Week 10 Forum – Scratching

I was very impressed with today’s forum. Something I can really relate to. I appreciate the fact that Stephen is open to the idea of DJing as an artform even though in the traditional scence it isn’t exactly the most scholarly form of music.

Many of the artists we watched in the film today I had heard of through my own interest of looking up the roots of DJing. DJs Qbert, Shadow, Mix-Master Mike are all legends in the art of scratching. Grand Master Flash, Kool Herc and Grand Wizard Theodore are of course the pioneers in this artform.

One part of the film I could really relate to was when the DJs talked about digging for vinyl. One of the biggest stigmas in the DJ industry now is the rise of digital downloading. The culture of spending hours plowing through crates of records has been lost with simply clicking on a computer. As a DJ I hate playing mp3s and will always remain a vinyl purist.

[2]
anyone can learn to scratch. . .


[1] Stephen Whittington, "Music Technology Forum: Semester 1 - Week 10 – Scratch". Lecture presented at the Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide, South Australia, 22nd May 2008

[2] WP Remix, Cats Learning How to be a DJ. http://iwdj.com/ (Accessed 23/5/8)