As popular as DJ’ing is, one of its fundamental cornerstones has almost fallen by the wayside in mainstream culture. Scratching has roots that go all the way back to the 1950’s, when radio DJ’s had to “back-cue” specific songs or commericals. It wasn’t until the 1970’s when Grand Wizard Theodore introduced it into Hip-Hop, did the artform take off.

With the rise of EDM and festival culture, the “Turntablist” DJ might seem to not have as much of the spotlight, but with DJ’s like A-trak, Four Color Zack, and Craze focusing on "#REALDJING", Every DJ should take notice of this video. 

Below, DJ Noumenon discusses the importance of introducing scratches into your DJ set, and how it can have huge benefits when it comes to timing, assist in beatmatching, and lay a solid foundation when you want to expand into other areas of your performance.

Techniques covered here include the Baby Scratch, Scribble Scratch, and Drag Scratch. As always, you can’t learn everything from a tutorial, but we think this will definitely have you headed in the right direction.