A couple of weeks ago, there was quite the
debate going down on Facebook.
The issue?
Are DJs musicians?
Musicians from all walks of life of course
made no bones about the fact that DJs cannot be considered
members of their sacred sect.
Some DJs on the other hand offered rather unconvincing arguments
why they are in fact musicians.
I commented ‘DJs are not musicians
by any standard, but some of them are indeed artists.’
I often work with DJs, and
I know that you get DJs and then you get DJs.
There is the DJ who spins the discs at the
party and simply chooses the right beats to play at the
right time.
Often these DJs would also do research and introduce the
public to new tracks, and this is a service that the musician
would do well to start appreciating. How else would their
music get to the public’s ear?
Radio DJs are limited to playlists that are usually compiled
by idiots who know nothing about music, or their listeners,
for that matter.
Then you get the artist.
Today they are referred to as Turntablists, and they use
the technology of turntables, CD and CV players as well
as laptops and mixers to actually create their own brand
of music.
And, let me add, you get turntablists and turntablists
Granted, they use existing songs, a capella
tracks and drum loops, but they also master skills and techniques
like scratching, dropping and juggling beats and tracks,
to draw on a mirage of existing works and remix it in their
own unique way.
The really good ones do this live on stage, so they are
performing in every sense of the word. Have you ever watched
Ashton Abels at work?
Trust me, these guys definitely have musicality,
and a technical skill that to me looks pretty much like
rocket science.
One certainly cannot consider them to be
composers or original artists, but most musicians and even
composers today aren’t original either.
But that’s another topic.
The technology to remix has been around
for fifty years, and this past weekend I happened to be
watching TED.
Ted made some really interesting comments about how, in
the twentieth century, it became necessary to find the balance
between copyright and amateur remixing for the benefit of
all of the creative artist, the industry and the public.
Amateur remixing is not to be confused with amateurish remixing,
but rather 'not for commercial us', unless of course you
pay the royalties.
The times they are a-changing, and by that
I mean the times they are really a-changing.
And that’s yet another topic.
For now, this video that Ted used to illustrate
the art of remixing has been around since 2007, but I had
never seen it before.
Have you?
For some reason the video is restricted from playback on
this site, so click on the link to watch it on youtube.
It’s worth it!
