Customer Reviews

DJ Skills: The essential guide to Mixing and Scratching

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The title of this book is misleading. It should have been called something along the lines of "The History of Mixing and Scratching", which is this is the real focus of this book. If you want to learn about the people who played a large role in the development of DJing this book could be for you. However, if you want to learn about the skills and techniuques of mixing and scratching this is not the right one as these topics are really just handled at a very basic level over a few pages towards the end of the book. From reading the title and the editorial review, I had expected much more. Disappointed!

Beerklee College of Music professor Stephen Webber writes the interesting account of scratching from the beginning to its growing acceptance as a legimate music form. Professor Webber was the first to teach turntabling as a regular course in a music college. His Stylus Symphony featuring turntables was premeired in November 2007. The book makes an important contribution to a neglected area of the history of music. But the great contribution is that it is a complete and fully illustrated text on the art of the DJ. The novice might choose to begin with Professor Webber's first book "Tutntable Technique". "DJ Skills" goes beyond the introductory elements of scratching and mixing and will prove to be an asset even to professional. Other books on this new musical form will surely be written, but this book will always be considered the definitive work.

I am a DJ who has been spinning, scratching and digging for over five years now and I found DJ Skillz to be the most comprehensive look into the world of DJing that has ever been printed on paperback! Not only does Webber give excellent step-by-step instructions on pulling off all the essential Scratch techniques used by DJ's today, but he also provides an extremely interesting and well written history of records and the turntable itself. Webber also interviews some of the world's biggest DJ's from BT to DJ Shadow, which provides the reader with a very intimate view into the ways different DJ's from different styles understand their artform. I especially loved the part about the Robot DJ their developing at MIT. IF YOU ARE LOOKING TO UNDERSTAND THE FULL SPECTRUM OF WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A DJ GET THIS BOOK!!!!

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book. I mean, how can you write a comprehensive book on DJ'ing, Skratching, AND the history of records and recording combined? once I picked up this book and started going through it I realized, Yes, this is it! I LOVE this book! the first really together book on DJing/history/Skratch I know. The original! all the way back to EDISON! ROOTS!
Whether you are a dance DJ, Skratch DJ, or are a friend or loved one of someone who is, I would recommend this book to you. Interview with Qbert! and Herbie Hancock! and BT(my hero)! Great for casual reading. You can open it up to any section and find cool stuff.
-DJ BigBangRiddimRula

This book is caught between being an "instructional" book on how to DJ...and a history of the DJ, and because of that - it does neither perfectly. I like much of what Professor Webber includes here, and his background as an educator is beyond question. But Stephen Webber is NOT a DJ....in any real sense of the word, and this clearly shows. This also permeated his earlier work - where he brought the idea of notating scratching to a great institution like Berklee College of Music....yet and still in the end, he is not a great turntablist, nor has he paid his dues in the dark and sweating underground clubs and raves where DJs really learn their chops.

If you want to read the definite title on "how to DJ", pick up How to DJ Properly (How to DJ Right) by Frank Broughton and Bill Brewster. If you want to pick up the definitive book on the history of DJing, you should get "Last Night A DJ Saved My Life" also by Brewster and Broughton.