. I mean people letting the playing of another individual effect and guide their own interpretation of their own music. Its live and it melds seamlessly together, it doesn't require any planning or a milk crate full of anything.

In my opinion the only time you want to hire a DJ is when there's not enough room for a real band.

I'm talking during writing and producing, not during performance.

"Which brings me to another point...the best music (my opinion) is a collabrative effort performed live. And I'm not talking about a bunch of people collaborated on a song at some point and you mixed it up from a record. I mean people letting the playing of another individual effect and guide their own interpretation of their own music. Its live and it melds seamlessly together, it doesn't require any planning or a milk crate full of anything."

I can understand your standpoint. I still don't agree with it, but since you laid that out, I can certainly understand better where you're coming from. With that said, that's not to say that turntablism should be discounted, when the end product can be just as emotionally evocative.

@Fun DMC

I've seen you breathlessly and tireslessly defend hip-hop and it's elements successfully in two post now and I'm extremely impressed with your knowledge of the arts. The problem with a website like this is most of the hip-hop heads don't post on this site (because there are millions of us) and this is why we get ignorant generalizations of the genre we love.

Shag says there's no improvisation in DJing?! PLEASE! I was roommates with a DJ and I NEVER heard him do the same mix twice whether it was when he was practicing (yes good DJs actually DO PRACTICE) or when he was doing a live set. They have to feed off of the crowd and know what's working, when to slow things down and when to speed things up. I would actually submit that DJing has way more improv than your typical live music set because bands (whether rock, jazz, country, r&b, etc) use a set list. They hardly stray from it (even encores are planned) and the only improv comes within songs themselves.

Good DJs also have the ability to take to records and actually make it into a completely different sounding song (and I'm not talking just blends or mash-ups), I've witness a DJ make a completely new beat on the fly by cross fading, rewinding & transforming (type of scratch) two records almost simultaneously, it was amazing. He then recorded that to a device, and put an acapella over it all seemlessly. THAT is the mark of a great DJ.

Lastly, if you've EVER tried to DJ and be a good one, you'd know there's no room for laziness in DJing or you'll find yourself without gigs quick.

Learn the culture before you generalize. I'd be wrong to say rock was just a bunch of uninspired whiney no bassed voice boy bands wearing skinny jeans, right?

Helped me understand things

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-09-dj-hero/50118

They have a more in-depth 2 part up over there too.

And that is the main problem of this game. Its so complicated that nobody can tell how to play it without tutorial videos.

That'll be in our writeup, but the line direction tells you which way you need to flip the crossfader, and the buttons are samples when you just tap them, or they can be scratches when it's a back and forth arrow, and lots of other stuff. Stay tuned.

http://www.instantrimshot.com/

I'm going to have nightmares tonight, thanks to you

i love you man