Most of us would be familiar with the term DJing but how many of you know the term turntablism? Incidentally, turntablists were present in the music scene even before DJs. Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using turntables and DJ mixer. James Peter, a prominent turntablist in Kochi, will be seeking to spread awareness about this form of music through a class to be held on Saturday at the 3:1 Audio station, Panampilly Nagar.
A turntablist for the band Whitesugar, James is also part of the DJing trio of The Good The Bad and The Ugly which consists of DJ Ribin Richard and DJ Arvee. Explaining more about turntablism, James says, “A lot of DJs in Kerala use a CDJ to play for a crowd but I use the normal turntable to give a little more authentic feel to the music.”
On the popularity of turntablism in Kochi, James states that it is not very popular in Kerala as he himself had to go to Chennai to learn it. Nevertheless he says, “There are a lot of people interested in learning this craft and it is the curiosity factor that attracts them first and then they get hooked to it.”
Son of violinist Peter and brother of singer-music director George Peter and singer Joe Peter, he has shared the stage with various national and international artists. The influence of his family cannot be discounted and James says, “My father wanted me to learn the piano and though I cannot call myself a pianist, I play reasonably well. My brothers have been an influence on me and they are the reason why I wanted to be a part of a band.”
Talking about the music scene in Kerala, James says, “The music scene is very bad here because of various factors like restrictions on DJ parties and bands in colleges. I used to have a good number of students earlier but after these curbs, it’s just a handful of students. The rock scene is not very encouraging with live performances not happening in colleges. Actually some time back, there was a big revival in the music scene with music channels on TV promoting bands and gigs, but not anymore. All we get now are weddings, corporate gigs and private shows.” James is also doing jingles for ad films and short films and he wants to be a music director.
His workshop on turntablism will be introducing students to the scope of sound manipulation and scratching as also the art of turntablism/DJing and the fundamentals of scratching, DJing and scratch DJing. The students will be made to try out scratch techniques and James would be performing a scratch routine and sharing his experience as a turntablist.
