Editing Music

I always feel bad about editing music ... it seems like cheating somehow, or lying. Or like I'm butchering a work of art. But I'm getting over that, and here are the reasons why:

1. Jazz and blues are adaptive art forms. They are not meant to sound the same every time you play them. Therefore changing a recorded track does not seem like sacrilege.

2. My job as a DJ is to provide danceable and accessible music. I edit tracks in order to make them so, especially if the song is one I really want to share, but has a section that makes it hard to dance to. I also edit songs to remove overly offensive/taboo material. This does not happen often, as there are few things I choose to censor.

3. I only edit songs that can be edited. Read: a song is successfully edited if a casual listener or someone who does not already know the song cannot tell where the break is. Having said that, here's a challenge. This song has a section cut (36 seconds, to be exact). I challenge you to give me the timestamp of the break, without listening to the original:



*I realize retrospectively that my player doesn't have a timer on it. If you care enough, find a stopwatch. Or count phrases or 8-counts in.