Review of Article

I want to comment on the article written by Julian Cowley about Philp Jeck in the Musicworks magazine, the summer 2009 issue.
I have never really taken any time to introduce myself, listen or learn about being a DJ and what it takes to work with turntables and vinyls. I thought that this article may just be able to introduce me into that genre of music, and it did. Even though I may not have been up to the level as some others readers reading this article I feel as though I have learnt a lot from the read. I always thought DJs were used for backing up rappers and hip hop groups but after reading the article, there is much more to it then just "scratching". I find the abilities he has working with turntables and sound manipulation is phenomenal because he has so much at his fingertips, so many options, so many different ways to manipulate and splice together music. I also find very interesting that Jeck can switch up records when and how he wants. It makes me realize that what he is doing something very creative and fresh because it never has to be the same thing every show. He says when he is feeling stuck using the same records he will take out a record that he has never heard and use it in a show to try something new; to get "unstuck". I think what he does in something special and unique and one thing that I found extremely cool was that because he has so many records he can play folk records from the country he is playing in. In the article Julian gives that example that one night he will play a show in Istanbul and will improvise using Turkish records and then the next night he will be in Athens and he will be improvising on Greek records. It definitely takes a lot of training and a lot of experimenting to do this. There has to be so much to know about sound manipulation and just overall it seems that you need to have a huge library of music. Another thing that I enjoyed about this article was that I was able to see the musicianship of Jeck. He is quoted in the article for saying "It's in the listening where the music is made". It agree with this quote because it seems as if listening to his music listening could come up with all sorts of emotions, images and ideas; it is through these things that make the sound special for the listener and therefore I think thats what makes it music.

I have never really thought about composing for or even adding in turntables in a classical sense. In the past few months I have heard of chamber compositions that involve a live DJ, unfortunately I have never had the inspiration to look any of them up. After reading this article I do feel inspired, it is definitely something that I will look into with more detail and maybe one day it may end up in some of my own work.