Berklee has turntable technique course

[Loonman]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=529&ncid=529&e=10&u=/ap/20040218/ap_en_mu/music_dj_class

Berklee claims to be the first music school in the country to offer such a class as part of its general curriculum. Samuel Hope, executive director of the National Association of Schools of Music, said he had not heard of another such class.


"Doing something of this kind is certainly within the grand tradition of innovation, which is part of the arts," Hope said.


Berklee's decision to add the class to its curriculum in January is yet another milestone in the evolution of hip-hop music and culture, which has become a multibillion-dollar segment of the music and entertainment industry.


Webber, 45, a musician and a producer who's been teaching at Berklee since 1994, became interested in turntabling in 1997, when a student showed him a videotape of a top DJ competition.


"I went out and I bought two turntables and a mixer, and I set 'em up in my basement, and I started scratching, and my wife and kids thought I had lost my marbles," he said.


He finished a book, "Turntable Technique: The Art of the DJ," in 1999, which has since become the best-selling book of Berklee Press, and turned in a new course proposal.

[truthspeaker]

1. off-topic: who's the bass player in your signature pic?

[Loonman]

2. Anka

Bass player for Clan of Xymox, Dutch Gothic band.