Funky Fresh: Behind School of Scratch, the Online Record Scratching School for DJs
To see more of Emma’s scratching videos, check out @schoolofscratch on Instagram. For more music stories, head to @music.
“This is bathtub scratching,” says Emma Holmes aka Emma Short-E at the start of one of her signature School of Scratch (@schoolofscratch) videos. Today’s lesson: be creative. After gliding into the empty tub armed with a vinyl record and portable turntable, she goes to work — one hand moving the fader from left to right, the other sliding the record back and forth in quick rhythms.
“I like scratching to newer stuff,” says Emma, who gives full-fledged, multi-part record scratching lessons online. “A lot of it is just experimentation, so I actually give myself time to put the techniques together in different ways.”
Emma’s initial interest in scratching and playing music began in 2000 while she was at college. Her housemates at the time had their own equipment and were mixing tracks themselves.
“I just thought, what an amazing thing to be able to do — to play music to people and to keep it going, one record after the other, and control the energy and the crowd,” she says.
The record scratching would come a bit later on, thanks to her brother, who had equipment of his own.
“He did some sample scratching and it just blew my mind,” she says. “I just remember thinking, I have to do that. I don’t know how, I don’t even know where to start, but that’s what I am going to do.”
She did it by practicing — a lot — eventually making way for Studio Scratches, which she launched in 2008, as a way to get her work featured on other artist’s songs. But the plan fizzled, so she flipped the script, and started School of Scratch a year and a half ago, to help teach aspiring DJs how to scratch. It would be another year, though, until she felt comfortable enough to actually show her face on camera.
“I wanted my scratching to be taken really seriously in terms of my skills rather than being female,” she says. “But then I decided, yeah, let’s just be all of me on camera and go for it.”
Going for it now means continuing to grow the business and becoming the best musician she can be. And, she admits, she’s just getting started.
“The first year was finding my feet,” says Emma. “I just signed for an office space so I am going to have a bit more freedom to make more videos. I am really looking forward to seeing what else I can do.”
– Instagram @music