When I was at primary and secondary school we didn’t really have a very good music education class. Primary school consisted of tapping on wood blocks singing little donkey while the teacher chatted up the gym teacher and smoked a fag. Secondary school was slightly better we had a Casio keyboard between 5 of us to mess around with. How times have changed. And to see kids now having classes on turntabalism is brilliant. I was 12 when I first had a go on decks and I can quite honestly say without that love for music and learning to DJ, I really wouldn’t be where I am at now. At the age of 12 I had no interest in learning an instrument, I wish I had but I was more into my football and riding my bike. But given the chance and if I had been given lessons on any instrument I would have probably really enjoyed it. What I’m getting at here is that it really doesn’t matter what it is, if you never have the opportunity to play it you’ll, never know if you like it. I often think that somewhere out there is the best person in the world at a certain thing and they don’t even know it because they’ve never tried it.
Take a watch of the video below and just see how much fun these kids are having learning how to scratch and mix on turntables.
For me I would have loved to have been given the opportunity to play with turntables in a class environment and be taught the basics. I think it’s brilliant. Some people have said “erghhh kids need to learn a real instrument, not just play someone else’s music”. But really what you need to understand there are kids out there especially at school who think they are too cool for an instrument and will not pick up a guitar because that’s what the grundger kids play and the geeks play violin. This is how kids think. So where does that leave the so called cool kids. They can’t play an instrument for fear of being outcast from the cool crowd. So this kind of thing is ideal for them.
There is a great deal of heritage in turntabalism, well at least I consider there to be. A huge amount to learn not just about how to scratch or keep time and mix, but also the background of turntables and records. I mean you could say many genres of dance music we know and love wouldn’t be around today had it not been for sampling directly from turntables and records.
About Leicester-shire Music Education Hub
After the success of Concerto for Turntables as part of the BBC Ten Pieces Project, Leicestershire Schools Music Service and Lead for Music Technology, Bradley Smith, are proud to present this introductory unit of Turntablism. The goal of the project is simple: to give children in compulsory music education the opportunity to experience the versatile, exciting and dynamic art of Turntablism.
Bookings for Schools
With no limit to how many pupils in your school who can participate, offering excellent value per pupil, the standard offering for the turntablism units are as follows:
Option A: 6 lesson unit of work.
This is based around 6 lessons and includes loan of the equipment for 6 weeks. This is priced at £400.
Option B: 12 lesson unit of work.
This is based around 12 lessons and includes loan of the equipment for 12 weeks. This is priced at £700.
