Well , something we will not agree on , and this is just my philosophy as a dj, is that people should go home with a memory of a track or hook and just be dying to know that. But like any sort of art like writing , music movies, you can't have all hooks because everything is relative. 2 great tracks together = 2 great tracks, one track that is good, but has a purpose which is different, say one that has a killer groove, which leads into the track with the hook, you've made that track that much more effective.
One thing i would not do is play things because they are new. ANything over a few years is classic and ok to play. I mean if you are playing the track everyone was playing a month later, ya , i think your job , partly as a librarian , well you aren't doing it. Having said that, i would make sure that if there is a new track that is killer, i will be playing it until everyone else does.
MOst tracks serve a purpose and djs tend to just replace those tracks. ALot of times, you get a lower quality track to replace an older track which i mean , what are you doing. Again, if it is recent, ya i understand, but there is so much music in the last decade that serves the same purpose.
The next time you dj, ask yourself why you are playing a certain track. You will start to notice there are categories of tracks irrelevent of genre and how they affect people. Then you will start noticing that you are just replacing those tracks and their function with another track. Now sometimes, there are some great new tracks. But so many djs have such a small pool to pull from that they just play what is new on beatport.
As far as what i would play.
that would depend on where i'm playing. How many people. How old. What time is it. What day of the week is it. Are they drinking. Are they doing drugs. What did the guy before do, am i opening for someone .
When i was a dj , i didn't play genres. Because they all mix. I mean take Fat boy slim's I get live. That track can be a house track, that track can be a hard trance track, and when you know those pivot records , you can do anything. I'm not saying jump randomly, i'm saying people look at music at a very micro level and fail to see the similarities in genres that are different. The only limiting thing is BPM as time stretching doesn't work and if you want to go somewhere, well first you have to decide how , and you have to realize that going from say 130 to 124 is going to clear the dance floor. But going from 130 to say hiphop won't.
MSZ
ok well its obvious we have much different philosophies and vision but still i would like to hear in your own ideal moment what you would like to play, i just want to pick your brain a little and ask questions if there happens to be any.
now ill agree, its better to have those very hooky tracks that will great amount of simpletons with more memory however, for me its all about vibe / energy / flow. release and people dancing. its all about energy control and cohesiveness, to each their own ofcourse(im not a quirky dj).
maybe ive said it before, but i love the stuff from 10 years ago a lot more than now, but still there are gems being released always. why? the vibe is not the same for the most part.
ill probably get trolled from you, saying its crap and whatnot, but i guess thats standard by now.
when do you hear trance being made like this these days. there is some.
even the progressive got progressively cheasier and, its still made well ofcourse but it doesnt have the character i love. guilty of making poppy progressive too so im not doing enough, however this year i have many things that i wanted changed releasing.
from when you dj'd and how djing is now im sure a lot has changed, perhaps you should observe more, not trying to sound pompous here.
now i think ive heard you say youre not a big fan of house, thats quite different from me, i love it a lot, especially older garagy type house even.
if they were playing Beethoven at a club, i would laugh and leave.
Dance music is not supposed to make you think. Approaching it like you are educating them is , well first off, everyone i know that says that doesn't really want to educate. They use it as an excuse. You could play progressive. But you can't ram things down people's throat. And people like to hear songs. Nobody , and you might see them dancing, and trust me they are dancing because they are ing high as a kite and they would dance to anything. The point is that nobody enjoys hearing 3 hours of tracks that are so similar it might as well be one. First off, progressive , has a limited range in terms of energy. It is a great tool but you can't just play progressive because you never go anywhere. Your dynamic is always the same. But progressive is great at say after a track that is a heavy hitter, you go to something that is more rhythmic and you start that whole build up again. A set , like a movie, like a book, needs high points and low points. But low points don;t mean bad tracks, and that is what happens if you stick to the same genre. The low point iis a bad track, the high point is a good track. You make the low point a great track, but in another way. Same with a guy that plays melodic stuff every single track. His high point is a good track, his low point is a bad track. And you can't avoid this pitfall unless you learn to use genres for what they are good at.
MSZ
quote:
Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
if they were playing Beethoven at a club, i would laugh and leave.
Dance music is not supposed to make you think. Approaching it like you are educating them is , well first off, everyone i know that says that doesn't really want to educate. They use it as an excuse. You could play progressive. But you can't ram things down people's throat. And people like to hear songs. Nobody , and you might see them dancing, and trust me they are dancing because they are ing high as a kite and they would dance to anything. The point is that nobody enjoys hearing 3 hours of tracks that are so similar it might as well be one. First off, progressive , has a limited range in terms of energy. It is a great tool but you can't just play progressive because you never go anywhere. Your dynamic is always the same. But progressive is great at say after a track that is a heavy hitter, you go to something that is more rhythmic and you start that whole build up again. A set , like a movie, like a book, needs high points and low points. But low points don;t mean bad tracks, and that is what happens if you stick to the same genre. The low point iis a bad track, the high point is a good track. You make the low point a great track, but in another way. Same with a guy that plays melodic stuff every single track. His high point is a good track, his low point is a bad track. And you can't avoid this pitfall unless you learn to use genres for what they are good at.
thats not true, progressive is very broad. there is deep progressive, classy progressive that you heard on global underground, techy progressive, progressive built for clubs with the correct formatting for people to peak to. technoy progressive. bah.. it goes on for a bit.
