DJing......

I wanted my last blog to be about a subject I have wrestled with since it was introduced in the audioconferences and readings.... DJing. I seem to have such an adversity to the term - outside of the music world... well... excuse my old fashioned self... but Im not that impressed with it in the music world either. A DJ is someone who uses slices of other people's music as well as loops and other sounds to create their own track.

For my theatre tech class reccently, we had to create a sound recording using at least five different loops, which we either recorded ourselves and/or took from garage band - the software programme we were told to use. Now... I did NOT use other people's music... instead, I created my recording from sound effects and my own recorded voice as well as raw single instrument tracks that I laid on top of one another. I created a 2 1/2 minute murder mystery. I realised as I was putting it together... I was the DJ. The difference for me though was that I used raw tracks.. nothing was complete until I put it together and I guess that is the reason for my issue with DJing in a church context.... I think when we use completed items (i.e tracks and media that someone else has completed in its entirety) to make something new.... then we are cheating. We come across as wannabes.... Look at us.... we are as cool as you... we are as popular... we are using media and music that you relate with which is why we are so cool.... we wanna be the cool and hip and happening church.... I can just feel the secular crowd rolling their eyes.

Im not saying there is anything wrong with DJing... using raw and newly created items... that to me is an exciting prospect.... a challenge..... because it will come across as something really brand new... instead of a wannabe imitation.

I also think we need to consider what the secular world expects of a church today... yes the western world has advanced considerably... and yes we need to embrace some change in the way we preach.... but on Christmas Eve... what unchurched person comes along to a service and expects a rap, a video and an artist paiting the nativity on stage? They come for the ambience... the serenity and the experience of christmas. They come to unite as families and sing carols til midnight and possibly eat christmas cake..... similar things are expected of Easter.... and what two events are the busiest in the church calender? I thinking sometimes our struggling and grapling attempts to be hip today.... results in isolation and dissasociation from the very culture we seek to know.