Scratching with your Head vs Scratching with your Heart

“You have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.” ~ Miles Davis

I’m 4 decades deep in studying the art of Scratching and when I summarize all of the ideas I’ve personally collected from it’s framers (GrandWizzard Theodore, Grandmixer D.St, Jazzy Jay) to the latter pioneers (Cash Money, Dr. Butcher, Q-Bert, D Styles) I’d say if you want your scratches to carry a deeper meaning, connect your heart to your hands and head!

“I look back to vids from 20 years ago of Q transforming and he makes it look so easy with so much swing. Even to this day I can do more technical scratches but can’t transform anywhere near the level of what he was doing then from a pure rhythm point of view. I honestly don’t think I could ever achieve that.” ~ @bustascratch (Instagram)

Let me preface my response by first saying, please don’t what I’m about to say as an attack on @bustascratch because it’s not. 

That said, what he wrote about being able to “perform technical scratches but [he] can’t Transform anywhere near the level of what Q-Bert does from a pure rhythm point of view,” underscores my view towards the direction scratching has taken in recent years. If I had to summarize why scratching has lost the funkiness legends like Daddy Rich used to demonstrate in their cuts… 

I’d say it boils down to the absence of one word, HEART! 

I believe the path to reaching your true potential (not the potential of someone else) as a Scratcher must include EMOTION but unfortunately, 99% of the DJs who are self proclaimed “skratch nerds” approach scratching from an analytical perspective. Technical execution (memory, concentration, repetition) is just one aspect of the things that make you a master at scratching. These guys study the minutest details of what master Q-Bert physically does down to the way his fingers glide across a record and stroke the mixer’s crossfader but fail to realize that’s only what they can see. What’s driving the sounds we hear Q coax out of the turntable is HEART, i.e., his emotional connection to his instrument or what he’s doing, and that, no one will ever be able to compute or replicate because it’s personal to him. 

Head imbalance is a big part of the reason why so many skratchers get stuck on plateaus. Understanding the hand choreography in a scratch like the “Flare” for example, will allow you to perform a version of the scratch that’s universal and everyone does. But what will give your “Flare” flair, is a mastery of the basic techniques the “Flare” derives from, i.e. Transforming. 

Scratching has become very dogmatic though. DJs are stuck performing techniques exactly as they’ve learned them. To this point, I don’t care how many skratchers say the “Flare” starts with the crossfader open, I’ll always start my version of the “Flare” with the fader closed! It’s OK to break the rules once you’ve learned them! In fact, it’s mandatory you think outside the box if you truly want Turntablism to grow. But again, most skratchers voluntarily limit themselves to very strict boundaries which doesn’t make sense to me because Scratching comes from self expression and self expression leads to style and if you cramp your style as a DJ to fit a construct, you will only reach the potential of the DJ who’s style you’re admiring, not yours!

Your brain is the body’s calculator. It solves problems and figures out how to get things done. But creativity is more than problem solving. Creativity is an extension of emotion and what you have in your heart. So, don’t let your mind stifle what you should be feeling as you scratch. The very movement of the record back and forth needs to be fun, not a real time calculation. That’s if you want to cultivate your own personal style as a DJ and not turn your hand choreography into a math problem. All of us have been Endowed with a brain AND A heart, use them both while you’re practicing your cuts. Don’t focus so much on the analysis of what scratching is that you sound like a robot. Instead, feel your scratches and I promise you’ll experience deeper fulfillment and growth on the turntables.