What DJ's Actually Do. (A quick guide to master the crowd)
To those skeptical about it, thinking that we just push buttons, PLEASE read on.
Let me explain a typical night for you. It’s 10PM, you’re at a party, people are still in the “we just got here, let’s see what this is like” phase. You get behind your decks and stare at the crowd. People are talking, people are drinking, and one or two people noticed you got behind the decks and are staring at you, waiting to see what you’re going to play. How do you get these everyone to dance? This is where rule #1 comes in to play.
KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Are these people High School students? College Students? Are they going to appreciate you playing the thickest and grimiest electro you got right off the bat? Let’s say the crowd is aged around 25-30. You also know that the guy who organized the party likes electro, but prefers the classics (Disco, Funk, Rock n Roll). It would be wise to assume that everyone is along the same vein. So let’s start off with some disco. At this point, you’re not doing much technical work, that’s OK! People didn’t come here to be amazed by your transitions. They came to have fun. A few names to note here: Boney M, Michael Jackson, Earth Wind And Fire, James Brown, Elvis, etc.… when you feel like everyone (or the large majority) is really having fun, you maybe can start exploring what this crowd can do. This leads me to rule #2.
THE CROWD IS ALWAYS RIGHT. I don’t care if you’re pissed that you can’t play electro because they all leave. Your job is to animate the party, and that’s it. The worst DJs in the world that everyone WILL ALWAYS remember (I mean forever) are the ones that play what they like without looking up from their decks. You just look like a moron when you do that. Look up as often as you can! What’s going on? Are people really dancing? Are they half dancing? Are they leaving? Also remember, the crowd in its entirety has majority rights over the music you play. That means that if some lone piss-drunk dude climbs over the DJ booth to tell you to play some German underground techno, you are not obligated to listen to him. Tell security (or some big guy) to get his ass out of there and bother someone else. You’re working.
But how do you switch from one genre to another without everyone leaving? You need to ease people into different genres. Let’s get back to the party where you’re playing some classics. Do know that disco is the ancestor of House music, so why not transition into some House? But make it the most disco-esque House track you’ve got! People shouldn’t notice the change. Slowly, as you play more and more electro-sounding tracks: you’ve now converted everyone to dancing to House music. But this can be dangerous ground. People can snap out of it and leave, which is why we have rule #3.
HAVE SOME EMERGENCY TRACKS. If you see people are starting to leave to go smoke one, perhaps they’re not feeling the vibe just yet. So to bring people back, emergency tracks are your friend. These are your Wake Me Up, Danza Kuduro, From the Music, etc. Tracks that go on the radio and that everyone knows and likes. (Again, refer to rule number 1 to determine which tracks are your emergency tracks. I highly doubt some Avicii will bring back a bunch of 40 year olds.)
Yay! People are diggin’ it! It’s now midnight, and you’ve got everyone really enjoying what you’re playing. Any DJ would be happy and leave it at that, and just stay in that genre to play it safe. But are you the play-safe type, or are you the adventurous type? Ok, if this is one of your first times DJ-ing, maybe leave it at that. But if you’re starting to do a lot of gigs here and there, consider rule #4. This rule is a little tricky, as you’ve got to take into account all the other rules when you know it.
BE BOLD! These people might like Drum n Bass (for example). They just don’t know it yet. Who knows? You might spend the next half hour mixing DnB because people just can’t get enough of it! But again, remember, ease people into different genres. Get the most melodic, and easy DnB track you can find and look at the crowd’s reaction. You have to be prepared for what comes next. Either they love it, and you can keep going, or people look at you weird, and leave. Don’t worry about it, switch back to what was playing before, or better yet, play an emergency track (hopefully you still got a few bullets left there) and bring everyone back. Don’t worry about people not liking you for just one track, they were having tons of fun before, and they can figure out that you were trying to explore a bit what you could play.
That about does it except for one. If I can give you any other piece of advice, maybe the most valuable one of all, it would be to rule # 5: KNOW YOUR MUSIC LIBRARY. Organize the living shit out of it. By genre, key, bpm, whatever you want. But you need to know these tracks: what they sound like, their power, their attitude, and if you’ve got perfect pitch, what key are they in. Are they melodic or not? Are they likely to please the average person? You also need to be able to get to them in as little time as possible. Don’t spend three minutes searching your library going “fuck what was it called again!” while your song playing finishes and you’re left with a blank.
So, to you who thought that we’re just pushing buttons up there, I hope I elucidated a bit what it is we actually do. I also wrote this so that people have a little more appreciation for us. So often are we criticized as a whole simply because a few clowns get behind some decks and pretend to be DJs when they can’t read a crowd… It’s a job. It’s not easy.
Thanks for reading! I hope you learned something new today.
