Djing and Age -too old?

DJ Life & Community General Discussion
1

Djing and Age -too old?

I am 33 now, with a full time job and a baby on the way. The height of my djing “career” was probably about 10 years ago when I was still in college. Since then, djing has mainly been a hobby. I got into digital djing a little less than a year ago, and am way into it. My #1 issue: time.

Between work and family, I have a hard time finding time to devote to searching for music, prepping tracks and general messing around with my equipment, let alone finding and playing the occasional gig (which I would like to do). When my son arrives, there will be even less time to play with. After all, family comes first.

anyone else in the same stage as me, or have similar issues? I would be very interested to hear how 30+ part time dj’s handle the balance between work family and beats. any thoughts appreciated!

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its all about image my friend. getting a foot in the door is easy. dress for the job you want, and talk like you should have it. thats always step 1. fit in. LOOK like the right guy for the gig. first impressions are everything right?

your performance and mixing skills get you the audition, gig, or whatever

as far as time management. no easy answer there. just hope your wife is understanding =p

good luck bro

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im in the same bout with ya bro, well almost!

im 26 (27 this year), married and have a baby daughter (very adorable 2 years old girl), because of the baby i have decided to go back to school and get a degree in Audio Engineering before i get too old (hahaha) now with family and studies etc DJing becomes just something i enjoy doing in my spare time, i was djing fulltime at one point in my life before but i decided it wasnt enough and i want something more stable, i plan to do audio post-production in studios when i graduate (either for music, tv, video games etc)

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In almost exactly the same boat (31, kid on the way, married, busy job), though without the peak of a ‘djing career’ 10 years ago, as I only started playnig about 3 years ago.

I somehow manage to find time for tunes. I do have a massively tolerant wife though, and I’m realistic in my aims (I’m never going to be playing 3+ times a week. 3 a month is a stretch).

Age don’t meann you have to stop playing. The Nextmen (who’s rather wonderful podcast) I’m listening to right now are in their mid 30’s with kids etc and I’d say they’re smashing it.

5

nice finally a thread that not about 16 year olds trying to get gigs at the 21+ clubs. LOL

Same boat here guys, 31, married, have a 19 month old son(cute as hell LOL, gotta throw in a brag right?)…

I have been djing for many years off and on, started with vinyl back in the 90s etc etc. The one thing you always had to do back in the day is go to the partys get to now the promoters to try and get a gig. I just dont have time for that anymore. espically going to partys, my job is more then full time, Im in IT so i get calls after hours etc.

MY plan at this point has been to focus on producing tracks and getting them out there(deadmua5 wasnt part of a scene). then let the gigs come to me. I dont mean this in a concieded way, but theres really only two choices, either party it up and shmooze with the promoters or get tracks out there and let them shmooze you.

Also, a podcast is another way to get mixes out there(i.e. pete tong, hes not a great dj just has a popular show for 10+years). and i will tell you guys there are barely any good EDM podcasts. i cant count like 5 maybe 8 that are really good beyond that they are garbage.

hope this helps guys.

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I’m 41.

Been working my day job successful career as a project management business consultant. I’ve been dj’ing hard for 10 years in LA (as Robtronik for the most part).

It is a trick to balance the desire vs. responsibilities. I’ll be honest and say that I made a mistake with my marriage of 9 years and let my desire to want to succeed in the music ruin my marriage. I lost that balance. I have an 8 year old son too. This happened 3 years ago. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think back to those two years or so and fix some of the things that started to deteriorate.

The good news? My ex-wife and I are now good with each other and at a minimum, are good friends again. This helps with my son and him still having a family unit.

The joke used to be: Techno is an unforgiving mistress.

It’s true, it takes and takes and takes and if you aren’t careful, you can lose sense of perspective. So, be passionate about your art no matter your age, but be very clinical and logical about what price you are willing to pay to have your art be heard (as a DJ/mixer/promoter), whatever it is.

