Re: [ARSCLIST] the origin of scratchin'

["Steven C. Barr(x)" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Kabir Carter" <kabircarter@xxxxxxxxx>
> Focusing on scratching-as-invention skirts around more important issues
> regarding experimental performance techniques in live electronics. Who did
> what first is less noteworthy than the context and reasons for their
> activities. For example, Steve Reich has made a point of asserting that he
> preceded hip hop looping strategies in his mid to late sixties tape pieces,
> but he was appropriating distinctive African American speech acts and
> manipulating the playback of live recordings of acoustic instrumental
> performances to develop new compositional tools, not to manipulate and
> modify prerecorded popular music in real time. Though the feel of his work
> makes it probably one of the closest relatives to dance music to come out of
> late sixties steady state music, it really did not look to the dance floor,
> and this relationally complicates it as a precedent to dance music.
<snip>
Over and above all of this is the reality that virtually ALL 20th/21st-
century "Urban Dance" music is still using versions (usually, LESSER
versions...!) of a "funk" rhythm first played by Chicago blues artists
(see under Earl Hooker...) in the late nineteen-fifties, and essentially
perfected by the late James Brown, together with his "Famous Flames"
backing band c.1961-62...!

The creation of this rhythm is the responsibility of the bassist...the
drummer merely keeps 4/4 time underneath it all. However, other players
in the band can accent their parts to further drive the infectious
rhythm...!

And, in spite of the hopeful thinking of all too many "musicians"
(best-described as "musician-wannabes"...!), this rhythm CANNOT be
"computerized" or otherwise automated without loss to its inherent
credibility...!

Steven C. Barr
(who has played in front of a female bassist who had an innate,
natural talent for "funkin' things up"...!)