History of Turntablism

Some sections that I wanted to include in Skratchamental either take up to much time to do properly myself, or have been done really good by somebody else. The latter is the case with the history of turntablism.

The Pedestrian organisation

Pedestrian is a non profit voluntary organisation that provides workshops, information, support and performance opportunities for young people. In the emerging artform of ‘Turntablism’.
Their workshops range from informal Jam sessions to formal musical training, provided by a diverse range of professional tutors. read more…

Turntablism, from 1900 to today

DJ Markski from the Pedestrian organisation wrote an indepth paper that gives the best overview of turntablism thru the years I have seen to date. ‘the “History of Turntablism” provides an insight into the events that led to the creation and evolution of turntablism, from 1900 to today‘. read more…

Thanks to Pedestrian and Markski for making this collaboration possible.

Pedestrian logo

October 27th, 2009 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Turntablism

Turntablism, by some referred to as ‘the art of the Scratch DJ’. In my opinion the following definitions describe the terms the best:

Turntablist: ‘One who uses the phonograph turntable as component to make music as well as an instrument to literally play music.’ (Official International Turntablism Federation Newsletter, 1996)

Turntablism: ‘Manipulation of previously recorded track(s) to the extent that they are substantially altered from their original format, and that the continuous or consistent alteration of the previously existing tracks(s) continues for one minute or more.’ (NCRA’s submission to the CRTC’s review of campus radio policy)

For the ones who are totally new to the turntablism concept it is important to bear in mind the following. In general turntablists normally use the turntables for two things:

  • Scratching
  • Beat-juggling

Before you start getting ahead of yourself and try some techniques I advice you to adjust your turntable and mixer. This is important because a normal turntable is not meant for, and certainly not set up for scratching.

October 27th, 2009 | Tags: , , | Comments are closed

Looking back

As we are approaching the end of 2009, I personally couldn’t think of any big innovations in the turntablist area. Naturally vendors haven’t been sitting still but at the same time I felt there wasn’t that much really new for the ‘Joe Average tablist’.

Then I remembered this guy:

If a mod for my mixer would come on the market for that, I wouldn’t hesitate to get it haha. I wonder if he can make it work with DJDecks too as my Vestax doesn’t have midicontrol though…

Peep it!

October 23rd, 2009 | Tags: , , , | Comments are closed

Next level Powerheadz

Aside from funky cutting I can also appreciate the art of breaking. This is an old vid already, but it is one I would like to share with you, I think it’s awesome.

Anyone who knows the name of the soundtrack, comment please 🙂

October 20th, 2009 | Tags: | Comments are closed

All that reloading is making me itch

Got the new logo in place. Hope to start converting some of the old content to this site in the course of the week. Expect to see some new stuff as well, but mostly in the form of info I’ve gathered from other sites and vids. This should become the place to find all the good stuff haha.

Anyway, I decided to revive Skratchamental.com because a lot of people are very surprised when I tell them I’m a turntablist, at home. Youtube is a nice channel to share some shots, but I need some more bandwidth for my escapades, and my previous work. So here goes, let’s see if I can keep this up.

Machiel

October 19th, 2009 | Tags: | Comments are closed

Customization

Pfff, getting to grips with WordPress but ‘reloaded’ needs some custom things still. More soon…

Under construction

Under construction

October 18th, 2009 | Comments are closed
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