Someone sounds bitter and Jaded.

ubercat wrote:

zom-zom wrote:Turntables are for playing recorded music. They are not musical instruments. Fuck that shit.

Oh boy. That's about the single most ignorant post I've seen in a long time. I got love for you G, but this I can't pass on.

If you're a cat from a NYC project, and you can't get a job because you're black, and you can't loan an 'instrument' from your friends because they can't find jobs because they are also black, you have very little in the way of options. Education is nearly non-existent for black in the late 70's and early 80's (in NYC).

Let's compare Rap to Soul Food. Is Soul Food 'food'? Yup. It's discarded food, or parts that whites didn't dare eat - like perhaps a table is to music. So, when you have lemons, you make soul food and music.

To say that rubbing a table isn't music, or to say that a table isn't an instrument is to say that soul food isn't food.

It's an ignorant notion to assert that a table isn't an instrument.

Robert Johnson built a 'guitar' out of nails and wire. He built it on an interior wall of his tiny flat. On the fucking wall. He played his flat for christ sake. And you'd tell me that Robert Johnson wasn't playing an instrument? I'll tell you that he reinvented the guitar because of that. He reshaped MUSIC from 12 nails and 6 lengths of wire.

Tables are instruments. circuit bending creates instruments.

Harry Partch. He wasn't playing drums because they were originally airplane nose-sections?

Sorry man. You are wrong.

I'm with Zom-Zom on this one.

Tables aren't fucking instruments. Just because some folks bought turntables and manipulated PRE-RECORDED music over other PRE-RECORDED music doesn't make it an instrument. It makes it a well-used manipulator.

If you're going by the dictionary definition of instrument (An implement used to facilitate work, among others), then yes, you could call a turntable, an instrument, just like you could call it a tool.

Making a guitar out of a shoebox and wire is an instrument, because you are forced to use it to make ORIGINAL music. You're not getting the Albini sound out of blocked of wood with a straightened wire hanger for a string. However, you can get a unique sound that you use to make your own original music. That's an invention. Taking a turntable, putting a record on, fucking it up while essentially speaking quickly over it is not making an instrument for new music. It is manipulating music in a possibly unique way (something mainstream hip-hop has failed since the eighties, aka, being unique and original) to say the least. Using trash cans or aluminum siding as percussion IS an instrument, because you use it in an original way to make original music. See the difference?

Comparing Robert Johnson to a turntablist is absurd. I don't see why you mentioned soul food either. Let's go back to the dictionary once again. Soul Food - traditional black American cookery, which originated in the rural South, consisting of such foods as chitterlings, pig knuckles, turnip greens, and cornbread. What the fuck does that have to do with music? To bring up soul food was just unnecessary.

And I don't see how a poor black kid in the eighties who can't afford another instrument can afford a turntable. Maybe I'm wrong, but weren't they fairly expensive considering they were in demand even more then than now, and they're still not cheap for a good DJing turntable. I'm asking, correct me if I'm wrong.

I have respect for the fact that there is a certain amount of ingeniuity in creating a unique brand of sound using turntables and giving black people in the projects a new way to rise to prominence and gain financial success, but it ain't a fucking instrument, and I don't think there's a single DJ on the planet who could hold a fucking candle to Robert Johnson.

Steve V. wrote:If you're going by the dictionary definition of instrument (An implement used to facilitate work, among others), then yes, you could call a turntable, an instrument, just like you could call it a tool.

What else are we going by if not the definition? If a turntable can create sounds that weren't on the record you're scratching, that qualifies the turntable as an instrument.

Steve V. wrote:Making a guitar out of a shoebox and wire is an instrument, because you are forced to use it to make ORIGINAL music.

Scratching makes ORIGINAL sounds, and music.

Steve V. wrote:You're not getting the Albini sound out of blocked of wood with a straightened wire hanger for a string. However, you can get a unique sound that you use to make your own original music. That's an invention. Taking a turntable, putting a record on, fucking it up while essentially speaking quickly over it is not making an instrument for new music. It is manipulating music in a possibly unique way (something mainstream hip-hop has failed since the eighties, aka, being unique and original) to say the least. Using trash cans or aluminum siding as percussion IS an instrument, because you use it in an original way to make original music. See the difference?

Scratching is using a turntable in an original way. See?

Steve V. wrote:Comparing Robert Johnson to a turntablist is absurd.

Yes it is. One makes music on a guitar, the other makes music on a turntable. I wouldn't compare a cellist like Yo-Yo Ma to a guitarist like Robert Fripp.

Steve V. wrote:And I don't see how a poor black kid in the eighties who can't afford another instrument can afford a turntable. Maybe I'm wrong, but weren't they fairly expensive considering they were in demand even more then than now, and they're still not cheap for a good DJing turntable. I'm asking, correct me if I'm wrong.

The early turntablists used their parents turntables.

Steve V. wrote:I have respect for the fact that there is a certain amount of ingeniuity in creating a unique brand of sound using turntables and giving black people in the projects a new way to rise to prominence and gain financial success, but it ain't a fucking instrument, and I don't think there's a single DJ on the planet who could hold a fucking candle to Robert Johnson.

Why are you comparing a turntablist to a guitarist? It's two different things. I don't compare a organ player to keyboardist.

Your dictionary has other kool words, one of them most fitting at the moment: pedantic.

Tables, during the time when the industry was converting to these things called Compact Discs, were dirt cheap. Dirt fucking cheap. And usually a family had some manner of table in the house.

Under your definition of instrument a sampler isn't an instrument.

Steve V., to say that Soul Food/Music is a bad comparison makes me think you have no ears and no mouth. Food and music are infinitely comparable. Read a few reviews of your favorite bands and food references will come up all the time ("tastes like shit, dry and crappy, etc.": at least with your favorite bands).

