Scratch Debut (go back »)

Salutations, Arjuna here.

Alright, so today marks the seventh day of my turntablist career. I've learned a lot in the past week. First and foremost, this turntablism business is a lot harder than it appears. I'm still pushing though. Been practicing at least several hours a day. Too bad I'm going off to vacation tomorrow (if everything goes as planned), and I'll have to leave the QFO at home.

I decided I might as well keep track of my progress here; make use of this cB blog, you know.

This week I learned how to pull off:

• Baby Scratch
• Cutting
• Stabs
• Reverse
• Drags
• Tears
• Tip Scratch
• Marches
• Transformers
• Tap Pause
• Scribbles
• Uzis
• Lazers
• Phazers
• Zig Zags
• Swipes
• Chirps
• 1 Click Flare
• Original Flare
• Crescent Flare
• Chirp Flare
• Tweak

I can pull all of those off, but I can certainly still improve my technique, incorporating them together, and pulling them off even faster. And of course, I still have a ton of scratches and techniques left to learn.

I'm planning on recording a scratch session every week (except this next week, where I'll be on vacation) to kind of keep myself on check and see how I'm doing. I wish I could record video, but unfortunately, I don't own a digital video camera.

So here's my very first scratch session that I'll be posting for you guys to listen to; this one's dedicated to Jerome, who gave me the idea of scratching over "You Know My Steez" by Gang Starr. I used only one sound sample (except in the end) from Toasted Marshmello Feet Breaks, which was the classic "ahh" sample.

"Steez Cuts" -- June 7, 2007

Please tell me what you guys think!

In Turntablism