Disk Jockeys Essay example -- DJ Music Musical DJs Essays

Disk Jockeys In today’s modern world the DJ has become a musician; the turntable, his instrument. It took fifteen years for this amazing resolution. DJ's have actually been around for years; mixing and scratching however, it did not come along until the late 70's or early 80's (â€Å"Disc Jockey 1†). A lot of people were doing this. But the main front line man was and still is Granmasterflash. Granmasterflash, one of hip-hop's founding fathers and the creator of the Quick Mix. He was the first person to change the arrangements of songs by using duplicate copies of records and manually editing/repeating the climatic part by rubbing the record back and forth (â€Å"Grandmaster Flash†). But now the DJ has changed. The kinds of DJ’s are different, the equipment is different, and the scratching is different. A DJ (disc jockey) takes many forms. The three most common forms are Mobile DJs, Radio DJs, and Club DJs. Mobile DJs generally work parties and special events (i.e.: weddings, birthdays, etc.) on site (â€Å"DJ.net Homepage†). This sort of work usually entails entertaining a wide variety of tastes and age groups, as well as a bit of MC'ing. Radio DJs are the least common. Their task is to make sure there is never any dead air time by filling it with either their words or music. Again, there is a certain appeal that needs to be worked on and being a Mr. Personality is important. The third kind, Club DJs can be found, but are not nearly as prominent at mobile DJs. They have a very specific age group and are expected to play the latest and greatest all the time. This sort of DJing often requires the most technical know-how on mixing since style and uniqueness are critical to establish a name for oneself and the club itself. DJs can make anything from 0 to $50,000 a night. It all depends on how good the DJ gets. In the club scene, when he starts off, find that the DJ will probably only going to get work if he works for free As he gets better, he might start getting in around $50 a night. Once the DJ actually reasonably established in your own town, things can jump up to around $400 a night, then as he gets bigger and better, the sky's the limit for how much you can request (â€Å"Get Rich as a DJ†). All three shares the common goal of providing an entertainment for a wide variety of people through various means, mostly however, through music. A DJ's job is to combine all the... ...the forearm and wrist and then "stab" back and forth. The other way of doing it though is just to use the fingers to move the record back and forth through the needle. It is basically the same; all it is trying to do is improve the speed that the DJ can scratch at. Obviously, through doing this, he would want to make the amount of vinyl passing under the needle as small as possible. Then just find the beat or samples that he is scratching through, and keep it on that try not too spill too far before or after the sample (â€Å"Scratching†) The tear involves a bit more skill than the scratches covered so far. Essentially the movement is the same as a baby scratch but is now split into three. The forward stroke stays the same, but the backwards s split into two; the first half being fast and the second being half the pace. Try to practice just the backward stroke first, so that he can get used to changing the tempo (â€Å"Scratching†) DJing requires a lot of practicing. But once the future DJ gets the basics down. He can mature into a pro DJ. But it will take a lot of time, money, energy, and patience. If the DJ sticks with it, he could become next great pro DJ. The sky is the limit.