Do you consider DJs/EDM artists to be musicians (lifted from another thread)

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Cubby, Jul 26, 2014.

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  1. I disagree with the particulars of your disagreement. The strings are a necessary part of the assemblage required to make music with a guitar, but there's no music in them without the musician. That's not the case with turntables and records. Without preexisting music recordings, the DJ can't do anything.
     
  2. coniferouspine

    coniferouspine Forum Resident

    This argument makes no sense.... Can a guitarist play music, on a guitar without any strings, without a neck, or can he be heard on an electric guitar without an amp, or electricity? Can a saxophonist be heard, without a reed in his sax?

    The "pre-recorded music" is just ONE SMALL PART of the equipment that an individual like Q-bert uses to make the music, just like the guitarist needs wood AND metal to manipulate, in order to create his sounds. A guy like Q-bert just needs the right kind of plastic. Same way a guitarist needs the right kind of wood and metal and plastic, that is made to do what he wants to do. The records are just part of the equipment, same as a drum head or a plectrum or whatever.

    Ego Trip magazine has a long-running series on video, where they give turntablists a set of 3 random, unknown records, and make them create beats with them on the spot, on camera. I don't know if I can get the link to work here in this forum, but they're pretty interesting. Totally random records, they put them on the spot, and they create.

     
  3. maui_musicman

    maui_musicman Well-Known Member

    Location:
    Kihei, Hi USA
    One at a time.
    DJ's? ORLY?
    If the criteria for being a musician is "Can you push play" and "Can you set the needle down on the black portion of the record", unless your quadriplegic or had a lobotomy, we just gained 7 billion new musicians. So, not in my opinion.
    EDM artists? Depends. Are they themselves creating the sounds or are they "sampling them" from other artists? If the former, yes, if the latter, no. Manipulating music isn't the same as creating music, sorry.
    The question is "Do you (as in me) consider DJs/EDM artists to be musicians?"
    Remember that before the arguing commences over my "OPINION".


     
  4. Rasputin

    Rasputin Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sweden
    Many, many long posts for absolutely nothing. A DJ is still not a musician by any means, & a record player will never be considered an instrument. For obvious reasons of course...

    All seems to wishful thinking by fans of the dance genre or whatever.

    Coming up Next: is a rapper a singer?:rolleyes:
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2014
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  5. progrocker71

    progrocker71 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    I'm not sure anybody on the internet actually understands "opinion" any longer. People seem to interpret everything that is said as FACT and then they go on the offensive. It would be funny if it wasn't so sad/frustrating.
     
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  6. nbakid2000

    nbakid2000 On Indie's Cutting Edge

    Location:
    Springfield, MO
    I got a friend coming tonight and I'm going to show him this series. This is awesome. Thanks for sharing that!
     
  7. PHILLYQ

    PHILLYQ Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn NY
    So Ella Fitzgerald was never a musician by this logic.
     
  8. progrocker71

    progrocker71 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Correct. She was a vocalist....IN MY OPINION...so don't bother trying to start an argument about it.
     
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  9. PHILLYQ

    PHILLYQ Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn NY
    What are the 'obvious reasons', considering DJs who scratch, etc.?
     
  10. hutlock

    hutlock Forever Breathing

    Location:
    Cleveland, OH, USA
    Some remarkable levels of willful ignorance and closed-mindedness on display here. Bravo. :sigh:
     
  11. PHILLYQ

    PHILLYQ Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn NY
    You might have had an argument with 'Sweets' Edison, Duke Ellington, and any number of folks who played instruments and considered her a musician.
    Ditto with Bobby McFerrin.
     
  12. PHILLYQ

    PHILLYQ Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn NY
    I would think a DJ could scratch with a blank record, so that would have no one's music being used by the DJ:)
     
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  13. progrocker71

    progrocker71 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    As I stated earlier, it's my opinion, I have a right to it. I choose not to argue over opinions because it's a complete and utter waste of time and effort.
     
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  14. PHILLYQ

    PHILLYQ Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn NY
    That's fine, I was just looking for any reasoning behind it.
     
  15. PHILLYQ

    PHILLYQ Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn NY
    So you categorically reject the notion that a DJ scratching a rhythm with a band can be a musician?
     
  16. progrocker71

    progrocker71 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    It's just my way of looking at things.

    A person that plays a musical instrument is a musician.
    A person that sings is a vocalist/singer.
    A person that mixes together elements recorded by other people and assembles them is a producer/engineer.
     
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  17. The difference being, that ONE SMALL PART contains the pre-recorded music that is ultimately the only reason we're having this discussion. If you break apart a guitar like you suggest, you can't take the strings and run them through a String Player or put the neck on a Neck Player and listen to some prerecorded music that the guitarist needs to do his thing. Whereas the DJ is dependent on others having recorded music previously to do his thing.

    Further to what PhillyQ said above: to make the analogy anywhere near accurate, the DJ would have to be using blank-groove discs or discs only containing fixed tones or something. I'm sure a good one could come up with something interesting this way.
     
  18. pscreed

    pscreed Upstanding Member

    Location:
    Land of the Free
    Nope. Next question?
     
  19. nbakid2000

    nbakid2000 On Indie's Cutting Edge

    Location:
    Springfield, MO
    She's not. She's a singer/vocalist. Musicians have to have tools of some sort in front of them.
     
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  20. phish

    phish Jack Your Body

    Location:
    Biloxi, MS, USA
    Now we are literally going in circles.
     
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  21. druboogie

    druboogie Maverick Stacker

    Location:
    New Jersey
    Actually this is already being done with tones in note format on records. Hard as hell to do if the notes arent already within a close range of each other, but some DJs do it live when using the turntable soley as an instrument with a band and not using it to play songs. Kinda easier to do with DVS software and timecoded records, when you can put anything you want on the turntable, including any tone of any note(s).
     
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  22. PHILLYQ

    PHILLYQ Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brooklyn NY
    What I find most odd is that so many here profess to be music freaks, yet they'll tie logic into knots to claim that X or Y is not a musician. It's funny/sad all at once.
     
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  23. Maseman66

    Maseman66 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Westchester, NY
    Without reading this whole tread, I'd say they're being creative, but they're not musicians.
     
  24. drasil

    drasil Former Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    a friend of mine did this when we were in school. he had wax pressed with a series of tones in various waveforms and used them in combination with the pitch control on the decks to make tunes. he also swore that this approach was his invention, despite my skepticism--it always felt to me like something someone must have done in the 90s 'electronica' era even though I had no real evidence for this.

    do you know of any specific turntablists who were/are spinning this way? I'd be very interested in listening to their work. (particularly if they're using hard wax, not DVS decks.)
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2014
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  25. phish

    phish Jack Your Body

    Location:
    Biloxi, MS, USA
    this is jeff's music and jeff's mix.....

     
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