Apply this to scratching:

“Anyone can take the first step, but only the remarkable ones stay on the path until they complete the 1000th one.”

- Robin Sharma

Hoping you stay on the scratch path with me!

Happy Scratching!

- Short-E

Saw this video and it reminded of my early days of scratching.

So to anyone who is struggling with their scratching, watch this and be inspired!

Keep going!

Happy Scratching!

- Short-E

Apply this quote to scratching and “styles”:

Don’t get set into one form, adapt it and build your own, and let it grow, be like water. Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless — like water. Now you put water in a cup, it becomes the cup; You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle; You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.

- Bruce Lee

Happy Scratching!

- Short-E

So this site isn’t all about scratch videos and beats. Sometimes I feel its good to share some stuff that can help you with the way you approach scratching, or a bit about how I personally approach scratching and what I do in a broader sense.

With that in mind I saw this post by Leo Babauta and thought it was excellent and worth a share:

The real success

I might have a lot of readers now on Zen Habits, but I don’t feel that’s what makes me a success. I’ve been a success since Day 1, because even when I had zero readers, I was doing what I loved. Even when no one else would have called me a success (I really was a nobody then), I absolutely loved writing my posts, and though I don’t agree now with a lot of what I wrote back then (in 2007), I was happy.

Success isn’t about achieving something in the future, but about doing something right now that you love.

So doesn’t that mean I care about success? Well, sure, if you define success as whatever it is you care about, then of course you’re going to care about success. But then “success” really doesn’t have a meaning, does it? If it can mean anything, then it means nothing.

So forget about “success”, and just find joy, passion, love, awesome-ness right now, in this moment. *That* is a success you can achieve, without any self-help course, without any method. Just go out and do it.

This pretty much sums up how I feel about what I do here on Studio Scratches.

I love making videos and sharing them with you, I love writing posts and sharing knowledge. I love it when you email me and tell me you learnt something or have been encouraged or inspired. For me it is a moment by moment process.

So… Enjoy scratching! You are successful when you are enjoying the process. Everything I do on here I do in the hope that it empowers you to enjoy the process that much more.

Until next time…

Happy Scratching

Short-E

Here’s a summary of posts that can help you get over the winter scratch blues!

Learn To Scratch Your Own Way – imitate then innovate!

10 tips for putting the FUN back into scratching – go on you know its about fun!

How to become amazingly great at scratching – top non obvious tips!

Desire and scratching – Wanna get good but got no skills?

Then of course there are all the free beats and videos to inspire you!

Happy Scratching!

- Short-E

Image by tibchris

Good friend of mine GoldVoltron sent me this quote and it struck me how relevant it is for scratching:

Whenever the Buddha went, he won the hearts of the people because he dealt with their true feelings. He advised them not to accept his words on blind faith, but to decide for themselves whether his teachings are right or wrong, then follow them. He encouraged everyone to have compassion for each other and develop their own virtue, “You should do your own work, for I can teach only the way.”

In all the tutorial videos I post and the many other tutorial videos you come across on the net, just bear in mind that these are a guide, you will scratch in your own style. You have to do the actual work of trying out the techniques and developing your own take on them. Experiment and if you come up with something that sounds different thats great! It’s impossible to scratch like any one else other than yourself!

Until next time…

Happy Scratching!

- Short-E

Image by Dаvid @ InternosPhoto.com

Apply this to scratching:

“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.” – Albert Einstein

Very often you’ll see blog posts or books teaching you to “master” a skill in only 10 days, or 3 days … in fact, it used to be 30 days but the time frame to master something seems to be shrinking rapidly.

I’ve even seen tutorials claiming to teach a skill in just a few hours. Pretty soon we’ll be demanding to know how to do something in seconds.

Instant mastery of skills and knowledge! Hey presto!

Unfortunately, the reality is something a little less magical. Or maybe that’s a fortunate thing.

There’s only one way to become good at something:

1. First, you must learn it by reading or listening to others who know how to do it, but most especially by doing.
2. Then do some more. At this point, you’ll start to understand it, but you’ll suck. This stage could take months.
3. Do some more. After a couple of years, you’ll get good at it.
4. Do some more. If you learn from mistakes, and aren’t afraid to make mistakes in the first place, you’ll go from good to great.

It takes anywhere from 6-10 years to get great at something, depending on how often and how much you do it. Some estimate that it takes 10,000 hours to master something, but I think it varies from person to person and depends on the skill and other factors.

Want to be a great writer? It’s possible to be great within a few years, if you have the God-given talent of Fitzgerald or Shakespeare, but most of us toil for over a decade and are still trying to get better. We’re still learning, to this day, and if we look back on our first few years of writing — of any kind — we’ll tell you we sucked (for the most part) back then.

Want to be a great blogger? Same deal. I’ve been doing it for almost three years, and I’m still only competent. Gruber’s been doing it for, like, 7 years and he’s still only … well, he’s pretty great by now. You have to do it, make mistakes, learn, really begin to understand it, and someday, if you stick with it, you’ll be great.

