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

It's actually been a pretty good 16 pages considering the question was answered on page 1. I will acknowledge that scratching is percussion, because it clearly is. I find the argument that singers aren't musicians pretty laughable, although one reason their peers considered Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra musicians is because they understood music, they could read it, they could explain the harmony and key changes, etc. We can all sing (well or poorly), we aren't all necessarily musicians except under the broadest definition of the term.

I really enjoyed the video of the guy given 3 random records to work with posted a page or two ago, and it summed up some of the contradictions about this topic. From what I could tell, he inputed short bursts of sounds into a keyboard and played the keyboard to create music. He clearly knew at least something about playing keyboard, he just used different sounds than come as stock items.

One last thing, all music does have a rhythm, even the most ambient stuff you could name, even one chord held for 100 years. It doesn't have to be James Brown to have rhythm.

 

Well, I think we need to do better than that in raising an objection or in making the argument (as you did with post #25, thank you for that). For me the question is flawed because we'll never agree on definitions to the terms "artist" and "musician"; if we try, all we'll do is recast the arguments we got into over the right answer to the original question, or, worse, recast arguments which are really driven by subjective preferences for certain sounds. Matter of fact I suspect we might even run into trouble trying to define "DJ." Clearly there are some DJ's that just play recorded music (I did that for a while -- it doesn't take much), while there are other DJ's that do a lot more, sometimes putting together composite works that might even qualify as original work. And then there are what I would call composers of electronic music that are sometimes labeled DJ's just because, well, I don't really know why, unless it's because "composer of electronic music" sounds tedious (which it does).

Using terms as neutral as I can think of, there are a lot of works produced by "DJ's" which I find enormously appealing and in which we should all be able to recognize some original creative contribution. That's good enough for me to justify calling those individuals "musicians" and "artists."

Here's a record I really liked, put together, I think, by "DJ's." Sorry about the size. How the heck do I shrink pics?

 

Just find a smaller picture on Google.

 

A skilled DJ with decades of experiencing honing their craft and creating a well thought out set is no different than your grandkid playing a cd? Brilliant.

 

Thank you, Ken.

 

I've read several times in this thread that scratching is merely a percussive action but that's incorrect. One simply needs to watch and listen to the last minute or so of the Cut Chemist video I posted to see that one is able to manipulate the pitch shift control to raise and lower a constant tone to create melodies.

 

A person using a pitch shift control to create a melody from an otherwise constant tone is a musician. It is the act of playing a melody rather than merely playing back and manipulating recordings of melodies that distinguishes a musician from a music producer.

 

http://youtu.be/oq4SKmYy-3U

 

I think this answers the naysayers definitively:



@Synthfreek I'm sure you've seen this but I'm tagging you anyway.

 

Coachella 2009. Leaving the venue after seeing Paul McCartney give me the best 3 hours of my life. A guy was praising a DJ who also played that night by saying something along the lines of how impressed he was that the DJ knew exactly what songs to play after each other.

I believe DJing is a skill, but I don't put them in the same class as I do with musicians.

 

That was fun watching. That video took me to two others:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWzOXXnkO84

And part 2:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv95YnQopTA

I've always wondered how the electronic musicians and DJs do that sort of stuff live. It's pretty neat. And it is musicianship to make that all come together.

One thing I often miss in electronic music is spacialness in the sound. The 3D depth layering aspect. Often it ends up sounding so 2D left right with little to no regard to spacialness (spacialness in both depth and time). The sort of spacialness you get with music recorded in a real room. Electronic music can still have that sort of spacialeness. And that spacialness can be enhanced in electronic ways beyond natural (which is awesome when done right). But more often than not that sort of spacialness is missing entirely.

I should also mention that I primarily listen on headphones. So my idea of electronically enhanced spacialness may be different than those who listen with speakers. For example q-sound and 3D60 style effects works well on headphones. Not so well on speakers. But electronic music with those sorts of effects for spacialeness are very welcome for my sort of listening.

For me, when an electronic musician learns how to mix in the spacialeness of sound along with the music that's when it becomes more musical rather than just DJ club dancing music.

 

Now, yes. Currently obsessed with deadmau5's "Veldt."

And I'd like to retract the pedantic post #377 (except for the reference to the GVSU recording, which really is awesome).