Do You Consider DJ's As Real Musicians?

[STDiva]

All you assholes think every dj just samples someone elses music? What about guitarists who stole from others? Jimmy Page? Surely he's a musician right? But a guy who creates his own music with a turntable isn't?

Too many people here are stuck in the past and are afraid to accept new things so they just say wahhhh rap isn't music. Waaahhh every dj in the world is unoriginal. It's crazy how close minded some people can be.

 

[pete rose]

It's because they're really not playing an instrument, just pre-sequencing. As I said, turntableists like Qbert pass as musicians, not these clowns that are doing dubstep. I'm a huge recording nerd, there are programs available that literally analyzes and slices beats automatically. It takes little effort.

 

[BlueBalls]

This is like the: "are graffiti artists actually artists" debate.

Yes, they are.

If a person can make something completely original and coherent from a collection of seemingly random snippets of sound, how else would you classify what they do? I mean, that's basically what a great composer/band etc does, is it not? Listen to DJ Shadow's Endtroducing if you're still unsure. There's as much musicianship in that album as there is in any number of albums by so called "proper" musicians.

[Basically what STDiva said]

 

[~~whimsy~~]

Take other people's music in form of a record and scratch the hell out of it.

I call that vandalism. :tongue:

 

[pete rose]

Even so, the majority don't pull it off well. I'm not bashing sequencing, I'm not even against using samples of other artists music to create a song (see: venetian snares - Öngyilkos vasárnap), and I love recording my own samples and using those to create something a little more organic, yet it's never used to it's full potential by these so-called djs. It's just a lot of copy/pasting.

 

[cartman24]

Nope, I appreciate what they do, but if they are the future of music then I will be a very sad person.

 

[jod0565]

Of course not.

 

[dp93]

i would say yes but then Im gona go with no

 

[Moonchild22]

If I was to take audio samples of people talking, and splice them together in a way that makes it sound like they are saying something else - would that make me a good speaker?

 

[thepornguy]

There is a lot of art in DJing, which few people except for DJs can appreciate. For one thing, it's very hard to sequence the tracks in the right order to properly build up energy and build an engaging emotional visceral journey. You can have the same 20 tracks but one mix will be sublime and the other will be mediocre flat. Secondly, at the heart of DJing is taking different sound elements from different songs and mixing them into a bowl, so to speak, creating an unique experience. Thanks to software like Ableton and Tractor, which can be played along with CDJs, DJs can remix songs on-the-fly and play four or more songs at once, taking a little from each song to essentially create a new song on-the-fly. There are also issues like harmonically mixing and knowing the intrinsic structures of songs, which makes DJing a lot harder than it looks. Most people think DJing is being a human jukebox and just hitting a few buttons, but it's much, much more than that.

DJs might not be musicians in the traditional sense of the word but we are artists.

 

[drf]

Of course. They work in the music industry and would be defined as performance artists. Some worked up to a reputation through hard work, talent and skill. Others not so much. Sounds pretty much like every other classification within the music industry. Some are hacks. A true artist wouldn't give a shit.

Thank you!
List of DJ's that I consider as great musicians:
DJ Premier
DJ Shadow
Cut Chemist
Tricky
Mike D
Grandmaster Flash
Doc
DJ Krush
Frank Delgado...

 

[darkwarrior3007]

I think there is a lot of generalizing in this thread. I'll skip it.

 

[dbradford8589]

Some of them are very talented but I don't think I would call them musicians.

 

[PlasmaTwa2]

Some of them are very talented but I don't think I would call them musicians.

This.

 

[YumiYumi_1988]

Of course. They work in the music industry and would be defined as performance artists. Some worked up to a reputation through hard work, talent and skill. Others not so much. Sounds pretty much like every other classification within the music industry. Some are hacks. A true artist wouldn't give a shit.

All you assholes think every dj just samples someone elses music? What about guitarists who stole from others? Jimmy Page? Surely he's a musician right? But a guy who creates his own music with a turntable isn't?

Too many people here are stuck in the past and are afraid to accept new things so they just say wahhhh rap isn't music. Waaahhh every dj in the world is unoriginal. It's crazy how close minded some people can be.

You both are exactly right. Most music these days is just samples of other peoples shit anyway. Some of these DJ's have alot more talent than many singers. If I had Kanye West writing me some lyrics and autotune I'd sound pretty good too. With some of today's technology, I could pick up a guitar and it can be edited and sound halfway decent. I think alot of y'all are thinking of your everyday, run-of-the-mill DJ.

 

[arianajoladdict]

yes but not the future of music

 

[tartanterrier]

They don't make music, they sample music and put shitty beats under it. It's incredibly easy to call yourself a "dj" these days because everything is automated. They just copy, cut, and paste. That is not a musician. I hate this recent dubstep trend and I wish it would go the fuck away.

Turntableists, on the other hand, could be considered musicians. They use the turntable as an instrument.

Turntablists are the same as dj's,so djs are still classed as musicians in
my opinion.They still need to think musically to put things together.

The djs that I listened to back in the 90's and 00's,used turntables and
samplers etc,so as all this was relatively new - I considered it to be music.
Things since then have gotten easier for them in terms of the equipment
that they have at their disposal.But they still produce pieces of music whether
its good or bad.So they should be given respect by calling them musicians.

Although just like in any trade you can have your good and bad :1orglaugh

 

[luis1972]

what????
Just tech

 

[thepornguy]

There seems to be the implied argument floating around that the proportion of bad hack musicians or DJs to good talented musicians or DJs is a determining factor whether something can be considered music. It's a bad argument. All the "copy n paste" hacks of the world speak nothing to intrinsic properties. If we were to apply the bad argument to radio music, not one song you hear on the radio is 'music.'

 

[Moonchild22]

Someone who is really good at using Photoshop might be considered impressive, talented, maybe even artistic, but they wouldn't be considered a photographer. He/she would be, perhaps, a "photo artist", but not a photographer.

The same can be said for DJ's. No matter how talented they are at their craft. The correct term for them would be "recording artists". They wouldn't be 'musicians' unless he/she performed the raw tracks that are being used. If that is the case then yes, he/she would be both, 'musician/recording artist'.