DJs at Festivals? WTF?

[Dad3353]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1439307673' post='2841759']...
But, then again, i am being a git.
[/quote]

+1

[Twigman]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1439307673' post='2841759']
What does that prove?

[/quote]
[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1439198314' post='2840636']
Oh - and apparently they class themselves as musicians. Can anyone of you youngsters explain all of this to an old feller?
[/quote]
Just showing that some DJs actually ARE musicians

Edited August 11, 2015 by Twigman

[r16ktx]

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1439308023' post='2841764']


People go to cinemas to watch recordings of people perform acting.
[/quote]

Yes, isn't the bottom line that people want to be entertained, and it's not for entertainers to define what is 'real' entertainment as the (paying) customer is king. A brief overview of YouTube shows that cats are the best entertainers... :-)

Edited August 11, 2015 by r16ktx

[taunton-hobbit]

Surely music, at the end of the day, is about 'stuff' that fulfils audience expectations?
I don't have a problem with a covers band, a jazz-funk outfit, a dj doing 'scratch & sniff'.
or me delivering a soul & reggae sound system set (which I've done since the sixties),
providing the place is filled with peeps having a good time......job done.

[discreet]

I don't mind myself, as long as it's GOOD. Too many 'DJs' have no idea about pacing, building a set and working a crowd.
I don't either, but then I'm not a DJ.

[TimR]

[quote name='discreet' timestamp='1439312281' post='2841820']
I don't mind myself, as long as it's GOOD. Too many '[b]Singers[/b]' have no idea about pacing, building a set and working a crowd.
I don't either, but then I'm not a DJ.
[/quote]

Edited August 11, 2015 by TimR

[BigRedX]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1439304148' post='2841702']
There has always been an argument against 'manufactured' music, music that is put together artificially in a studio setting of some sort and then released as the work of a composer and/or performer. The argument has always revolved around the question 'can they do it live'? As I recall, Rush always worked with the philosophy that they needed to be able to reproduce whatever they recorded in a live setting. They did, however, indulge themselves with the occasional 'studio only' thing (I think 'Losing It' was one of these). I know Queen have struggled over the years to deliver a convincing 'Bohemian Rhapsody' live due to the layered nature of the recording. Rush and Queen would never just turn up at a gig and play the record to the waiting throng!! Miming/playing to bakcing tapes live has historically been sneered at as a 'sell out' and 'fake'.

The DJs that have been described here seem to be allowed (?) to 'create' something virtually in their studio space and then just turn up at the gig and press 'play'. I get that there is some sort of layering going on etc and some sort of real time process but that all sounds a bit like a justification to me. Producers, composers and engineers are highly skilled people, in spite of their reputation as just control freaks etc but making a live performance out of producing and engineering seems a bit odd to me. The audience for this stuff clearly doesn't share these values. Why should they?
[/quote]

But what is a live performance? A lot of the time the musicians are simply regurgitating their parts, whether it is from a score or tunes that they have learnt by rote. It's monkey see, monkey do. If they deviate from them it because they have made a mistake, not something that should be celebrated. Even when sections are supposedly improvised like guitar solos they tend to be less interesting musically. How is this any different from music built up from preset sections and loops?

Bilbo, I know that you tend to be involved in more improvisational music than most on here, but how "live" is it really? From what I see and read most of the time you are constrained within the boundaries of the chord chart. When it does come to the solo is every individual note spontaneously plucked from the ether as it is required? Or do the musicians rely on tried and trust patterns/riffs/phrases that they assemble in slightly different orders each time?

[TimR]

That's what I was trying to get at with my post earlier.

[quote name='TimR' timestamp='1439299668' post='2841651']
It's the DJ who is performing live. Not the music.

I'm guessing that most cover bands don't actually play 'live' music, they play carefully rehearsed copies of something someone else has created. Although the music is being reconstructed by humans so there is the potential for anything to happen, even the rehearsed copy may not be what you're expecting, even if it's what the musicians are intending (although it's not always what they're expecting either )

.
[/quote]

[Bilbo]

I think this is getting too surreal. Now covers bands aren't playing 'live' becasue they have rehearsed, cinema is a recording of people acting and Jazz musicians aren't really improvising, they are just making it up as they go along!!

