Please Note:- D J Events R Not Live Music

DJ who plays the "Two turn tables and a microphone instrument" = plays prerecorded material and remixes it in different ways to create a different effect.

Is it "Live" = Yes
Is it "Music" = Yes
Is it "Live Music" = No

It's a "Live DJ".

Does it belong in the Live Music forum?
Yes, but only if in fact they are doing all the things that a Live preformance is, and not just playing records(or CD's or Mp3's) strait out the box.

If it's not LIVE MUSIC, or in this case a LIVE DJ, it should not be posted in that forum.

I play real instruments and DJ's really annoy me, and I don't listen to it nor do I get it.
That's just my opinion though.

I see your



and raise you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViHJMEonZe0

and

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coj2W9vstwo


nevertheless, us Live! (it's a program, for those, like the original poster, who have no idea what I'm talking about) users still suffer from the invariable "laptop DJ" stereotype, where people assume that because it's done on a computer, it's all done by making a playlist in winamp, or can be done by a robot.

Quite simply, if someone is mixing (beatmatching, EQing, matching pitch, using FX, etc.) from track to track, that's live music. If someone is simply playing a playlist of tracks, one after the other, by, say, making a big "party list" in winamp or iTunes or something, that's not live music, and, frankly, not really DJing.

Granted, the list of people on SL (including Doubledown and myself) is quite small in comparison to that of those who stream music via the latter method, there are still enough of us to make the OP sound like an ignorant fool. Good day, but you're wrong.

.



the last 2 posts above by Jami Sin & Crane Rosmer
pretty much sums up the dichotomy of this discussion ...

that there can be no meeting of the minds ...

this is similar to the debate as to whether Second Life
is a Game, or is not a Game

each person has their own opinion and their own definition


on both of these issues ...
is SL a Game or, not a Game, and Is DJing "live" music or,
not "live" music, simple basic distinctions can be made and clarified

Second Life in and of itself is not game, simply because there are
no rules or objectives on Second Life, as there are in Monopoly,
Poker and Myst.

However many people on Second Life "Play Games" as they
assume various Personnaes, Characters and Roles

And therein lies the "game" feature of Second Life.


Much in the same way, just because a Live DJ person plays
pre-recroded music and tracks, does not make the Music Live.

However, what is does make the DJ's Music Live,
is when the DJ is at the controls, and does exactly what Jami SIn said:
"DJ who plays the "Two turn tables and a microphone instrument" =
plays prerecorded material and remixes it in different ways to create a different effect."


By Jami's own definition ...
the Live DJ who plays music, but who remixes them together
with new sounds and new effects, is in fact spontaneously creating and
composing new sounds, new music, and a new musical experience, "LIVE".

and that is where the Distinction rests ... between simple-Precorded, and "Live"

Jami and others do not take the extra the step on behalf of "Live" Dj's
inspite of his own defintition of what the "Live" ones do,
because he writes ... "Is it "Live Music" = No"

He stops short of acknowledging the Obvious, and what really is happening:

that a "Live DJ" IS creating something new, which makes it
*a Live Musical Art Form*

(Perhaps Jami is simply too much of a purist ... tho theres nothing wrong with that.)

consider if you will, that the tools of a "Live DJ" Mixing Music Live,
is similar to that of an Artist of Painting ... his colors is the Music ...
his brushes are his equipment.

His artful audio creations result from his boundless and infintie sculpting
of electronics, sounds and nuances, that vibrate through the environment
and natural surroundings, pleasing and shocking the emotions of his listeners


when you stand in the middle of a city, and just listen ...
what you hear is all kinds of sounds and effects,
of cars, footsteps, people chatter, birds, horns, planes, buses,
trains, sirens, cellphone beeps, gunfire etc ...
a symphony of modern day clashes of humans, metal, electronics
and other environmental sounds and effects

and who is to say that is not the live music of our modern times?


there is no question in my mind ....

DJing of this kind is Live Musical Art. It does take talent.
and it should be recognised and respected as a "Live Art Form"

as far as listing in Events go, its up to the integrity of
the lister to say whether the DJ is playing only pre-recorded tracks,
or if the DJ is creating a spontaneous "Live Musical Mix"



.

@ the topicstarter

Playing live with pre recorded music is also a live set. Just don't be so squareheaded to only define what you see as music or live as the view everybody should have on it. Electronic live music is often made with pre recorded loops so can't there be no live events anymore with electronic music? On this part of the world deejays are even more popular than what you would describe as live musicians.

I don't like country music, should country music be banned from the live music events as i can't define country as real music?

AMEN.!!

Word...

I remix while spinning, I rarely play just pick and play. I mix and remix and all sorts. Its LIVE and its music.
Real djing takes skill. any bafoon can be a "radio" dj

So it is apparent that real DJing is live music. The DJs that know this have spoken.
Seems anyone who disagrees simply just doesn't know. Sure, most live djs may not be musicians (creating their own music) .. but art has always been about appropriation...
DJs the change music into their own are artists....

