Then…
Skratchamental.com was the global follow-up of Dutch Turntablism Central: the first Dutch turntablism site. Progress demanded an English-written site that elaborated on turntablism in a way we hadn’t seen yet. Skratchamental intended to be a community for (to be) turntablists to read, share, ask and contribute all kinds of things related to turntablism.
and now
Skratchamental, reloaded is the revamp of Skratchamental.com. The site had not been updated for ages and I want a more informal way of spreading the word on turntablism. The blog type posting idea is not new, but it fits the purpose perfectly.
The idea behind it
Nowadays more and more people are getting in contact with a relatively unknown artform called Turntablism. Maybe you were at a gig and this turntable-artist was ripping it up, or you were hanging out at friend’s house watching this dope battle-videotape and thought: ‘man, I would like to do that’. The only problem is that you have got no idea how to do this stuff. Where do you start? The answer is: here.
A lot of info on how to start to scratch, what kind of gear you need, scratching techniques etc. can be found on the world wide web. However, more often than not this info is quite technical and very brief. Moreover, this info is scattered throughout and up till now there has been a lack of good websites for the starting ‘turntablist’.
Skratchamental provides all the info you need to get started. But also experienced turntablists can benefit from the comprehensive guidelines. The incorporation of the TTM can open up, or clarify, discussions about techniques. By commenting you can exchange experiences, tips, philosophies and of course ask questions. It might even provide a good way of getting in touch with other turntablists around the globe.
In the end we may all learn from each other and become better artists.
Why am I doing this?
After having lived abroad for a while back in 2000 (without my turntables!) it daunted on me that if there was one thing I would never be without again it would be scratching. Since I lived without my gear for a while I had a lot of extra time to catch up on my Internet surfing. Needless to say I mostly visited turntablism related websites and posted more than a few messages on the boards.
I came to the conclusion that there were no good turntablism websites in my own mother tongue, being Dutch. So I decided to make it myself. Dutch Turntablism Central (DTC) was born. I spent hours and hours putting my own experiences and stuff I had read through the years into an understandable tutorial. I ended up with info on gear, scratching techniques, and more, totalling over 10.000 words (approximately 30 pages!). Since the University where I was studying at the time was so kind to host the site it could be online virtually for free. People loved it.
Now we’re about 9 years down the road, I got my Masters degree and am working full-time. DTC was forced offline in the beginning of 2003.
Since the launch of DTC, I had evolved as a turntablist. Interestingly enough most of the scratch-websites had not. Of course you’ve got your gear-reviews, your scratching-techniques section and the lot, but how may of them are actually original, innovative and transparent (non-commercial)?
Since I know how hard it is to get into turntablism and to find the right knowledge to evolve from ‘scratch’, I decided to make this site aimed at the (to be) turntablist.
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