Well that is not the case for some experimenting musicians...In this post I will try to explain what is "Turntablism" (maybe not the correct word for the early artistic form but anyways), its historic evolution, its pioneers, how the past examples shaped today's music and will try to give you the finest examples from its primitive beginnings to today's soundscapes as an art form where turntables are at the center stage.
Obviously the art form did not start all of a sudden and it did not even start with turntables as well. There were many different technologies before turntables where the artists could record and playback sounds. Some earlier devices used for reproducing sound were the graphophone and the cylinder phonographs.
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| Edison's Cylinder Phonograph |
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| A Graphophone |
As you can imagine the usage of these machines were quite limited in the sense of "Turntablism" where the artists only recorded some sounds and played them back with some basic manipulations mostly on the speed of the playback. The most commonly used places were the circuses and the shows performed by travelling showmen. Imagine, a simple speed manipulation on the sound was a big thing by then.
I plan to focus more on the artistic form and the usage of turntables as experimental music creation rather than its usage on the lighter side.
Maybe one of the first sound manipulators (in an artistic and experimental way) was the German composer Paul Hindemith. Even his method was a bit reverse (he used the recording device to manipulate the sound) compared what we will mention in this post but anyhow what he did was quite revolutionary, especially for the late 1920s. Equipped with two turntables and a microphone, he altered the frequency and speed of xylophone and cello recordings, mixing them together to produce sounds and rhythms that did not exist in the originals.
This new technique paved the way for many artists in the following years, Pierre Schaeffer, John Cage and Christian Marclay, just to name a few.
John Cage's "Imaginary Landscape No.1" from 1939 can be one of the earliest and structured piece of "Turntablism". The original piece consists of only one movement and has a total duration of six minutes. It is scored for four performers: two of them in control of two turntables playing frequency recordings, a muted piano and a cymbal. You can listen to a more modern version in the below video. Cage used similar techniques in other pieces as well, such as Credo in Us, Imaginary Landscape No.5 and Cartridge Music.
9 years later than the Imaginary Landscape No.1, Schaeffer's musique concrète's first piece "Étude aux chemins de fer" was created by manipulation of a train sounds record.
It is not possible to talk about turntablism without mentioning of Christian Marclay, a Swiss/American sound artist. Marclay used the regular rhythms of a skipping vinyl record as a percussive instrument. He might be the first musician using records and turntables as interactive, improvising musical instruments. He even experimented with gluing various pieces from broken records to create one record. Watch his performance with 4 turntables.
As you can notice the sound is changing to something more modern which led the way to turntablism of today. Most probably after this period the usage of the turntable became more prominent in the club scene rather than musical experimentation, thus opening the door to what we understand from today's "Turntablism"...
I think what really differentiates the two eras of turntable usage in music creation is this; in early examples we mostly see the turntables as musical instruments. However in today's world (I am referring to most common usage) they are more like effect (or re-shaping of sound) instruments rather than sound creation instruments...
In terms of modern usage, Jamaican music scene had a vast number of examples of sound manipulation made on turntables via mixing and scratching in the 60s and 70s. We can maybe say that these were the first examples of modern day turntablism.
According to Wikipedia the term "Turntablism" was originated by Luis "DJ Disk" Quintanilla and popularized by DJ Babu in the 90s to describe the difference between a DJ who simply plays and mixes records and one who performs by physically manipulating the records, stylus, turntables, turntable speed controls and mixer to produce new sounds.
According to Wikipedia the term "Turntablism" was originated by Luis "DJ Disk" Quintanilla and popularized by DJ Babu in the 90s to describe the difference between a DJ who simply plays and mixes records and one who performs by physically manipulating the records, stylus, turntables, turntable speed controls and mixer to produce new sounds.
During the early 70s, with the introduction of direct drive technology (no belt), turntables became so popular in clubs thus creating the professional DJs. Kool Herc was one of the leading figures of DJing who had moved to New York from Jamaica. He introduced turntable techniques from Jamaican dub music, while developing new techniques made possible by the direct drive turntable technology of the Technics SL-1100, which he used for the first sound system he set up after emigrating to New York.
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| DJ Kool Herc |
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| Technics SL-1100 |
Kool Herc's different technique (breakbeat merry-go-round )made a significant change in DJing, Noticing that dancers would go nuts for drum sections of funk records, he began to play these parts back-to-back, stretching the break and ignoring the rest of the track. This breakbeat DJ style set the blueprint for hip hop production. and played a big role in the creation of hip-hop.
His contemporaries, Afrika Bambaataa and DJ Grandmaster Flash also created various tricks that are still used among many DJs.
Then came the scratching, basically a back and forth movement of the playing record, that became a standard sound creation technique for all DJs.
In the 90s, DJs accompanied by MCs became a huge success and they took an active role in the creation of rap and further development of hip-hop.
Today we again observe many creative tools and techniques among DJs however for obvious reasons the usage of turntables have significantly declined. On the other hand we see more and more examples of music creation in the earlier sense of turntable usage for music production such as Gabriel Prokofiev's Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra.
Other examples could be Philip Jeck's (video below) and Janek Schaefer's (mp3 link below where he plays 3 records of T.S. Elliot's Burnt Norton simultaneously) works.
I would like to conclude with a very interesting video that actually inspired me to write this post. In this video you can find out how artists can push the limits of turntables in order to create new sounds. But please don't try them at home!
In the 90s, DJs accompanied by MCs became a huge success and they took an active role in the creation of rap and further development of hip-hop.
Today we again observe many creative tools and techniques among DJs however for obvious reasons the usage of turntables have significantly declined. On the other hand we see more and more examples of music creation in the earlier sense of turntable usage for music production such as Gabriel Prokofiev's Concerto for Turntables and Orchestra.
Other examples could be Philip Jeck's (video below) and Janek Schaefer's (mp3 link below where he plays 3 records of T.S. Elliot's Burnt Norton simultaneously) works.
I would like to conclude with a very interesting video that actually inspired me to write this post. In this video you can find out how artists can push the limits of turntables in order to create new sounds. But please don't try them at home!
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