The Three Commandments of DJing

It is always dangerous (and presumptuous) to state such thing as the Three Commandments of DJing, certainly if you’re not a DJ yourself. But do you need to be a DJ to determine what a good DJ is? No. As a listener of DJ sets, you learn which DJ’s are good and which are not. It is from this perspective that this blog starts. Hence, this blog will not focus on certain techniques, but on the end result, the actual DJ set.

As with all do’s and don’t’s lists, this is highly personal. While many will agree, you, the reader and fellow DJ listener, might disagree. Everyone experiences DJ sets differently or have different priorities to determine the expertise of a DJ. I welcome the sharing of your experiences, the purpose is to aid aspiring DJ’s to improve.

Alright that was the standard disclaimer, let’s start!

1. THOU SHALL KNOW YOUR MUSIC

It is not surprising this one is my first commandment. A DJ starts and ends with the music played.

There are many types of DJ’s: radio DJ’s, wedding DJ’s, club DJ’s, festival DJ’s, etc. I categorise DJ’s in three groups: generalists, specialists and hybrids. Yes, I’m well aware there are many shades of grey in between those three groups, but in the field you do notice DJ’s fall in either category.

Generalist DJ’s are DJ’s that are broad-spectrum. They can play all kinds of genres, of all ages. Their sets tend to accommodate every music listener. In terms of musical knowledge, their expertise is rather shallow. Generalist DJ’s tend to stick to chart songs. Any person who listens to the radio has the necessary pre-knowledge to become a generalist DJ. A generalist DJ is not a leader but a follower.

My biggest annoyance with generalist DJ’s is lack of diversity: you often see the same songs returning in each sets, because they are very danceable and popular. There is like zero creativity in music choice. There are many generalist DJ’s out there, most of them just are copy-cats of others. The main challenge for a generalist DJ is to stand out.

Specialist DJ’s are DJ’s that are very narrow-spectrum. They play mostly one genre and their audience is as such as limited but very dedicated. I expect such DJ’s to be experts in their genres: they need to know their classics, need to spot trends and anticipate. Even more, specialist DJ’s are the avant-garde and need to be part of the process of rejuvenation of their genre. Their dedicated fan base expect such high-quality.

A starting specialist DJ needs to do some serious studying first. If you’re a lifelong fan, this shouldn’t be that difficult as you know what the classics are. But with “classics” I do not mean copy-pasting the retro compilations. With classics, you should surprise your audience with songs they haven’t heard in a long time and trigger feelings of nostalgia. As a specialist DJ, you should really dive into your genre and really, really know it inside-out. Nothing is more annoying than a specialist DJ that only plays contemporary music and doesn’t acknowledge its musical roots.

Hybrid DJ’s are, as you can guess, the DJ’s that fall in between. They don’t stick to one genre, but rather a cluster of genres. A hybrid DJ can switch between house, techno and tech house but will not be likely to play dubstep. There are hybrids who mainly play dubstep, bass music, breaks and drum ‘n bass. EDM is so diverse, there are cluster genres who are very compatible with each other and lend itself to mixing with not much difficulty.

Hybrid DJ’s are more knowledgeable than generalists but less than specialists. You can’t expect a DJ who plays a lot of genres to know all of them by hard. The audience doesn’t expect hybrid DJ’s to play the most obscure songs in such genres. Most hybrid DJ’s follow specialist DJ’s to learn what the trends and classics are. Like generalist DJ’s, they are followers.

Regardless of the category of DJ you fall in, there is one professional honour: you cannot wrongly categorise songs. It is embarrassing if you’re a DJ and you do not know what you’re playing (*cough* Tiësto’s “Big Room” mixes *cough*). If you put in your DJ description the wrong genres, you already lost the set.

A generalist DJ I expect to know the difference between EDM and electronic music (yeah they are not the same!), to properly identify artists in certain low-spectrum genres. A hybrid DJ needs to know the differences within his/her cluster: the difference between house, techno and trance, etc. A specialist DJ needs to know every sub-genre, sub-sub genre, sub-sub-sub genre and so on.

