Crowd Go Wild To Music They Don’t Know

1. Entertain, then educate

I’ve seen it loads of times. A DJ comes on, head down, straight into what he or she loves – no consideration for the crowd, who came before, the flow of the night – nothing. And they wonder why their “amazing” music clears the floor. But then there’s the other way, which I’ve also seen, from underground as well as commercial DJs: You have a box of tunes that express you, for sure, but you also have tunes you are pretty sure will please the dancefloor. The thing smart DJs like these do is spend the first part of their set pleasing the crowd, then when they’ve won their confidence, feel their way with twisting things around to their way of thinking, gently and considerately.

It doesn’t hurt, either, that the second half of the night is usually the intoxicated half – or to put it another way, people aren’t going to generally become less likely to dance as the night wears on! So planning your set in this way gives you longer to weave in those 4am techno minimal must-hears that have been kicking around at the back of your collection for months. Get everyone onside, then test your “good” stuff – you may be surprised.

2. Tease and test

Of course, you don’t want to just play a whole pile of tunes everyone knows, then bang into some UK white label dub country step (i just made that up – please tell me I made it up!) and expect the whole floor to come with you. Teasing and testing is your friend here. You can tease riffs, beats, intro sections, vocals, drum loops – anything that is reminiscent of what you want to play later, just for a few seconds or eight bars, repeatedly, to get people used to the sounds you want to move across to.

This teasing is your “test” – you’re watching the dancefloor, watching who maybe recognises stuff you didn’t think they would, getting a feel for what you may or may not be able to get away with. You’re priming and preparing people for the direction you’d like your set to take, in good time. You’re marking our boundaries, pushing things slowly, and always with the dancefloor on your side.

3. There’s a difference between “like” and “know”

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking “like” and “know” mean the same thing. Just because your crowd doesn’t know a song, doesn’t mean it won’t necessarily like it. You’re a DJ, a tastemaker. Let people taste the new music – they might like it! Remember, every song wasn’t known by anyone, once. Use your judgement to decide if a song is going to suit the night or not.

Of course this ties in with points 1 and 2: You can tease and test new music, and you can save it for later in your set, but there’s nothing better than “breaking” a tune that goes on to become huge – it’s “yours”, even though it subsequently gets heard everywhere. People will remember it, and you for first introducing them to it. Having an ear for a commercial song before anyone else is a huge skill and one not to be sniffed at – just ask the likes of Pete Tong, who has signed hundreds of hits with his “record label” hat on over the years, to give just one example.

4. Mix it well

Throwing a different style in badly is one thing. But playing a considered build up to a surprising twist in a pre-planned mini-mix is something else entirely. If you want to play a different style, to try something new, to surprise the crowd, then it definitely pays to plan a little and make sure they way you are going to mix that new thing in is clever, or at least smooth and accomplished.

There’s nothing wrong with practising mixes; it’s not the same as sticking rigidly to a pre-planned set, which is wrong of course (in most circumstances, anyway) – many DJs play from lots of 2-3 tune mini sets, slotting them together as they go along, and this can be a great way of holding the crowd’s attention with more challenging material – plus of course it makes you look good as a DJ, and pulling off pre-planned mixes in public that are maybe that bit more technical as a result is a buzz in itself, whether the material is challenging to the audience or not.

5. Look like you’re enjoying it

It can be really easy to look sheepish when playing tunes you’re not sure of – or to look scared, or be rigid (“rabbit in the headlamps”). It can happen to us all – I remember several times throwing on a tune that just bombed while DJing, and being so embarrassed that I actually hid (crouched down, pretending to look for something in my bag)! Luckily it doesn’t happen too often…

Thing is, you’re the leader of the party. Most people (with the greatest respect) are usually sheep – they’re looking around them for clues and pointers as to how to behave, and will generally follow the crowd. And the leaders of the crowd? Well, on a dancefloor, they’re looking at YOU. If you’re confident, dancing behind your decks, having fun (even if the material you’re playing is unknown to the audience / suddenly challenging), they are FAR more likely to copy you. Make no mistake: when you’re DJing, you’re leading from the front. Be bold. Make it as hard as you can for people to NOT enjoy your music!

6. Use mashups and remixes to introduce styles

Classic advice, but very true. In “old times”, you’d throw a familiar acapella over a challenging instrumental. Crudely, girls can dance to the vocal, boys to the beats. Not always the case, of course, but hopefully you see what I mean: If you can introduce something familiar to your new material, people will more likely accept it – especially if you tie it in with 4 above.

Now, more than ever in this SoundCloud world, there are myriad version of all kinds of tunes available. Find remixes of commercial tracks in the style you love. Find clever or fun mashups where the remixer has done the hard work for you. Have a go at doing your own re-edits to meld stuff more to the way you like to play or mix. Music isn’t sacred; it’s a tool, there to be twisted into whatever shapes you can imagine for your floors. And don’t worry about not being “purist” – remember, this is meant to be fun! Break a few rules – you’ll be remembered for it.

7. Persevere

A DJ (who sadly I can’t recall) once said that he felt if he didn’t empty the dancefloor at least once a night, he wasn’t doing his job right. A bit extreme maybe, but you get his drift, no? It’s OK to like stuff nobody (yet) likes. Sometimes, a tune played one week will empty the floor, the next week it will fill it. Sometimes, the same tune played at the end of a set will work having bombed at the beginning. There are no hard and fast rules – if there were, everyone would know them! So it’s OK to mess up every now and then. In fact, it’s pretty much essential.