As far as turntablism, I FUCKING HATE DJs. They are on a par with photographers (sorry burun, dlayphoto) as far as stealing images they did not create and regirgitating for the masses. However, scratch artists have created a sound that IS totally new, or at least WAS. Most spinners these days don't know shit, but that does not discredit the art form. Invisbl Skratch Picklz etc, come on Q-Bert on the first Doctor Octagon joint, nigga please! It is new shit! Real shit!

(just kidding about "your music")

i want to hear it, yes i do. i will cold check it, yes i will. make it happen.



also, people with any interest in music being made with turntables should check out:

1200 hobos 'evolution'

qbert's 'demolition pumpkin squeeze'

the first couple of 'return of the dj' compliations that bomb put out in the mid-late 90s.

ubercat wrote:Your dictionary has other kool words, one of them most fitting at the moment: pedantic.

Tables, during the time when the industry was converting to these things called Compact Discs, were dirt cheap. Dirt fucking cheap. And usually a family had some manner of table in the house.

Under your definition of instrument a sampler isn't an instrument.

Like I said, I was asking. Makes a little more sense now, and helps me understand your argument a little more.

And a sampler CAN be an instrument if you pump original segments into it and manipulate them. But if you're using other people's sounds and music to sample, it's a stretch to call it an instrument.

Steve V. wrote:

If you're going by the dictionary definition of instrument (An implement used to facilitate work, among others), then yes, you could call a turntable, an instrument, just like you could call it a tool.


What else are we going by if not the definition? If a turntable can create sounds that weren't on the record you're scratching, that qualifies the turntable as an instrument.

But a turntable CAN'T CREATE SOUNDS. IT PLAYS SOUNDS ALREADY ON A RECORD...there's no CREATION. It's MANIPULATION. You can slow it down or speed it up, shit, maybe even add effects. But what is on that record is what is being played.

Steve V. wrote:
Making a guitar out of a shoebox and wire is an instrument, because you are forced to use it to make ORIGINAL music.


Scratching makes ORIGINAL sounds, and music.

You tell me how you can distinguish one guy's scratching from another, and I swear to god I'll send you money in the mail. There's nothing musical or creative about scratching a record. It makes the same sound every time I've heard it. Maybe time it is faster, some time it is slower, but it is the same principle with no variation. There's never been original scratching. It is the same shit in different bags. The first guy who ever did it MAY have been original, but it's just photocopied and stupid now.

Steve V. wrote:
You're not getting the Albini sound out of blocked of wood with a straightened wire hanger for a string. However, you can get a unique sound that you use to make your own original music. That's an invention. Taking a turntable, putting a record on, fucking it up while essentially speaking quickly over it is not making an instrument for new music. It is manipulating music in a possibly unique way (something mainstream hip-hop has failed since the eighties, aka, being unique and original) to say the least. Using trash cans or aluminum siding as percussion IS an instrument, because you use it in an original way to make original music. See the difference?


Scratching is using a turntable in an original way. See?

No.

Steve V. wrote:
Comparing Robert Johnson to a turntablist is absurd.


Yes it is. One makes music on a guitar, the other makes music on a turntable. I wouldn't compare a cellist like Yo-Yo Ma to a guitarist like Robert Fripp.

Cellos are stringed instruments with a long history. Guitars are string instruments with a long history. You could much more easily and logically link using those two instruments together than you could a guitar to a turntable and vice versa.

Steve V. wrote:
And I don't see how a poor black kid in the eighties who can't afford another instrument can afford a turntable. Maybe I'm wrong, but weren't they fairly expensive considering they were in demand even more then than now, and they're still not cheap for a good DJing turntable. I'm asking, correct me if I'm wrong.


The early turntablists used their parents turntables.

Their parents must've been pissed. I've been corrected, I honestly did not know if tables were cheap at that point or not.

Steve V. wrote:
I have respect for the fact that there is a certain amount of ingeniuity in creating a unique brand of sound using turntables and giving black people in the projects a new way to rise to prominence and gain financial success, but it ain't a fucking instrument, and I don't think there's a single DJ on the planet who could hold a fucking candle to Robert Johnson.


Why are you comparing a turntablist to a guitarist? It's two different things. I don't compare a organ player to keyboardist.

I was talking about their creativity, not their instruments. Ubercat seemed to attempt a logical connection between Johnson basically creating a style of music that transcended many boundaries and influenced millions of artists to a DJ who influenced not many people outside of those within the genre. That's the connection. Creativity. Are you telling me Skribble is as good as Robert Johnson in terms of pure unadulterated creativity? Psha!

Boombats is pretty close with his turntablists like photographers line. Makes sense.[/quote]

Steve V., I can tell the difference between Q-Bert and DJ Disk. I shall PM you my mailing address; small untraceable bills please.

Steve V. wrote:And a sampler CAN be an instrument if you pump original segments into it and manipulate them. But if you're using other people's sounds and music to sample, it's a stretch to call it an instrument.

So, by this rationale, if a turntablist recorded their own sounds/noises/segments and had them pressed into vinyl and then manipulated them, you'd then be ok with referring to the turntable as an instrument? (I'm pretty sure this has happened already, by the way.)

It's all semantics and context. That's all you're arguing at this point.

all mash-ups and a lot of early rap, hip hop, sampling, scratching, is recycling music. using a turntable to create music is either recycling music or making new sounds out of an instrument designed for playback.

all of you folks who are against using turntables to make music are no longer allowed to listen to any john cage pieces on which he used water and shells or glasses, cuz water is, um for drinking, not making music. steve reich's pendulum music is absolutely out off the question.

in fact, you are no longer allowed to use feedback because you are taking a previously made sound and re-using it.