• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Is a DJ a musician

Is a DJ (as described in my opening post) a musician?

  • Yes a DJ is a musician

    Votes: 101 25.3%

  • Nope a DJ is not a musician but something else (post what he is)

    Votes: 250 62.5%

  • Carrots are good musicians. Carrots make good fretboard wood too!

    Votes: 49 12.3%
  • Total voters
    400
Status
Not open for further replies.
#143
I read your section by section reply to my post. I am very pleased to say that even if we agree or disagree, this site generally provides a forum where intelligent people, who just happen to play bass...can discuss just about anything that pertains to our interests, in a civil mature manner. You, also make a lot of good points. That youtube clip is similar to other links sent to me to prove how skilled a dj can be at recreating music. That was very good! I have never disputed that. I think a professional singer would do as well with a sequenced (UGH) version. I hate to say that, really- I live in Reno and have witnessed things like this.
I'm a middle aged guy, play lots of gigs, everything from be bop upright, backing divas, to classic rock, blues, funk, and country, and now a casino band here......I lOVE all kinds of music, good music...even played bass a few times at a drum circle. Why do I mention this? I have an OPEN mind, I want to learn and grow 'till the lights go out! I'm open even to listening to some of the less vulgar rap, hip hop, - and dj's all of which are not my 'cup of tea'. When I started playing regular professional gigs in 1973, my first gig was at a - get this- country music bar in Brooklyn, N.Y.! I, at the time, had no use for any kind of music other than progressive rock, fusion, and jazz. My heroes of the day were Stanley Clarke, Jimmy Garrison, and Buster Williams. I hated that gig. I, in my ignorance, believed country music to be simple music played by simple people for simple minded hillbillies. How ignorant I was. Some of the best players on Earth are country musicians. Go to youtube and type in Jerry Reed, - yeah the guy from the "Smokey and The Bandit" movies. KILLER guitarist! Funny, I learned about him from Stuart Spector. Only listening, experiencing, and learning can give someone an appreciation of the worth and the validity of music we're not usually accustomed to hearing. I'm still not ready to think of dj's as musicians, although the good ones are very interesting to watch.
 
#144
LHbassist - well said.

If we were discussing personal preferences regarding DJs and the type of music they create in general, I would align more on the side of "not my cup o' tea". Same thing with most rap and hip hop.

My views of DJs, MCs, Rappers and Hip Hop artists have definitely evolved since the early 80's when I would have summarily dismissed it all as some sort of bastardization of a "real music". I was much younger and more closed-minded then.

I've learned since, as you stated so well, that even music that initially strikes you as utter bunk - someone scratching on a record - someone angrily shouting slang and expletives rhythmically - someone taking small pieces of other songs and stacking them to make new songs - even all that can evolve and become a viable new form of, yes, music. Just because I don't "get it" or because I cannot relate to it doesn't mean it's not.

In my grandparents and parents lifetime, we've seen how the creation of recording devices, electric instruments, race and more, when first introduced to the public, could be met with similar closed-minded rhetoric. Declarations of what "real music" and how the latest thing to be heard is not it.

I think it's safe to say that there were people who would have never in a million years believed Rock 'n' Roll would survive past 1951 and would have been making the exact same argument about how people who pick up electric geetars and scream into microphones are NOT musicians.
 
#145
LHbassist: Very well said man. Having studied art history in college, I had to come across all sorts of professors who questioned my own views on what an artist is. I still have a threshold with which I hold things and I often question the validity of some so-called "artists," especially in the modern era. I think it works the same way with music. By definition, it's very easy for almost any joe to qualify as a musician, but society often shows that there are some very thin lines out there that go more in the realm of opinion. I think that's one of the points tZer and I are trying to raise. Many automatically assume one thing or another, but don't necessarily think about things critically. I am also glad that we're having some meaningful discussion here. If anything, it's made me think about how far my own threshold is for dictating someone as a musician.

I find my own views about music expanding with every new song I listen or re-listen to, and I love getting recommendations. I'll definitely check out Jerry Reed and some of the other artists you mentioned that I've never heard, like Jimmy Garrison and Buster Williams.
 
#146
Infernal Affair said:
LHbassist: Very well said man. Having studied art history in college, I had to come across all sorts of professors who questioned my own views on what an artist is. I still have a threshold with which I hold things and I often question the validity of some so-called "artists," especially in the modern era.
Click to expand...

Hmmm......I'm guessing you're speaking of Jeff Koons? :D
 
#152
Hey, Vorago, props on the Aesop Rock in your link.

If you get the chance, check him out live, he puts on a good show.

And to keep this on topic:


DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, and DJ Numark preforming live on Akai Samplers.

So what about these guys? Yes, they're using sampled sounds, but they're creating this piece from scratch. (no pun intended)
And, when it all comes down to it, isn't every note a sampled sound?
 
#154
Deluge Of Sound said:
Hey, Vorago, props on the Aesop Rock in your link.

If you get the chance, check him out live, he puts on a good show.

And to keep this on topic:


DJ Shadow, Cut Chemist, and DJ Numark preforming live on Akai Samplers.

So what about these guys? Yes, they're using sampled sounds, but they're creating this piece from scratch. (no pun intended)
And, when it all comes down to it, isn't every note a sampled sound?
Click to expand...


None shall pass is one sick album. Damn :eek:
 
#156
Just thought you'd like to know, Jimmy is Matt Garrisons dad. He was the bassist in the killer early sixties John Coltrane Quartet. He played gut strings, unamplified. I have recently heard his classic intro bass line from "Greensleeves" sampled and used on a hip hop track. (A whole 'nother topic!) I also love Bob Cranshaw. He played on a lot of the great Lee Morgans albums, as well as Sonny Rollins. Buster's wonderful playing...well like the great Ron Carter, is easy to check out, all over youtube and countless albums. My personal Buster fav is his incredible tone and playing on "I Have A Dream" from Herbie Hancock's 1969 album "The Prisoner." Look on youtube for "Jerry's Breakdown" a duet with Chet Atkins. I'd hate to have been Chet, and have to follow Jerry's solo!
The bassists I have mentioned, and of course all other musicians, are our teachers.... I have learned a lot about ensemble playing and the true role of the bass in music from the greats. I like to listen to my local contemporaries as well, in the clubs and casinos...its great to hear somone else's approach to the same material...I still dislike intensely when a bassist must slap the solo in "Brown Eyed Girl" - but, to each their own. As I like to say, Nothing is written in stone!
 
#160
dancehallclasher said:
wow. call this what you will, it's more impressive than anything that anyone posting in this thread will probably ever do musically.
Click to expand...
really...? Is he so much impressive? I think you would be able to do the same without spending years of studying or practicing. On the other hand, I don't know if he would be able to play any instrument to the same level like some people here does without years of practicing, studying, and sacrifying...

One day, in a party organized by some friends of mine in a drummer's house, a guy was reproducing out of his iTunes/mac notebook some remixes like that one in the link. And, just for fun, a friend of mine started playing congas making rythmic figures like a DJ would do scratching while the music is playing. He is no way a percussion player, a drummer or anything else... he doesn't play any kind of instrument and has no musical knowledge of any kind, just having fun picking the congas for the very first time and kidding like I would do with, say, a ball trying to play soccer or a boomerang (not the looper... :p). But he was able to play in time (natural talent..?). And the result (not the sound of course) was nice, similar to a DJ scratching with a looper.

the question: does this made him to be a "musician"? Is being capable of producing some percussive sounds in time or with groove over a pc playing a loop enough to be a musician, consider him/her to the same quality and knowledge of people that have years and years of studying, band gigging, experience, training and sacrifice? :confused:
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back