I’m a better person now for going through the lessons of life - and frankly, the past is the past. But if I can impress on you this (those with families and children, married, with jobs), just be honest with those around you at all times your intentions, what you want to accomplish, and then find a way to meet most of those goals with their input as well.

When it is a team effort, with compromise involved by everyone, but a larger goal that you can agree on, it works. It may take a bit longer to achieve, but it isn’t a race - its a long walk, a long journey that will hopefully give you lots of return and happiness along the way if you take your time and be diligent about moving forward in a patient, but persistent, way.

I don’t think age matters one bit. What matters is your passion, approach, and willingness to balance and move ahead without losing perspective of the larger picture.

I’m happy now, but boy did I pay a price for not following my own advice above. :slight_smile:

Do your thing. It’s possible.

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when you are older and have more responsibilities, you just gotta work on time management and stick to a schedule during the workweek.

i’m 32 and been living with my girlfriend for a few years now. we don’t have any kids but we have a dog and cat. i work a set schedule during the week and i don’t work weekends. but between dj related things, music production, making artwork, my girl and our animals, i would still like a little more time for music.

just last night, i was working on a routine[around 10pm] on my kontrol s4 and by the time i noticed the time, my lady told me to get to sleep and i ended up staying up until 2am doing music.

i’m lucky i use the bus to commute to work, because i can dedicate about an hour of my day [30 minutes each way] to listening to music or looking up new stuff on my iPhone.

if you’re in a similar situation or find some extra downtime somewhere, i suggest you use that for music.

*now, as far as being “too old” i think it is a state of mind.

i have a few favorite djs who are pushing well into their 40s or close to 50, like DJ Krush from Japan.

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Damn. Some very good thoughts there. I think just hearing from some guys who are in similar positions as I am is comforting.

Definitely some great advice here too-especially the part about involving your loved ones in your craft. Luckily, my wife has also been massively understanding when it comes to my musical interests, so that’s a great help. She even suggested a baby photo shoot with some of my gear after my son is born-how sweet is that!

(I should probably also clarify that the “height of my dj career” i spoke of above involved a weekly gig at the local college bar, and various fraternity parties, Lol. It still ruled.)

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im 29, i’ved lived 3 lives already. DJing since 93 at the age of 13. Dj’ed thru HS and part of college, joined the marine corp did all the crazy sh!t people expect marines to do. Married now for almost 9 years, and kids. I still get to dj at clubs and hold a Sunday night residency at a small bar.

I believe that I still have peaked nor reached my full potentional. I think I will never stop djing. I strongly believe with age, promoters and club owners take you more seriously than DJ Five Dolla Holla.

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Take a look at it from a different perspective for a minute. You guys may seem to think that you are all old and decrepit. But you guys are lucky! I mean, a promoter can say, “with age comes wisdom”, but yet we have people who are much younger and can’t seem to land a spot because they’ve filled up on too many old-timers!

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I’m 32, have a 4 year old daughter, and am divorced. My job (other than DJing) is event production, so I keep party hours for a living. This has made things easier for me, because I have my days free to spend with my little one. One thing that helped me was keeping the computer running and adjusting to grabbing a few minutes of work at a time, as opposed to several hours at a time. Be prepared to give up all your sleep. :slight_smile:

In the end, it was to lack of steady $ that wrecked my marriage, so you’ve got a leg up with the full time job. Just remember to save some time for you and your woman and she’ll forgive you a few dj gigs a month. :smiley:

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Thought I would chime in also, I’m 45.

Used to be a musician (in another life , many years ago), decided to give DJ’n a go last year. To make time for my new hobby, I quit my old one (on-line poker, which also paid for my S4 :slight_smile:). I usually only practice/work on DJ stuff, when the kid and wife are other wise occupied, asleep, or out. So i feel ya on the limited time.

After a year, I’m still a long way away from where I want to be. Lot’s of time spent learning mapping, sorting, gridding, reading manual, and traktor bible, etc. also take away from the practice time, but are neccessary. So I can sympathize here also. I try to spend at least an hour a day on DJ’n, but feel like I could use 8.

