The Baby Scratch: Foundation for Other Techniques
If you have made it this far in our Baby Scratch series, you already know the Baby Scratch is more than a way to move the record. By now, you should have started to notice your timing is getting better and your scratches little cleaner. You have seen how written rhythms, understanding counts, and repetition begin to shape your control.
Part 4 is where we connect that work to everything that comes next.
The Baby Scratch is not something you grow out of. It is the core. It is the technique that sits underneath almost every other scratch you will learn. If you understand it as a rhythmic technique, not just a simple motion, scratch techniques will stop being mysterious and start appearing more logical.
You are not just learning one scratch. You are building a foundation for an entire way of playing behind the decks.
Foundation for Other Techniques
At its most basic, the Baby Scratch is simple:
- You push the record forward.
- You pull the record back.
- You leave the fader open so every movement is heard.
Physically, that motion does not change much as you move into other techniques. The record still goes forward and backward. What changes is:
- When the record moves.
- How that movement fits into the rhythm.
- When the fader opens, closes, and how you manipulate it to produce sounds.
If you strip every technique down to its core, you will find the same elements:
- Record movement
- Rhythm
- Fader control
This is why the Baby Scratch is so important. It is the first place you learn to connect movement with rhythm in a clear, controlled way. Once that connection is there, other techniques become variations of this, not completely new skills.
When you play a technique that uses the fader, you are still working with the same forward–backward motion you built through the Baby Scratch. You are simply deciding when and how long the sound is allowed to come through.
Learning To Hear Rhythm Inside The Baby Scratch
Many people start scratching because they like the way it sounds. They can hear that something interesting is happening, but they are not always sure how those sounds fit within the beat.
Without an understanding of rhythm, the Baby Scratch can feel like guesswork:
- You know the sound of the rhythm you want.
- You move the record until something close comes out.
- Sometimes it sounds the way you want it. Sometimes it does not.
The difference between guessing and not guessing is the understanding of rhythm.
When you learn to count and read rhythms, the Baby Scratch changes. You are no longer just moving the record. You are placing movements on purpose.
For example, when you:
- Play quarter notes, you feel each stroke on the main beats.
- Move to eighth notes, you start to hear the “and” between the beats.
- Work on sixteenth notes, you hear the subdivisions inside each beat.
At a certain point, you remember the first time you really heard the “ands” instead of just instinctively feeling them. Later, in the process you start to recognize more complex rhythms the same way. They stop sounding like a blur and start sounding like clear rhythms inside the pulse of the beat.
That awareness does not arrive by accident. It comes from:
- Seeing rhythms written out.
- Learning to count them.
- Playing them over and over with the Baby Scratch.
- Learning to identify where you are rushing or dragging the beat.
The more you do this, the more your ear changes. You begin to hear spacing between notes. You notice when your timing is ahead or falls behind. Slow practice over a beat, even at slow tempos like 50 beats per minute, stops feeling like “scratching in air” and starts to show you exactly where the beat sits.
This is where theory becomes the equalizer. Once you understand what the rhythms are, you can place them on purpose. The Baby Scratch turns into a way to play those rhythms, and not just an elementary scratch.
How Other Techniques Grow Out of The Baby Scratch
All techniques are built on the same pieces you are already working with:
- Forward and backward record motion
- Rhythms
- Choices about when and how the sound is heard
For example:
- A technique that looks more complex on the surface may still be the same forward–backward cycle, with the fader closing and opening in time with the rhythm.
- A fast, repeated scratch might simply be the Baby Scratch played as very small subdivisions, such as thirty-second notes.
- A technique that sounds sharp or accented can be a matter of how much pressure you apply and where you place the attack.
In other words, once you have:
- A reliable Baby Scratch
- A clear sense of quarter, eighth, and sixteenth note rhythms
- The ability to feel and count subdivisions
then learning a new technique becomes a question of breaking it down into steps:
- Identify the rhythm.
- Identify the record motion.
- Decide how the fader behaves.
- Practice in small chunks.
When you approach techniques this way, they stop feeling like separate moves and start feeling like different ways of playing rhythm with the same basic tools.
Fewer Techniques, Deeper Control
Once rhythm becomes clear, something surprising happens. You may find you do not need a long list of techniques to sound musical.
