Are DJ's Musicians?

I'd say yes- To be a half decent DJ you'd have have at least some basic knowledge of Music Theory (Timings, beat structures etc) which goes pretty hand in hand with musicianship.
 
PhatController said:
Very true.

To a certain extent, DJ's could be classed as musicians, but like you say, its not as complex as reading/writing music and turning notes from a piece of paper into beautiful sounds :inlove:

The thing about the guitar, yh you might get a few nice chords from trial and error, but if someone asked you play something from a sheet of music you'd be like errrrr :rinsed:
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I know a lot of really good guitarist who can hear a ryth an play it back, and also make really good tunes, but cant read music for shit so the doent make a diffrence
 
riisu said:
gabor_szabo_guitar_tabs_1.gif
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I know fuck all about guitar but even I can read tab
 
I believe this quote will fit in this thread quite nicely

And tonight something equally epoch-making is taking place. See? They're applauding the DJ. Not the music, not the musician, not the creator, but the medium. This is it. The birth of rave culture. The beatification of the beat. The dance age. This is the moment when even the white man starts dancing. Welcome to Manchester.
Tony Wilson
 
Im not really sure what point i was trying to make, just trying to join a discussion from an awkward and clearly subjective question :D
 
This whole thing is an argument about semantics...

Move along now, move along...
 
DJ's aren't musicians, as they don't create music, they play and manipulate it on an operational level. They are definately entertainers though, which when taking the song writing away is what a musician is.
Ha i've confused myself. In short i don't think they qualify as musicians...
 
djs are DEFINITELY musicians, but turntables are not "instruments" in a traditional sense, however a dj turns them into an instrument in the process of mixing. One can classify a "mixed" portion of a track as a new composition, as the combination of two tracks creates a unique horizontal musical experience that cannot be heard/experienced while listening to one of the tracks alone, thus they are able to "compose" new musical structures using pre-existing pieces of music. This is tantamount to "rearranging" a composition and then re-writing it, except the dj does the rearranging and restructuring in real-time. It takes a deep understanding of rhythm and time signature structure to be able to mix well, so undoubtedly djs are musicians whether they've been "classically trained" or not. Personally, I think djing is harder than learning piano or saxophone. It took me WAY longer to pick up djing than it did for me to pick up piano, but i still figured it out after a couple months.

tigi
 
by the way, rearranging compositions has been around since pretty much the beginning of music, so "rearranging" does qualify as composition. Now, don't get me wrong, when 1 record is riding alone, the dj isn't "composing", but the second 2 records are playing at once, the dj has exerted influence over the composition being experienced, thus becoming an equally involved musician to the LISTENER'S ear as the composer of the original 2 tracks. Some may argue that the dj wouldn't be able to play the records without the original composer, but the audience wouldn't be able to hear a MIX without the dj, yes a cd could be played, but that is not the same as mixed transitions (unless you premix on ableton, which still qualifies as "producing")...there is definitely a lot of grey area as to what makes a "musician"
 
London Elektricity got a live band to play his tunes. Is that not the clearest example of dj's being musicians?
 
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