2. THOU SHALL MAKE A SET

So you know your music, than it is as simple to put them together, not? Wrong!

A set is like a book: it has a chronology with a certain structure. As a reader, you need to be drawn to continue reading the story. The plot twists, climaxes and highlights aid in that goal.

You can’t believe how many sets I’ve heard of DJ’s who just place one song after the other with no logical consistency. The set was going all over the place: hip hop, r&b, rock, pop, back to hip hop, house, etc. As a listener, I’m simply baffled: where is this set going to? What is the DJ trying to do? Sometimes the answer is as simple as it is banal: keeping the audience dancing with chart songs.

I expect from DJ’s to string a thread through their set. For specialists it is simple: their genre. If your thread isn’t a specific genre, you need to work with aggregates: play different songs of a cluster of genres, then switch to another cluster with a fusion genre song as go-between. The key is: don’t let your audience notice it. It avoids cold showers and certain drops of momentum.

There are few DJ’s who can make a mix on-the-spot. Most DJ’s make a track list before they go on the stage. The track list is a rough guide which tracks they can mix together. There is room for some improvisation, but you can’t improvise a whole set (some can, but they DJ like over twenty years). A good DJ’s knows a lot of tracks by hard, knows the possibilities of each track and how they can cross-over into each other.

It is always a pleasure to hear a DJ who can grasp his audience from the beginning to the end. It is not easy to pin-point exactly what makes such set pleasurably. My experience is that the DJ knows when to climax and when to build-up. Like a drugs, every climax need to have a little more impact. Music is as much about the silence between the notes as the notes themselves and a good DJ knows that as well.

3. THOU SHALL MIX

You have a rough idea how to make a set, now you just need to pick the right songs and mix them.

I’ve mentioned it before: use fusion genres when mixing between genres. Today there is no excuse to have bad transitions. Fusion genres are plenty: tech house is a great go-between for house and techno. Hip house for hip hop and house. It is a matter of knowing your genres.

Another thing I consider bad mixing: cold showers. Like: teasing and exciting the audience and right before the climax switching to another song. In-fu-ri-ating. Trolling the audience is a death sentence for most DJ’s (some star DJ’s can get away with it, I’m looking at you Deadmau5). If as a starting DJ you’re reading this: no, you’re not one of those. Worst: if you didn’t realise you were trolling.

Mixing is becoming a rare skill as a DJ. It is much easier to use build-ups and drops as transition between tracks. Especially big room house has a track record of noisy build-ups as mix technique. While it can be pleasurable to listen (the surprise of hearing a different track can be pretty exhilarating), it doesn’t show the real skill of DJing.

There is something really admirable to hear a DJ smoothly cross-over two tracks, matching their beats and sounds in such way two tracks become one and the sum is more than its underlying parts. It was very common for DJ-producers to have a club mix and a radio edit, the club mix being 5 minutes or more with a beginning and end portion specifically made to mix and slide tracks.

Mixing requires deep knowledge of tracks who match together and those who don’t. It is a skill you can only get through practise, extensive music knowledge and a good ear. Specialist DJ’s have easier time than generalist DJ’s, as they can use the beat (most genres use the same beat structure and BPM) as a backbone to string tracks together. Generalist DJ’s will need to cluster and fuse more.

As DJ you want to avoid sudden silences or a ‘deus ex machina’. A set has to flow like a river. It can ride like a rollercoaster, but it has to keep moving. You can’t give your audience the impression you reached the end, and then restart. Or doing baffling U-turns. It can happen you chose the wrong track, but you need to stay the course. It is important the public don’t realise you made a mistake, in fact that it was planned all along.

Ignorant (old) people think DJing is nothing but putting tracks in a play list. DJing is an actual skill that is mastered over a long period of time. A good DJ cannot be captured into numerical ratings. It is above all a gut — or better said, leg — feeling. A DJ that can get the floor danced, is a good DJ.