Id say i love all dance and electronic music; i listen to everything from electro (justice, simian, boyznoize) to tech house (nic fanciulli, joris voorn) and everything in between. Ive found i keep changing my musical interest; like one week its house then techno (most recently i love deep house; maya jane coles, subb-an etc)
so i was wondering if anyone else is having difficulty narrowing down there preferred genre; i keep getting torn in different directions (which has started to effect my mixing).
So im essentially wondering if anyone has any input, on the unnerving-issue of not being able to define my musical taste or what i want to DJ.
In the current climate of DJing I think you gotta be pretty well rounded when your starting out. I think you gotta be a pretty big name before you can focus exclusively on one genre and even then it’s always good to be prepared to play stuff that’s out of your comfort zone.
But if you’re looking to figure out a specific genre that you want to get tight with just notice how you react to songs when your playing them. Once you get into a flow pay attention to what genre is playing. I find when i’m djing and I get into some solid disco house, i’m groovin like there’s no tomorrow. Like you I enjoy a lot of other genres but to me disco house is definitely what gets me going the most.
these days most edm crosses over with another genre. don’t feel like you have to only play one type of music or narrow down to one genre. if you play more than one genre you will most likely get more gigs( if thats what you want to get to eventually). when i dj i play tech,house,minimal and electro, but i listen to pretty much anything.
this is true… i just tend to like anything that is trancy in some way. but seems to be anything from psytrance, trance, tech house, prog house, prog trance and some other stuff.
personally i would only want to dj in those styles - but really depends on what aims u have to dj… i have no plans to try and make this any kind of main income - else i would be more worried about branching out to get gigs i guess.
play to the feeling of a track not the genre… then you can cross over with no problems.. you could have a set with deep house, minimal tech, tech house, breaks and electro and no one would even notice genre hopping if you put the tracks in the right place according to the feeling you are trying to give your audiance, but you can suck the energy from a set if you change the feeling with the genre together eg. if you are playing a deep track then slam in an electro banger it will feel horrible for the crowd.
I always stress or worry, that whenever im unsure about a track, that the next track i pick is gonna loose the vibe or audiences attention. I really stress about this sometimes for some reason.
i’ve been playing house for 15 years now…i finally settled in playing “house” music…there is no other label for it…some tech, tech house, dub house, funky house, disco inflected house, etc…i play whatever sounds good to me…it always take a while to develop your own sound…
just get to know the music you’re playing, it’s best to play it on your ipod so you listen to the song not just the timing like you do on the decks. It’ll stick in your head much better this way and after a while stuff just comes to your mind of what to play next… don’t worry if the keys don’t match just do it and see what happens, that’s how I find the best mixes that I would never find if relying on the key and genre.
Style? It’s simply unreasonable to stick with a certain genre or style especially as of lately with the huge amount of new DJ’s around that all want to play their favorite music, and are just as qualified as you are, it’s your best bet to be well rounded. I think the true skill of a DJ is not how well they can mashup, or whether or not they can beatmatch by ear or scartch. It’s how well they can read a crowd, assess the energy and figure out what should (well never SHOULD, but what would be optimal) to play.
In a perfect world where everyone had the same musical taste as I, I would be spinning old school dubstep all night long. Realistically? Can’t really do that at your average house party, unless you get put on for a show specifically advertised for that sort of music.
Get creative with it, for instance; I don’t really have much of an opinion on Top40, it’s alright if you’re tipsy, and people like to hear it, so if I got a gig at a house party I try to mix that in with what i like to play. And that’s where I build my skill, to create smooth mixing within a plethora of genres.
