Week 10 Music Technology Forum - Turntablism

This weeks forum presentation was the DVD documentary "Scratch" about the history of turntablism. Steven introduced the DVD by explaining that the turntable had actually been used as a musical instrument long before "turntablism", one example of this is in early pre-magnetic tape music concrete where vinyl recordings were mixed and rerecorded.

I found the DVD very interesting. I never realized the extent of the DJ "solo" culture - I only knew them as accompanists to rappers with the occasional flourish of a complex scratch. The DMC world championships seem to hold considerable prestige for many.

The amount of musical exploration that has been created by experimentation with a former domestic playback device is extremely amazing and I think that this illustrates that interesting music can  gleaned from all kinds of areas if someone is willing to take the time to study it as the early DJs did. 

The "Amen Break" video was further evidence of this point (and was also very amusing). It's even more impressive that there are entire genres heavily relying on this sample. Perhaps this 5 second recording could be considered their instrument. Many sample maestros write for the same sample just as many composers write for the same instruments.

Reference: Steven Whittington. "Week 10 Music Technology Forum - Turntablism and the Amen Break". Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, 22 May 2008.