Over the years, playing pre-recorded audio samples has become an integral part of music culture. What was once the guitar or drums is now, for many, the turntable or MIDI controller. The DJ is the most common representative of live performance of sample-based music, spinning genres such as hip hop, house, trap and dub. The DJ’s skills can range from compiling and mixing records, to the more technically demanding turntablism and controllerism. The focus of this paper is turntablism. This term describes the manipulation of a record on a turntable in sync with the faders on a mixer to produce rhythmical sounds.
The DJ manually adjusts the speed and direction of the record while muting and unmuting the sound using the crossfader and line-fader of a DJ mixer.Despite having millions of fans, turntablism has rarely been a subject for academia and cannot be studied at music university. This is due to its short history compared to other classical forms of musicianship and the lack of scientifc analysis, educational books and academics who are profcient musicians and who also play professionally. As such, the practical and theoretical development of turntablism has only been explored by self- taught non-academics and there still remains a great deal to be said.The following paper, entitled The Theory of Motions, is also written by someone who is self-taught. Presented here are the frst foundations for the analysis of turntablism based on a specially designed music theory and playing method.
At this point we might legitimately ask the question: if computers can trigger audio samples to play whatever and whenever we want, so why do we need a turntablist to do it by hand and why create a notational system for it?Like any instrumentalist, the turntablist uses human motor skills to create sounds and this lends the artform value that extends beyond the capabilities of a computer. Although the rhythmic sterility of a computer or software can be humanized through various computer tricks such as randomization, it is not comparable with this human variable. It lacks the imperfection of emotionally controlled processes; in other words it lacks a heartbeat.This is the notation of a global communications medium for the composition, archiving, replication and systematic analysis of music. We are, in a sense, decoding the DNA of the turntablist’s musicianship and providing a way to visualize it. Allowing the DJ to read and write music gives them a higher awareness of the theory and an effcient way of teaching and learning.
This work is dedicated to my family. Many thanx to Dan Leach, Patricia & Timothy Werner, Ivo Wojcik, Renè Kockisch, Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen, Ronald Kalkowski and Hagen Schultze.
Alexander Sonnenfeld / Cottbus in July 8, 2016
ADVICE: All underlined words in blue in this document are linked to YouTube showing examples or the instrumental performance of the notational indication. This edition is outdated and represent not the current status of Theory of Motion 2.0 which will be released in the end of 2023.
1.1 Regarding the Thesis of this Work
During this thesis we will need to refer frequently to the turntablist’s instruments – the turntable and DJ mixer. To avoid confusion between different manufacturing models, we will use a hybrid of the mixer and turntable in the form of the Tonspielzeug shown below. In the following analysis I will refer on this term for describing the turntable + mixer instrument.
The following basic analyses are linked with demonstration videos of the techniques how they are notated. You can watch the disk and fader movements separately as well as in combination. The sample audio (shown below) used for the upcoming analyses is the word “fresh” from the sentence: “ahhh, this stuff is really fresh”, taken from B-side of the 1982 record Change the Beat by Fab Five Freddy.
But before we begin, we should examine the structure of the sample. Based on a tempo of 75 beats per minute (BPM), the sample is equivalent to one beat lasting 0.8 sec. In classical notation we call this beat a quarternote (so- called because usually there would be four beats to each bar). Graphical waveforms will be used for most of the notational examples to allow you to visualize the sound produced and understand how the various techniques affect the sound over time. An example of this would be the difference between moving the disk forwards and backwards.
1.2 System of S-Notation
S-Notation is a written transcription method which uses notational symbols to describe the techniques of a turntablist. The end product of these techniques is the modulation of certain parameters of recorded sound material resulting in a new method of making music.
What are the challenges of creating a methodology for this kind of unprecedented music? Firstly, because the sample might have no discernable pitch or timbre, as in the case of ambient noise or spoken words, it does not allow for a predetermined pitch range.
Also, because the samples used are all pre-recorded, the following musical parameters have to be considered in the transcription methodology: time value, pitch, and volume. The purpose of written music is to enable a musician to make a sound and consistently repeat it and this requires two things. The frst is that the sound itself must be the same each time. The second is that the individual techniques on the instrument must be subject to an order, a series of principles which can be understood and applied correctly.
In classical musical notation both prerequisites are frmly met because the movement on a keyboard or string is always linked to a certain tone or pitch. It is therefore possible to notate the tone based on the positioning of the note inside a musical staff (NB: the staff or stave is the set of horizontal lines seen in traditional notation – the position of a symbol on these lines denotes the pitch of the note to be played).
Making music with random sound material, however, does not allow for such a method. It is particularly diffcult to capture the broad pitch range produced by the motion of the disk. For this reason, S-Notation describes only the manual motion on the disk and faders as a sort of Theory of Motions. To assist in this, the well known audio recording of particular scratches help the player to get a familiarity with the respective notated patterns.
Due to the enormous repertoire of turntablism techniques, it is essential to sketch a sort of classifcation of the instrument set-up (fader, disk, controller, etc.) to understand how it infuences specifc musical parameters of the sound material.
Acoustic Motions
- Movement of the control disk (changing the speed or direction) to change the pitch of the sound
Dynamic Motions
- Line fader or crossfader movements to change the volume.
Frequency Motions
- Movement of the fader or rotary dial to cut or boost certain frequencies
Panning Motions
- Movement of the panoramic dial to spread the sound across the stereo feld.
Effects Motions
- Movement of the fader or rotary dial to change the intensity of various audio effects (reverb, delay, distortion, etc.).
Each of these so-called ‘parameter motions’ adjusts the sound characteristics of the sample. The ‘acoustic motions’ parameter is the most important because all the others either refer to the physical movement of the ‘control disk’, or are dependent on it.
All of the aforementioned parameter motions are separated into ‘motion types’: ‘single motions’, ‘integral motions’ and ‘groups of motions’. They are the fundamental principles of a composition and the Theory of Motions aims to represent them by notational symbols.
Every ‘type of motion’ is subject to a unique architecture which is defned by the ‘motion criteria’: ‘direction’, ‘time value’, ‘intensity’ and ‘characteristic’. S-Notation is a transcription methodology from which you can read all ‘motion criteria’ based on the principles of music theory. As in classical notation, the shape of the symbol and the position inside the staff determines the action the musician should take. The following schema shows the components of the S-notation system:
