Telling a story! Taking your listeners on a musical journey!
So I have a question, i’ve read a lot about “telling a story” / “taking listeners on a musical journey” and I am not sure how to interpret it - to be frank. I spin hip hop / rap / little bit of EDM and dubstep, but mainly hip hop / rap. And soon I will be spinning Indian (Yes, from India) music as well because I have insta-connections with that.
A LOT of my parents friends want me to come and spin at their parties. The parties occur frequently and they are all loaded and I don’t mind spinning Indian music. I just started downloading Indian music to add to my collection and I am trying to incorporate everything I have learned / read from the forums.
Thing is, telling a story and such is hard for me to put in context, AND I highly doubt 40-50 year old Indian people will really care about the Story but I would still really like to incorporate it into my sets.
And my first regular set is going to be extremely soon (it was supposed to be last weekend but my friend had to cancel his party due to a family emergency. So whenever he sets it up again i’ll be spinning).
Side note: Holy shit, jus noticed I have just hit 500 posts. This forum has consumed my life , well along with DJ’ing.
it’s just a way of describing how you should create movement throughout the mix by building up and breaking down energy so you maintain people’s interest similar to how a story works.
It’s all about how you program your night music wise.
Start out slow and low key, nice groovy stuff. Then maybe move on to some more funky stuff. Keep building it up from there and then peak it for a bit, and then after peaking it take it a bit deeper to end the night.
You can’t just play one style or mood all night as there’s nothing to relate it to. If you play banging tunes all night that would be boring, but if you played some tunes that weren’t banging but built up to it then they would have that much more impact.
Almost like building up tension and then releasing it.
Those sayings wind me up no end. The likes of Paul Oakenfold used to use phrases like that and he ended up disappearing up his own arsehole. Sasha and John Digweed also used these kind of expressions back in the 90’s, but soon realised they sounded like c**ts and stopped.
It’s the equivalent of middle management using phrases like “think out of the box”, “be pro-active” and “are we all singing from the same hymn sheet”. Don’t be fooled by people who say these things and their tag lines. They are invariably egotistical, introspective, pretentious, vomit inducing shells of human beings.
Play what sounds good and what flows. Don’t let people dress it up as something else.
I’m normally so nice as well, but this kind of stuff rubs me the wrong way.
I’m still slightly confused, so i’m just trying to maintain a flow of energy to make sure that the “bangers” will still have the “banging” effect? Meaning I give people down time and such when they are on the floor?
How would you suggest I implement it in a hiphop set? Giving me a few song examples in a row please, that would be much appreciated.
yeah dude, if youve never had the pleasure of listening to one of doc’s sets, you should. its kinda crazy cause his sets have very subtile changes yet somehow, drastic ones.
although he never gets credit for it, hes America’s Sasha in a way and imo, hes better at what he does than Sasha could ever be.
@coldfusion
It’s not really the storytelling. I’d say keep the mixes “smart”. It could have to do with a whole genre, or a “feeling”.
I used to say the same thing, but I think that only works well with mixtapes IMHO. I have a couple of mixtapes based one a single subject, but it doesn’t always translate over well into a club environment. You may control the floor, but it may not be what everyone else may want to hear at that moment. Just read your crowd (like a proper DJ should), and see what’ll work, and what won’t. It’ll change everytime.
What you are talking about is the lost are of the “album.” Music is being produced and consumed as “singles” (if you’re lucky). Sometimes, it helps to look outside the specific genre you are most comfortable with to get a better feel for how to compose a good set.
The prototypical example of the “album as musical journey” is Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”. IMO, the best example of the album as musical journey is Boston’s “Third Stage”. It listens like one really long track…but manages to be fresh and captivating all the way through. (On the upside, I happen to really like Boston’s music…but that is just a bonus in this case.)
, well along with DJ’ing. 
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