Bottom line is you don’t have to play music everyone loves all the time. For example, we all have our favourite comedian, right? But we don’t laugh at all their jokes. We don’t expect to. They’re allowed to push it too far every now and then, to “test out new material”. It’s the same with DJs – if what you do is part of a bigger picture, and you’re letting people glimpse parts of that picture every time you play, they’ll get it. They understand they’re not going to love everything you ever do. Be genuine, try your hardest, keep your vision, and you’ll at least start to work out where and how to get away with mixing the stuff you really want to play in with the stuff you have to.

Why DJs Should Make Their Own Edits

For the purposes of this article, we’re going to take an edit to be a new version of an existing track that you’ve made yourself using only the finished track as your starting material. That makes an edit (or re-edit – we’ll use the terms interchangeably) different from a mashup, as a mashup comprises parts of more than one track, and from a remix or production (both of these having extra parts added that didn’t exist in the original. They’re also often made from the original separate parts, or “stems”, rather than the finished recording).

Editing or re-editing is the rawest form of changing a track, and also one of the most common. Happily, on top of that it is one of the easiest to do – and that makes it a great starting point for DJs who want to move beyond on-the-fly loops and simple mixing and on to incorporating their own versions of songs into their DJ sets, where a little more time has gone into the planning of that version than just an on-the-fly live “remix”. So why do it at all?

1. To make tracks mixable – Even though software can do loops for you to help you extend intros, outros or percussive middle sections to allow you to mix, there’s always the chance you’ll mess it up live. By re-editing the parts of a sing you like to mix into or out of, you can eliminate that risk. For certain types of music, where the “mixable” section is really short or doesn’t follow conventional bar structure and phrasing, this can be invaluable. It takes 10 minutes, max, when you get good at it!
2. To shorten tracks – This is a good one for radio DJs and DJs that play in more commercial venues. Say there’s a track you really like that you think will work on your radio show or dancefloor, but it’s a six-minute long club version, and the label hasn’t released a shorter version or a radio mix. Well, you can do it. And re-editing the original seriously can, when you master it, be a case of 30 minutes’ work, at most
3. To restructure your track – This is the closest you get to a “remix”. Don’t like the rap section? Think the chorus is too long or too short? Don’t like the poppy “middle eight” in an otherwise passable pop/club track? Wish the tune would get to the drop sooner? No problem – you can chop and change things to restructure the track using nothing more than simple editing skills on the version you don’t like, to turn it into something that you think will work best for your audience
4. To “clean up” otherwise unusable version – Not all DJ controllers have a “censor” button (it’s like a slip mode that reverses the track till you take your hand off it, to “delete” swear words). What’s more, you’ve got to be on your game to catch every occurrence of swearing, every time you play a track full of it! So using editing, you can permanently omit any offensive parts of a track, the same way that radio does, without you having to find/buy the alternative radio version
5. To expand your skills towards remixing and production – Doesn’t using different software sound cool? Doesn’t the idea of working on tracks away from the dancefloor give you a buzz? Doesn’t it all start to look suspiciously like production? Yup, that’s because it’s the first step. very soon you’ll find yourself incorporating bits of other tracks (great! you’re making mashups), then maybe using bought loops (wonderful, you’re remixing), or even adding your own basslines, vocal stabs etc (now you’re producing…). Do you think DJs turn into producers overnight? Nah, they start with nothing more complex than simple re-edits. You’ve got to start somewhere…

Spaces between dances

I've found that this topic has the widest divergence of opinions, but it's still worth mentioning.  How long of a space (silence) do you have between dances?

Some dancers prefer to linger with their last partner for a little bit, if only to assure them that they had fun dancing with them, instead of rudely dropping them to search for someone new.  That might be as long as a one-minute break between songs.  Those who prefer this pace mention the sociability of lingering with your last partner.  In the days of live music, the break between dances was even longer.

Other DJs like to keep a party moving so they space about ten seconds of silence between songs.  They feel that ten seconds is enough time to say thank you, then dancers can start looking for their next partner as the next music begins.  They say an advantage with the ten-second timing is that the dancers then know what kind of dance it's going to be, upon hearing the music, before they start looking for their partner for that dance.  I would agree.

Personally I recommend avoiding any formula, and instead, truly watching the dancers as they're finishing a dance.  You'll be able to tell how much time to wait before starting the next song.

The pacing to avoid, at a social dance party, is no break at all, with one song blending into the next.  The reasons not to do this are so obvious that you might ask why any DJ would ever do that.  And the answer is often iTunes and other laptop playlist software.  The default setting is based on raves and other nonstop dances that segue tunes together.  DJs who play music from their laptop find that just as one song on their playlist is finishing, the next tune is commencing, before the first one is finished.

To turn this feature off in iTunes, go to iTunes Preferences (under the main iTunes menu), click the Playback menu at the top, then uncheck the "Crossfade Playback" square.  If you play from a laptop or iPod and just let the playlist run, consider software that automatically adds ten seconds (or so) between tunes, or make many ten-second blank mp3s and place them between the tunes on your playlist.

Crossfade beatmatched music is great... for grinding.  Social dancers would much rather know their dance is over, have a chance to say thanks to their partners, catch their breath, and look for their next partner without being rushed into it.

Exceptions:  Some dance groups like segued dance music, like retro seventies disco for example, so as always, find out what your dancers prefer.