Lesson 1 Turntabalist Scratch move for the beginner

0:00 Again, this is for the total letter beginner

Alright folks, in this selection of videos we're going to be looking at a bit of turntablism. Again, this is for the total letter beginner. If you're not familiar with cutting and scratching that kind of stuff and you are a complete total letter beginner, there are lots of videos on YouTube from lots of other DJs but also I've done three of them showing the very, very basics. In other words, basically how to even touch and move a record backwards and forwards. So where are we now? September last year, so I suggest you check those out first. In this one, what we're going to be doing is this move. OK, now then, if you could hear that, you could hear a sort of a... Now then, what I was actually doing is simply this. I was letting the record move forward of its own accord.

1:02 The turntable platter was at 45 RPM

The turntable platter was at 45 RPM. The record would have been turning at 45 RPM. If the record platter was going at 33 RPM, the record would have been going at 33 RPM. The reason I'm saying that is simply this. Sometimes if you put the turntable on and you hold your finger on the record, even though the turntable is moving at a constant speed, Because you have your finger on the record, you're slowing and speeding it up according to how much you want to move the record. But the particular scratch I showed you is basically two moves. The first move is quite simply this. When you get to the beginning of the scratch, you will have your fingers on the record. I'll have to use my other hand to do this slowly.

2:27 It's quite difficult to do slow, but I'll explain it again

Now what I'm doing is I'm taking my finger off the record. Remember in the first three videos I did, there's that magnet. There's an imaginary magnet at this point here. So I'm letting my finger off the record, letting it go forward like so, putting my finger on the record and then what I'm doing instead of letting the record come back at its normal speed, I'm bringing it back slower. I'll show you again. But this time faster. It's quite difficult to do slow, but I'll explain it again. Now then, when I start the scratch, my finger is on the record, the platter is moving and I've got my finger right at the beginning of the scratch. What will happen then, as soon as I take my finger off, if I leave my finger here, the record will move forward

And I've lost the place, I've lost the position at where my finger was originally. So my finger will have to follow the record. As soon as the scratch has finished where I want to stop the record, I'll put my finger down. But then what I will do, instead of bringing it back fast, I'll bring it back slowly. And you can actually do this scratch with the volume. Up continually. I'll show you again. May take me a little bit of time to get my bearings, but we'll give it a go. So there's the beginning. Note where my finger is. There's lesson number one. Well actually this is lesson number one for today. Practice and enjoy.

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