Wednesday night I went to see Scratch at the Little. A very interesting flick. It’s a documentary about the use of turntables as an instrument. It covered a lot of bases, but mostly stayed in the Hip-Hop realm. While I’ve never been a big fan of rap or scratching (there are a few pieces I like), a lot of what I listen to has been either influenced by it or a direct descendant of it. Someone like Paul Oakenfold doesn’t sound very Hip-Hop, but his use of turntables to mix beats was pioneered by people like Grand Mixer DXT. His work on Herbie Hancock’s “Rockit” seemed to be what that just about everyone in the film mentioned as being the influence that started them off.

I’m really glad I caught the film. It gave me a new appreciation for the skill involved. Actually seeing what someone like Qbert can do with a pair of turntables really impressed me. I don’t know how they can be so accurate and fast at the same time. Oh yeah. Lots and lots o’ practice! Being a tech guy, I had always assumed that most of what I was hearing was done with digital samples. To find out that a good portion of it is still done by spinning records by hand… uh… wow. I didn’t know you could do so much that way.

Here’s an example of a piece I like that uses a mix of techniques (no pun intended). It’s not Hip-Hop, but wouldn’t be here if there hadn’t been such a thing as Hip-Hop. I really enjoy the use of sounds and musical snippets as if they were themselves an instrument: The Avalanches‘ “Frontier Psychiatrist” (6.6MB)

I know a fair amount of what I listen to isn’t all that well known in the mainstream (at least I don’t hear it on the radio, though WBER does a decent job of playing cool stuff), so I’m in the process of ripping some MP3s from my CD collection to post as examples soon.