There’s no one who is great at his profession who hasn’t been doing it for at least 6 years — no designer, no programmer, no carpenter, no architect, no surgeon, no teacher, no musician, no artist … you get the point. I dare you to name one. Most have been doing it for over a decade, and are still looking to improve.

It takes desire, it takes drive, it takes lots and lots of doing.

So here’s the thing: don’t get discouraged if you’re just starting out. Have fun, like we all did in the beginning. If you have fun, you’ll learn to love it, and THAT’S when it clicks. When you love something, you’ll want to do it all the time, sometimes late at night and often, you’ll jump out of bed and want to do it before you move your morning bowels.

THAT’S how you get great. By loving it so much your morning bowel movement takes second seat.

“Everybody has talent, it’s just a matter of moving around until you’ve discovered what it is.” – George Lucas

Find that desire. Do it, don’t just read about it. Don’t buy a single product or book or magazine that claims to teach you something in minutes, hours, days. They’re lying to your face, with a hand in your pocket at the same time.

Do it, keep doing it, then keep doing it some more. It’s the only way to get great, but the good news: anyone can do it. It just takes some time and some doing. Hey presto.

When the world says, “Give up,”
Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”
~ Author Unknown

Adapted and amended from a post by Leo Babauta which is uncopyright.

Whilst my tutorials are designed to get you going with scratching. It will take time!

I get many emails from people who are frustrated that they have not become “good” at scratching in the first month. Refer back to this post often and get back to having fun! I personally have been scratching for 10 years and I have so much to learn and still struggle with certain scratches. I will be refering myself back to this article on the regular!

Happy Scratching!

- Short-E

Image by Ivan Zuber

Here is a quote from a friend of mine Joel which I really love!

Life is like a record…. it can spin round and round… or
you can grab it and make it do what you want!
fra fra fra freeesssshhhhh

I can still make mine work even with all the scratches and skipz on it!!

Image by Lyndon Cruz

Happy Scratching!

- Short-E

This is an article by Ricci Rucker that I wanted to share with everyone who scratches because it inspired me.

Ricci I hope you don’t mind me sharing this. No copyright infringement intended!

- Short-E

Subtleness vs Obviousness – By Ricci Rucker

This is the very thing that has separated the scene. On one hand you have the “in your face” scratchers, then the other hand, you have the stylistic scratcher. I am personally from both schools, but chose to create my own school which takes elements of both to create an entirely different styles one after one. One thing that really frustrates me is the assumption by the scratch music fan, and even some of the djs, is that doing something uptempo being automatically more difficult.

Have you ever tried to scratch at 45 bpms? A daunting task.

The reality is that scratching is undeniably becoming more mature than it’s usual audience can keep up with. This is a good thing. Recently, music across the board has become more superficial than ever, there are many theories of why, but even on the “progressive” level it’s not really as progressive and free as before.

The tip for this month is not tangible, it’s a mindframe. Embrace the simple pleasures of scratching. Scratching doesn’t always have to be mindnumbing and complex SOUNDING, and ironically, that very understanding of this idea is actually a complex way of thinking. Because not sounding complex doesn’t in any way refer to the idea of being simple. Try not to force your cuts, take time, breathe between your scratches, literally, take a breathe. A lot of people talk about it, but very few do it. Scratching like anything else is a language, and if you could only imagine how you reading my words would be if I didn’t use a space between each word, you’d be pretty irritated, and probably turned off, and in the end not listen to a thing I’ve said.. This is how I feel about a lot of scratching, no spaces, a bunch of jibberish, and a bunch of simpleminds SOUNDING complex, but anyone who really KNOWS, knows there is ABSOLUTELY nothing complex about sounding it. Fakin’ da funk.

Many times “complex” sounding scratching is like someone drawing 500 lines with a ruler in different directions making a complex design that might be appealing to the eye. On the flip, “simple” sounding scratching is sometimes like drawing a perfect circle FREEHAND. Now, the untrained eye might see the complex looking line art as more complex, but the reality is, a perfect circle drawn freehand is the real deal. This is exactly what it comes down to, a real foundation understanding of what complex is. Critics of scratch music should be in the low 20′s, because your average “turntablism” observers, would probably say fast drumming, orbit tear flares, and crabs are honestly harder to do, than a simple drum pattern not falling off beat for 5 minutes. It’s simply not the case. When the average person INVOLVED in scratching honestly understands this mentality, this is when the music while soar to new heights.

Right now, it’s in a transition, and many gimmicks are making their last attempt at stealing the audiences attention from what’s happening now, and all I can say is, good luck, people are waking up now.
JUST BREATHE.

- Ricci Rucker

Found this quote from a convo I was having with Tumkan about scratching “styles” a while ago and thought I would share it with you.

“Scratching involves so many different aspects, the pressure you apply to the vinyl, the speed of your hands, your arm positioning, your height, table height, all these small variables, give one their own style, even if you aren’t looking to have one”

- Tumkan

I thought that was a really great observation.

Until next time, keep stylin’ it up!

- Short-e

Image by Dаvid