Someone coming to me to say DJing is just playing other people's music and it's not 'live' ... it's just an ignorant insult...

It's like saying to a photographer they are not an artist because they didn't paint it.

I'm going to chim in on this and I'm glad to see some REAL DJ's on here. All I have say it is a love performance, with mixing, sampling, looping, etc. We are artists also, just like any other performer. We may not be singing, rapping, playing an instrument, etc. But we are artists and performers ourselves. We don't just push play and yak on a mic to hear our own voice all so many bad DJ's on SL. I have found and heard a few really great DJ's on SL, but GAWD there so many that suck so bad and really bore the heck out of me.

BTW, Good to another Marylander on that is also a club dj.

This is absurd.

By one argument... a pianist on a synth isn't creating "live music" because he's just playing ing pre-recorded sample sounds taken from a real piano.

By another argument... if some "DJ talk show type" decides to talk in sing-song, they could say they are creating "live music".

"Spinning" as my RL friends refer to it, is the art of creating new music dynamically, using existing music as your instrument. It is a form of performance art that is, often, far more interactive with the audience than most forms of "Live Music" (at least in RL).

Saying that it isn't "live music" is like saying that "News" isn't live because they're using re-using words and sentences that have be used before.

Instruments have taken a strange leap forward. Maybe "Metamusic" is a better term for it than simply "Music".

.


what "Live DJs" do combining music with sounds and electronics
is like what Andy Warhol did painting soup cans ...
or Gwen Stefani does in music Videos singing and dancing with Japanese schoolgirls
or a website has with pics, vids and podcasts

its another form of interactive art called Mix Media and Multimedia

i learnt that in 4th grade art making leaf prints



.

HEEEEY KAYLA!!! Maryland represent!
If you're near Baltimore, come on by to check out my RL shows in the city )

They are both live events. Only number 2 is live music, however.

Yes I have my wording wrong there. I should correct that. Should say 'live music event'.

EDIT: ..and now it does

Any buffoon can be either. It takes skill and love and appreciation to do either well. Just because one mixes while playing does not make one an artist. There's a plethora of crappy mashups out there. Just because one talks and plays but does not mix does not make one 'not an artist'. There are DJs out there that speak and spin and do not mix and they are a pleasure to listen to. They have refined their 'art' and their skill. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call them designers.

However, I would only call the mixing DJ someone who does live music.

I think either format is valuable however. A club with a DJ of either type is way better than a club with a radio. A good DJ personality, regardless of the mixxing or not, is worth its weight in gold. A good mixer, w/o a good personality, can be tedious to listen to.

Regardless, there's a lot of performance art and improvisation in DJing. Either kind. Sorta sad to see the mixing type DJs thumbing their noses at the non-mixing types in this thread. They each have value.

Not to devalue anything you said here... but I think the reason the real DJs are "thumbing their nose" so to speak at the playlisters and non-equipment djs is that real djs don't want to even be compared to people that use the term "DJ" for themselves. Any real dj has the talent and experience to do anything they want to the music... a playlister, or someone that's a good radio personality has no idea how to control the music. Any real DJ started there and grew as an artist in the artform. Anyone that calls themself a DJ, but really lacks knowledge on how to do 90% of what being a DJ is all about, and really has no intention to grow as an artist... that's just not a dj. It's like someone that plays the triangle, calls themself a musician, and has no intention on learning any other instrument.

... I think the best term for this is "jama-jama" (pronounced yama-yama).... It's when someone uses the image of a professional while completely lacking skill, knowledge, talent, and experience... and in turn giving the artform a bad name. The best example of this is a circus clown from cirque de soliel being compared to a birthday party clown. The bday party clown is a jama-jama clown.... using the label and calling themself a clown, while in actuality, they just know how to put on a rainbow wig and big shoes.

Not that i dislike playlisters and talkers at all... ive been there, ive done that. I know what that takes... and I also know what it takes to be a real dj. Its a shame the general public views them as the same thing.

But you DID just devalue everything I just said while casting aspersions on those who aren't, in your mind *artistes*. The other DJs don't lack skill, knowledge or talent and, in many cases experience. There are those who DJ professionally, who do not mix, and who have been doing it for many years. They were here first, as a matter of fact, and that profession existed without the ability to mix for decades.

Perhaps, if you want to be known as a musician, you should not have adopted the nomenclature of DJ -- as you want to be known as something completely different from those who have done it w/o mixxing since the 1920s and you've been doing it at best for what... 10 years? I'd warrant a lot less though.

Weird Al Yankovic recorded "My Bologna" in a public restroom for the acoustic properties.

There should be a distinct set of criteria to warrant a Live Music category event post.

1)The event shall involve the parcel music or QuickTime streaming options available in the SL client or an outside method of creating a shared, streaming, and reasonably live experience for multiple simultaneous attendees.