I have created a monster and I apologise. I am off to the Ministry of Sound for a bop.

[MoonBassAlpha]

Try the Ministry of Jazz for be-bop instead

[jonsmith]

Last year, one of my bands was booked to play a festival in Kent. A couple of the other bands failed to show and the organiser said we could play a longer set if we desired, so as we actually prefer longer sets, we said 'no problem'. 'Might as well get your gear on stage now then' he said. So we did.

We asked the sound engineer if/when he wanted to soundcheck us. He said 'now would be fine'. There was music coming from the PA and a guy lurking at the back with a laptop and a couple of decks. As we'd been given the OK to soundcheck, we assumed this was a DJ playing stuff between bands. We did a bit of a line check and the music over the PA continued. One of the tracks had a bassline from a Clash song, so I played along for a bit. The guy at the laptop had vanished by this time and the soundman pronounced himself ready to check with a song. At this point, the guy with the laptop stormed back on to the stage and started berating us for stomping all over his set. Embarrassed, we immediately vacated the stage and watched his set from the audience.

[uncle psychosis]

If DJs aren't musicians then neither are conductors...

[Norris]

Any backing track or MIDI sequence within a "live" performance could be classed in the same category as DJing. However live DJs will be a lot more fluid in their performance - almost like stringing a few pre-rehearsed licks together to make a guitar solo. The line gets increasingly blurred to the extent that I am prepared to class DJs as performance artists, and therefore musicians.

And whatever anybody thinks, they are still pulling a good crowd

[lowdown]

[quote name='uncle psychosis' timestamp='1439403823' post='2842572']
If DJs aren't musicians then neither are conductors...
[/quote]

Although you might be hard pressed to find a good conductor that doesn't play an Instrument.

Edited August 12, 2015 by lowdown

[TimR]

Some instrument players aren't even musicians!

[lowdown]

^^^
No need to bring Drummers into this.*

Edited August 12, 2015 by lowdown

[Bilbo]

Pulling a crowd has nothing to do with it or footballers would be musicians. I think the Performance Artist label is the closest. That makes sense to me.

[Norris]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1439448737' post='2842870']
Pulling a crowd has nothing to do with it or footballers would be musicians. I think the Performance Artist label is the closest. That makes sense to me.
[/quote]

I was thinking more of pulling in the punters to music festivals - excuse my mobile phone based brevity

[chrisba]

Like several other discussions on this forum, it really all boils down to the audience.

Try going to a festival DJ set, and ask the audience if they think the DJ is an musician and worth his fee, then if enough of them say yes, then he/she is. Nobody else's opinion is relevant.

If you accept that a DJ adds a significant amount of value to the raw material he/she is using, then he is a creative musician. If he does some of that creativity live, ( i.e. not everything is created in a studio or computer ), then he has a right to be called a live creative musician, or a performer, just as much as a musician putting their own interpretation on jazz standards that somebody else wrote.

like a lot of people here, I'd rather listen to the latter, but it takes all sorts to make up this wonderful world of music we all live in.

[Bilbo]

I think this is now a semantic argument. If someone is worth their fee, that doesn't make them a musician. A dancer on stage with Madonna is not a musician. A DJ, for my money, may be an artist, a performer or an entertainer and they may, indeed, ALSO be a musician but, in the guise of DJ, I struggle to see the term 'musician' as legitimate.

Then again, it's not up to me.

[Dad3353]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1439471874' post='2843131']
I think this is now a semantic argument. If someone is worth their fee, that doesn't make them a musician. A dancer on stage with Madonna is not a musician. A DJ, for my money, may be an artist, a performer or an entertainer and they may, indeed, ALSO be a musician but, in the guise of DJ, I struggle to see the term 'musician' as legitimate.

Then again, it's not up to me.
[/quote]

Semantics..? Perhaps. From the OED...

