You want to mix music? WHAT? Welcome to the brotherhood.
This is a tutorial on Basic DJ terminology, attitude, basics and intermediate skills. The purpose is to spread my knowledge and experience for the people that are interested in the business to get a comfortable start.
My name is Darren Hayes, I currently reside in Sydney Australia and I have been mixing music on and off now for a few years, small parties to warehouse underground, I also produce music and have plenty of knowledge and experience in helping beginners get their foot in the door.
So you’ve seen a friend mix? seen an incredible DJ live? played on the decks yourself or just playing around with software on your laptop ? That’s Great, Let start with the basics of music and how your attitude can keep you under water or above the clouds.
Attitude will determine your style which you’ll express when you mix your favorite music, The most important concept to understand is that the even though your directing the music It is the Audience that judges your performance, Without an audience there is no party. It is important that you leave your ego at home and realize that you are playing FOR the audience, With this as your foundation there are not limits except those that you place upon yourself. Keep an open mind, Not so open that your brains fall out but open enough to not label advancements in technology as “Your not dj, You use MP3's”, “Your not a DJ, You use a laptop”. Be open to these ideas, Not only can they significantly improve your DJing skills but keeping up to date with technology allows you to further increase your skills by entering into production however this is something that you may wish to seek in the future but for right now lets stop rambling about behavior and lets get started!.
Music is everywhere in our lives and in different forms, depending on who you are you may like such genres as dance, techno, ambient, rnb ,hip-hop, dubstep, drumandbass, hardstyle and so on, remember don't dislike a certain genre of music this kind of thinking can hold you back. One aspect of becoming a DJ is building your music selection, Building a music selection is not an easy task, it can take months even years to complete and full music library consisting of different genres, styles and BPM however before you choose which music to collect lets examine what music may suite your style.- Mobile / Ambient DJ – You are a mobile DJ, mostly playing at weddings and formal events including disco and ambient themes.
- Club DJ – You play for the clubs, When playing at the club play their style music, You’ll look stupid going into a Dance club to play hardcore. So dance/trance/club/electro may be best choice.
- Underground – Mostly consists of heavy beats, bass lines and anything that you can add to make it sound cool, Underground DJ’s tend to create their own genre’s mixed with any type of music, including breakbeat, dubstep, dub, drum and bass, glitch, 2step etc etc.
- Hobbies – Not really into for the money, Play here and there just for fun.
These are the different types of DJ’s that can determine which type of music you are aiming for, when deciding this will allow you to build a stable music collection for your specific needs, Building a music collection isn't just downloading every song until you fill up a 500GB HD, It is about finding the good songs, listening to them, deleteing killer songs, buying high quality records, finding tracks that work together, different generes etc etc, How you organize your music collection is entirely up to you, however i suggest that you arrange them in at least Style or BPM for example;
Style A (David Guetta) 135
So style A referes to the style of this particular music, group tracks and create different styles by different groups, The middle is the title or artist and the number is the BPM. This is how i organize my music I also listen to every track I obtain.