2)The advertised focus of the event (the artist(s)) should be represented by an SL avatar(s) at the parcel specified in the event listing.

3)The event should have a reasonable expectation that the majority of the sound that is to be presented was created live at the time of the event in some manner and in an original form by the advertised focus of the event. This precludes the following:

1.Karaoke.
2.DJs.
3.Playing a stream not specifically created as a Second Life event, such as a Real World Rolling Stones concert .
4.Pre-recorded content from a musician or band, such as a SL musician CD release party.

Although some forms of what people term "DJ'ing" may in fact fall under the category of live music, it is seriously doubtful any large percentage of people currently claiming their DJ event falls under live music actually belong there.

Anything not fitting these rules should be removed from the Live Music category.

It would be an added bonus if the Lindens would allow moderation of the section, perhaps by officers of the Live Musicians group.

To be honest, I really do agree with your statement earlier. And when I said "not to devalue" I mean that everything you said is valid.
I'm just offering a devils advocate so to speak. And me personally, I'm not a dj snob.. I just understand a turntable djs arguments.

Me personally, my opinion on what is the most important aspects of DJing: the ability to read a crowd and know what to play next. You dont have to know how to mix to do that. You need music knowledge and intuition. So my opinion is anyone playing the right music for an event is a dj in my eyes.

I think the main thing is that all DJs that want to be called a DJ (as an artist) need to be present at the event, and not just go through a mindless set without adding creativity.

footnote: most DJs that consider that they are creating music call themselves music producers, or digital music engineers

doubleDown, ever watched a 'dj shadow' performance ?

Plenty!! Seen him live twice, seen recordings of his shows. Seen "Scratch"

Recordings of his shows aren't live music, though

Um, yeah, what I wanted to say has already been said...



Even if the pedant in me wants to point out that there's a difference between a synth and a sampler, the point remains valid that if you're playing a keyboard to trigger samples, how can that be said to not be live music? Then by the same token, how can it be said to not be live music if those samples are played by a different instrument, like, oh, I don't know, a turntable, perhaps?

The OP seems to be using definition 2 (as defined by Chambers 21st Century Dictionary) when the term is used as an adjective: "said of a radio or TV broadcast: heard or seen as the event takes place and not from a recording." when definition 9 might be more applicable: "said of entertainments: playing to an audience • a good live band" (emphasis theirs - to indicate that it's an example of usage and not part of the definition). The point I'm trying to make here is that even if the dictionary definitions are a little weak for the purposes of this argument, the dictionary distinctions are quite valid and worth considering. Otherwise I might as well say "only vocals (the human instrument) are live because all other instruments do not have the ability to grow, develop and reproduce". Unless someone starts playing chickens or something.

The fact is that there is a category under which several different kinds of events rightly fall. The simplest, most fair criterion is that there's something meaningfully being done in real time: singing/playing over prerecorded music or not; playing prerecorded music with real time announcing; doing an animated performance over completely prerecorded music; mixing/editing entirely prerecorded music in real time. Podcast style events should probably be below the threshold, provided there's a meaningful category under which they fit.

I'd certainly rather attend one of Vivianne's DJ gigs, which in my experience have always shown a fantastically deep knowledge of many genres _and_ had personable and meaningful announcing, than a middling "real DJ" live music event. I've had more fun seeing bands looping animations to their self-produced MP3s (or, e.g., KISS tracks) than watching singer-songwriters anim-loop to goof off live sessions. That is because knowledge, skill and effort are what make the event worthwhile, and if one of those elements is delivered live, it deserves a place among the other live music events.

I understand the reason for the OP. It's hard to perform with integrity in such a crass and laissez faire metaverse. Rather than try to push out artists that might well provide more knowledge/skill/effort than you do, why not push for more specificity in the categories?

My L$2 worth...

A live person playing MP3s ripped from a CD is not "live entertainment". A monkey or DJ or caveman could do that.

A live person or group performing instruments (real or synthesized) in real-time is "live entertainment".

A live person performing vocals with pre-recorded accompaniment in real-time, IMHO, is "live entertainment". The live person is providing, for lack of a better word, value-added entertainment.

A gray area for me: A live person playing pre-recorded music that they themselves performed. I'd lean toward is "live entertainment". May not be "live" in the literal sense, but is in the spirit of the category, IMHO.

A gray area for me: A live person playing remixes of pre-recorded music that they did not originally perform. I'd lean toward not "live entertainment", but it depends on your definition of value-added entertainment.

"live entertainment" is not the same as "Live Music".

Any event where the host actually shows up and participates could be called "live entertainment". With a Live Music event there is an expectation that the content is in fact music and it is being created by the artist.

Go ahead and make a "live entertainment" section, and move all the DJs, karaoke, and other non-musical events there. Better yet just use the Nightlife section that already exists.