If you can:
- Control the Baby Scratch
- Place it accurately in different subdivisions
- Shape the sound with dynamics
- Use the fader when needed to articulate rhythms
you already have enough to create phrasing, tension, release, and movement inside the music.
A strong Baby Scratch with:
- Clean timing
- Clear tone
- Consistent articulation
will take you further than a long list of techniques played without control.
Practicing The Baby Scratch as a Core Technique
The Baby Scratch should not disappear from your practice once you “know” it. It can stay at the center of your routine.
A simple structure might look like this:
- Warm-up with Baby Scratches.
- Cycle through written rhythms.
- Change subdivisions and play them with different drums and samples.
- Practice with both hands.
- Stay with the basics longer than you think you should.
Experienced musicians often return to core work at the start of every session. Beginning each practice with Baby Scratches keeps you grounded and strengthens your timing, feel, and control.
Below is the original transcript from the video.
Hey what’s up? In the previous video, we discussed eighth notes, quarter notes and quarter rests. In this video we will focus on the eighth rest. You can find links to everything discussed in this video in the description below. OK! Let’s get started.
This is an eighth rest.
Eighth rests have one flag.
The eighth note and the eighth rest equal half a beat.
Two eighth rests equal the duration of one quarter rest.
Wherever there is an eighth rest you should rest for half a beat. When we count this rhythm, we count ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR. We only count to four, because there is an eighth rest on the AND of beat four.
Rhythm 1
Now that we’ve covered the basics of the eighth rest, let’s dive into rhythm number one! The tempo is at 85 beats per minute. Here we go!
Rhythm 2
How was that? Did you rush the rests? I’ll say this again, because it is a critical piece in the development of good timing. Count out loud! Look, I’ve been where you are right now and felt the same way that some of you may feel. I wanted to learn, but I hated counting out loud. Here’s the thing: over time I came to realize its importance in the development of good timing. Let's keep it moving and play another example. Here we go!
Rhythm 2
Let's do it again, but this time let’s focus on playing clean strokes while not rushing the rests. Trying to play clean and identical stokes while not rushing may be a challenge at first, but with good practice habits, it will work itself out over time. Here we go!
Rhythm 3
We’re going to keep it moving, but I want you to be honest with yourself. If you are making a lot of mistakes, slow things down and work on the rhythms, until you can play them consistently. Once you can play it without making mistakes, then go ahead and move on to the next rhythm. Alright, let’s move on to example three. Here we go!
Rhythm 4
Now that you've got the hang of it, let's do rhythm four. Remember that we want our strokes to sound identical. We also want them to be evenly spaced apart. One of the most important keys to being a good scratcher is great timing. Here we go!
To get the hang of this, it's going to take some practice. Which means that you may have to slow down the tempo and work it out, until you get it. Don’t get discouraged. Failure is part of the process of getting better. Over time, your strokes will get cleaner, and your timing will improve. Thanks for watching! If you have any comments, please leave them in the comment section below. See you soon! Peace!
FAQs
1. Why is the Baby Scratch a foundation for other scratch techniques?
The Baby Scratch is a foundation for other scratch techniques because it teaches you to control the record with your record hand.
2. What changes when the Baby Scratch is used in other scratch techniques?
The Baby Scratch motion can move forward or backward, but the rhythm and the way the fader opens and closes can change.
3. Why would the Baby Scratch remain part of your practice routine?
The Baby Scratch would remain part of your practice routine because it is the foundation, and you can use it to warm up, cycle through written rhythms, change subdivisions, and practice with both hands.
Summary
The Baby Scratch teaches you how to move the record forward and backward with control. Other scratch techniques build on that same basic movement but change how and when the fader opens and closes.
About the Authors
Jason E. Bullock and M. Dwayne Bullock (DjRoninTokyo) are the creators of Scratching Made Easy and the authors of Scratching Made Easy Turntable Method Book 1: A Guide to Scratching. They created a scratch notation system that uses standard musical notation to apply fundamental music concepts to scratching.
Pt. 4 → Pt. 5
Continue to: How I Learned to Scratch on Beat - The Baby Scratch (Part 5)
