Ok, I had an argument a few hours ago with a friend over a “very debatable” topic. He says that DJ’s should not be considered musicians, because they don’t make music. He argued that a DJ just use other peoples music, and that they don’t “make” music, that when musicians played music, it came from “inside them”. I argued the complete opposite. In the end, we both still walked away with our original views. I would like to know what everyone on here thinks. Esp. since several of you are DJ’s.

Well, aren't we asking for a bias opinion. When I still played music I would of taken your friend's side ,however, I have seen DJ's do some awesome shit, and make sucky songs cool. Whoever says Grandmaster Flash isn't a musician is out of their minds.

my off-the-wall, immediate reaction is that a DJ, a GOOD DJ, is an artist. I'm not sure I would say musician, because in my brain "musician" is narrowly defined as someone who plays a musical instrument. What a DJ does is art. There is no way you could convince me that it isn't art. It is very possible that you could convince me that it qualifies as "musician."

This has been a knee-jerk reaction.

Speaking as a professional DJ, I would have to say that you are both right.

You see, there are several flavors of DJ. Some, just play other's music for the sake of their own enjoyment or to expose their friends and patrons to tunes they like.

Then there are the DJs that remix either in the studio or live. This is where black and white becomes grey. IMO it takes just as much musical knowledge, feel, and creativity to break an already produced track into it's basic parts and then reconstruct it in your own way wether it is by mixing in elements from other preproduced tracks, sampled loops, or the DJs own musical compositions (which is much more common these days).

Finally, there are the DJs that play nothing but their own compositions that they then remix live on the fly at every show. Anyone who doesn't realise that these folks are straight up musicians are ignorant of skills it takes to make and perform music.

So, in short, it doesn't pay to generalize and either way, it takes a hell of a lot more skill to do what we do than most of those arm-chair know it alls can even comprehend.

-A

I was gonna say that djing is an art, and doesn't make a person a musician.

allthought at least as far as i've seen...9 times out of 10 dj's are musicians anyway.....

I consider a DJ to be an entertainer, not a musician in the regard that its like a club dj.

now someone spinning as part of a band or group, then they could be considered musicians.