Another advantage to being an old guy is I know more bar owners now and not neccessarily from being a patron of their establishment. Business contacts, social gatherings, etc. So when I feel I’m ready to try a gig,(maybe by end of this year) I’m fairly sure I could get an odd Wednesday or Thursday night to play from one of them.

I feel like I should have said “Hi, my name is VanGogo, and I’m an over 30 DJ” at the start of my post. :smiley:

13

33
Baby on the way, working in a full continuous regime. Different hours each week, nightshifts, early shifts … So not the most handy job for a regulated social life.
But I manage to do so, and spent time with my gf, but the evenings mostly get spent with a few hours with her, and then 2 hours or so on music/dj’ing.
I’ve never really had a spot anywhere in a club, just know some better known dj’s over here, and follow them around. I could promote myself more, but mostly I think my time to promote has past, because of the age issue. Might be between the ears … but still it is what it is.

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One way of having an ‘outlet’ beyond gigs is online radio. The one I play on was set up by a bunch of older guys married with kids, who didn’t get the time to gig as often as they’d like, but still wanted an excuse to keep spanking the crates and digging for tnues - it also means we have a shit hot set of DJs with a massively eclectic taste, so that when we do run the odd one off night we tend to tear the arse out of the place …

I’m amongst the younger ones on Purple Radio …

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good to know theres some oldies on here. Im nearly 31 but have been into dance music since I was about 14 and been DJing since I was about 18. Over the last 3-4 years DJing has taken a back seat due to work commitments, getting married etc. No kids (yet!).

Have barely touched the decks over the last 3-4 years due to fincial strains which meant I couldn’t really buy any new music. This NYE a friend brought over his traktor set up with the X1 and it really opened my eyes!! i was a user of TFS way back on v1 but dumped it after the v2 upgrade fiasco but now am feeling interested again - have downloaded some new tunes and am now really looking at traktor with the new denon controller.

Am looking to get rid of my CDJ’s (1000 mk2 and 800 mk1)(anyone willing to buy??) to fund this move to totally digital as they are just gathering dust now(gonna keep my 1210’s for posterity as i couldn’t bear to part with them after all this time!) as it saves space for me.

crikey that reads like a bit of an essay!!

Anyway back on topic - I’m trying to get a couple of set nights per week to either produce with a mate or mess about with the demo of traktor and learn the system(i’ve got traktor pro on my birthday list!!)
Hopefully the mrs will be accomodating!!!

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+1 on this. I don’t know that I really want to put forth the effort and try real hard to get a regular gig out. At 40 I’ve been there and done that. Purple Radio though has given me the outlet and reason to continue playing and more importantly dig, which for me is a large part of why I do this.

Seems like that’s damn near a monthly event now Sam. :smiley: I really need to fly over there soon and meet you guys.

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im turning 30 this year, and will have then spent 1 year actually djing with equipment.

if anything, it makes me want a club gig more and more. im playing weekly at a little bar now, but it isnt enough.

steady job pays for the bills, and wife likes to dance so gives me an audience.

just wondering when it will start to get old or tiring, or when i simply wont be able to compete (if that even happens) with youngers. right now i feel like im playing catch-up, but im trying to find every trick i know to boost my game.

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pauly d is 30, no worries..:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Hi all, il be 37 next month with 2 kids, the missus and a cat, full time job and 2 gigs weekly, only thing ive noticed is my thinking and choice around music, more into my soul, funk and motown now,

i suppose with that comes an older audience, graceful brother, graceful!

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Chap you’d be more than welcome, Andy BGPZ seems to spend more time back in the UK than he does in Canada these days - and if I ever make it to see my childhood friends that moved to Texas …

(oh and on a tenuously related note - random blogpost relating to digging for new tunes wot I dun - http://sherlockohms.org/2011/02/03/three-on-a-thursday-1/)