Beatflux
quote:
Originally posted by Looney4Clooney
if they were playing Beethoven at a club, i would laugh and leave.
Dance music is not supposed to make you think. Approaching it like you are educating them is , well first off, everyone i know that says that doesn't really want to educate. They use it as an excuse. You could play progressive. But you can't ram things down people's throat. And people like to hear songs. Nobody , and you might see them dancing, and trust me they are dancing because they are ing high as a kite and they would dance to anything. The point is that nobody enjoys hearing 3 hours of tracks that are so similar it might as well be one. First off, progressive , has a limited range in terms of energy. It is a great tool but you can't just play progressive because you never go anywhere. Your dynamic is always the same. But progressive is great at say after a track that is a heavy hitter, you go to something that is more rhythmic and you start that whole build up again. A set , like a movie, like a book, needs high points and low points. But low points don;t mean bad tracks, and that is what happens if you stick to the same genre. The low point iis a bad track, the high point is a good track. You make the low point a great track, but in another way. Same with a guy that plays melodic stuff every single track. His high point is a good track, his low point is a bad track. And you can't avoid this pitfall unless you learn to use genres for what they are good at.
You posted this in the wrong section...
Vector A
Dude, I like a lot of progressive, but even I have to admit it is not that broad of a category. You have progressive house and progressive trance and...that is pretty much it.
Once you hit the hour mark a single genre set is almost guaranteed to be boring, especially when the genre has such obvious limits on tempo and rhythm.
MSZ
first of all dont call prog with trance elements / or deep trance, progressive trance. that would be a slap in the face of all the trance that was made in like 2001+. all the trance vinyl was called progressive trance.
i disagree with you, throw in if you cant tell a nice story whiten then it can blend rather seemliness with tech house with atmosphere when you have the right connective tracks. but sure tell that to john digweed, hernan c, nick warren who rape. its quite versatile.
Looney4Clooney
quote:
Originally posted by MSZ
thats not true, progressive is very broad. there is deep progressive, classy progressive that you heard on global underground, techy progressive, progressive built for clubs with the correct formatting for people to peak to. technoy progressive. bah.. it goes on for a bit.
the point is that melody and a hook , is what people like. It is what everyone likes. What people don't like is when there are too many of them , or just a melodic track that is not really that great , which happens because people will play a mediocre track if it is new.
Progressive like any genre has strengths and weaknesses. You need to know them if you plan to dj it. Well if you want to be a good dj. But you have to understand how music affects people. Here is an example. If i played my first track, say Madonna's Hung up, orginal version. I mean it would be ridiculous. Now if you play rythmic groovy stuff with very little melodic stuff and you drop hints say the violin hook, say 3 times within 25 minutes like a motive in a very subtle way. Now you've primed the crowd. And if you played that track at 25 minutes after a track that is sort of almost at the peak of the crescendo, people will not hear it the same. They won't say , wait this is pop, because you've established before hand that you aren't playing pop or anything remotely commercial. And there will not be one person not dancing.And the fact that you were playing non commercial stuff before will will it that much more effective. Now this is Madonna.
But that is what makes a good dj. A bad dj could play that track and people would laugh. A good dj knows how to manipulate people.
But you can't ignore people. THere are books about psychology and music. Sweat Anticipation will explain why what I said would work one way , but not the other way. I mean there is alot of psychology in djing. Girls dance more than guys. Guys dance if girls dance. Girls don't have the same stamina. Girls like vocal music. But playing too much vocal music will tire all the girls and annoy the out of the dj which well
A dj is there to entertain. That doesn't mean you play what you think people want to hear. A good dj loves music, and wants to share that because they really think that the people will like it. It isn't about them. And when you make it about you, well you are a ty dj.
Good djs remember how say when they were dancing, that feeling a certain track at the right time made them feel and made their night. And they try to make people have that same experience. Educating people makes it about you. Now exposing people to new music which you really want to share because you think they will dig it, that is about them. And there is a big difference even tho it seems like the same.
Now say you just play progressive, do you honestly think everyone wants to hear just progressive. Probably not. I bet there are some killer tracks, but a whole set to one genre, that is about you because you play that genre and thats that. And that is why i mentioned broad taste prior. Because you have to play music you love or you get nothing out of it, but you have to be able to make the night about the people that paid to have fun. You should be wanting to share music. SOmehow i have a hard time believing a guy playing 4 hours of one genre really really thinks the crowd is digging it. Those djs dj for themselves.
MSZ
looney can you do us a 2 hour set? your own style your own values. use software, take your time i dont really mind. its way better then writing paragraph after paragraph.
MSZ
quote:
Originally posted by Vector A
Those guys do not play nothing but prog. Well, maybe Hernan C. does, but he proves my point: once I snapped out of my "nothing but prog" phase, his sets started boring me. I have not listened to him in a few years, though. Maybe he has changed.
you had a nothing but prog phase damn? im pretty hardcore on prog and will never be in that sort of phase. kudos, i like that a lot <3!
Looney4Clooney
quote:
Originally posted by MSZ
looney can you do us a 2 hour set? your own style your own values. use software, take your time i dont really mind. its way better then writing paragraph after paragraph.
nope. Because you aren't djing until you have an audience dancing. So i could put tracks together that i might like at the gym. That isn't djing. That is making a playlist.