[color=#800080]1.1 One skilled in the science or practice of music. [/color]

[color=#800080] c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. ii. pr. vi. 42 (Camb. MS.) Also Musike maketh Musuciens and phisike maketh phisissiens...[/color]

[color=#800080]2.2 A professional performer of music, esp. of instrumental music. Also transf. and fig....[/color]

[color=#000000]'Snot rocket surgery; those making music are musicians. Crazy ol' world, eh..? Who'd 'ave thunk it..?[/color]

[TimR]

That's blurring the lines too much.

A disk jockey is a person who rides disks.

I think that tells you all you need to know.

Edited August 13, 2015 by TimR

[Bilbo]

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1439479067' post='2843243']
Semantics..? Perhaps. From the OED...

[color=#800080]1.1 One skilled in the science or practice of music. [/color]

[color=#800080] c 1374 Chaucer Boeth. ii. pr. vi. 42 (Camb. MS.) Also Musike maketh Musuciens and phisike maketh phisissiens...[/color]

[color=#800080]2.2 A professional performer of music, esp. of instrumental music. Also transf. and fig....[/color]

[color=#000000]'Snot rocket surgery; those making music are musicians. Crazy ol' world, eh..? Who'd 'ave thunk it..?[/color]
[/quote]

A very fair argument. I guess the discussion is around what constitutes the 'making' of music. A radio DJ like Chris Evans plays music, paces his show, entertains millions with music etc but would not be considered a musician. Where is the line? When does the manipulation of pre-recorded music (whether it is by the DJ or not) in 'creative' ways become the actual 'making' of music?

[Dad3353]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1439489822' post='2843360']
A very fair argument. I guess the discussion is around what constitutes the 'making' of music. A radio DJ like Chris Evans plays music, paces his show, entertains millions with music etc but would not be considered a musician. Where is the line? When does the manipulation of pre-recorded music (whether it is by the DJ or not) in 'creative' ways become the actual 'making' of music?
[/quote]

Yehudi Menuhin re-pointing his brickwork wouldn't be considered a musician, either. How about Peter Gabriel playing a Fairlight keyboard..? Full of samples, some of which may be of Yehudi Menuhin re-pointing his brickwork (well, maybe not, but it's irrelevant...). It's not the instrument that is the musician, it's the person, with his (implied: or her...) intention. Whether it be an acoustic bass, a computer keyboard or a clay pot makes no odds; he is a musician. A nightingale doesn't count, but a composer including the song of a nightingale in his work does. John Cage. 4'33". Is that music..? He's 'playing' the silence (or rather, the near-silence of the auditorium...). Too many counter-examples, really; I can understand not liking such-and-such a genre (it's my case; there is much I don't appreciate, and gladly turn off...), but to deny its validity seems very odd, to me. Where is the limit..? Dunno; the concept of limits seems foreign to me, anyway. Too 'hippy', I suppose.
In any case, guidance could be gleaned from classic texts, such as Bill Shakespeare's ...

[i]"What's in a name? That which we call a rose[/i]
[i]By any other name would smell as sweet."[/i]

Potato, potato, tomato, tomato... Let's call the whole thing... Well, whatever you wish, I suppose, but 'musician' is as good as anything else, I reckon.
I may not have convinced you; that's fine, too.

[Bilbo]

There is no real disagreement here, it is what it is. The samples argument doesn't work because the samples are generally of sounds that are then 'played' in the way a synthesiser is played. All that differs is the nature of the sound generation process. If someone came on stage with a Fairlight, pressed one finger on a key that then played the entire 1812 Overture, the I would not consider them to be a musician either. As for roles, we are all wearing different hats at any given time and Menuhin is not wearing his musician hat if he is repointing his brickwork. Martin Kemp is not a musician when he is acting. My view is simply that a great musician is not a musician when he is DJing, he is a DJ. Is that not enough?

I remember having a discussion elsewhere about the point at which a lay person who choses to play 'becomes' a musician. If s/he walked into a music shop and bought a pair of drumsticks then went next door to the hardware store and bought a bucket, s/he had the means by which she could0 perform a rudiemtnary form of music. The question is, is she a musician at the point where she buys the gear, at the point where she starts to hit the bucket or does she need to develop certain core skills and reach a certain level before the title can be bestowed upon her? A DJ who plays records is not a musician. If she 'scratches' once, is she now a musician or does she need to do other things to achieve 'musician' status.