SwingDJs

mousethief wrote:Wow, I guess you showed us. Way to keep the dancers happy.

I think you misunderstood. That's my knee-jerk reaction, even though I don't follow-through on it (as I noted parenthetically). I sometimes want to punch people in the nose, even though I don't follow through on that knee-jerk reaction, as well.

jmatthew wrote:I've always felt that my first priority was to keep people dancing happilly, however they wish to dance.

My first priority is to keep myself happy.

People hire me because what keeps me happy keeps them and their target audience happy.

aren't the better DJ's the happier ones that play the music they like which in turn the dancers like?

You can always tell the DJs who dont want to be there by the music they play. Often canned, overplayed music that is done with no thought at all.

Um... what DJ doesn't play "canned" music?

My first priority is making myself miserable by playing music I hate in front of lots of people.

People hire me because they enjoy watching the twisted expressions of disgust on my face as I realize "Ugch, God! This is awful music! Gotta play this one.... Nmmph, this one is even worse!"

GuruReuben wrote:Um... what DJ doesn't play "canned" music?

Me. See, I've got this new situation where I have a full band on stage behind the DJ booth, and they know every jazz tune from all eras. I cue up songs, and I've got a button that gives the band leader an electric shock. That prompts him to start the tune.

I even fade them in and out. Also, they have 200 people standing behind the stage to provide applause so they can reproduce live recordings. It's impressive stuff.

Soupbone wrote:

GuruReuben wrote:Um... what DJ doesn't play "canned" music?

Me. See, I've got this new situation where I have a full band on stage behind the DJ booth, and they know every jazz tune from all eras. I cue up songs, and I've got a button that gives the band leader an electric shock. That prompts him to start the tune.

I even fade them in and out. Also, they have 200 people standing behind the stage to provide applause so they can reproduce live recordings. It's impressive stuff.

I make it easier. I just sing Karaoke over Johnny Hodges' solos.

Lawrence wrote: and the naive "teachers baby them" comments that kicked the thread off

Lawerence, this is from experience. In minnesota where i helped to grow the lindy hop scene, in my lindy hop classes I would always play a wide range of tempos trying to get the beginners to be able to layback and dance slower, or to speed up the tempos and actually keeping up. Most scenes that I have been to do not play any faster music in any lindy hop class unless its a specialty "fast lindy hop" class which I think is a problem. To compare it, it would be the same if nobody used slow music to teach except for a specialty class called "groove lindy".

So rather than being naive, as you so (haha) naively suggest, this has actually worked in practice. The number one reason that a lot of people aren't comfortable dancing fast iz becassue they dont get an opportunity to. Then when maybe the one fast song you might play in a night turns into a jam (which makes you like fast music less and very few people get an opportunity to dance to the song).

The biggest influences on a scene are the teachers and the music. DJs control the music so that makes them important as an influence. If you are questioning certain things about your scene (as the person who started this thread is) that is the first place you should look. So you, rather than getting on this thread and offering any kind of advice or help to the person who started the thread, you just got on here and whined. Well done.

Where is your constructive input to this situation? Or do you have none because you are probably the exact person who keeps their students only dancing to slower tempos and only DJs slower tempos because you yourself cant keep up to the faster tempos? Do you even want people to be able to dance to all tempos, or only to tempos that you like to dance to?

I pride myself on being able to dance to as wide variety as tempos as possible. Hell, i helped create showdown, the fastes copmpetition out there, and I also get invited to teach and DJ at Cheap Thrills in St louis. Quite a variety. I never look at tempos as a way to determine if a song is good or not. So i just like dancing to good jazz msuic regardless of tempo. The problem myself an other people feel is that our scenes are very one sided tempo-wise (which is the truth, not a fabrication) and that we want a TRUE variety.

So, Sunday night, I threw on a 226 BPM tune pretty early on in the evening. There was no jam circle. And the beginners were dancing. It made me sooooo proud of them.

Made me realize how far we had come in the last few years, when NO ONE would have danced at that tempo. Just saying that it can happen.

It's really cool to see beginners trying something new, experimenting with and extending what they know from class. Many of my selections provide the opportunities for them to push their tempo envelope (up or down).

Never underestimate the influence of teachers. They have huge influence on the perception of music for Lindy Hop (or any other dance for that matter). Too often teachers get lazy and use the same old mix CD for teaching and don't expose students to the variety of music available.

falty411 wrote:

Lawrence wrote: and the naive "teachers baby them" comments that kicked the thread off

Lawerence, this is from experience. In minnesota where i helped to grow the lindy hop scene, in my lindy hop classes I would always play a wide range of tempos trying to get the beginners to be able to layback and dance slower, or to speed up the tempos and actually keeping up. Most scenes that I have been to do not play any faster music in any lindy hop class unless its a specialty "fast lindy hop" class which I think is a problem. To compare it, it would be the same if nobody used slow music to teach except for a specialty class called "groove lindy".

Apart from some forgivable wisecracks, that makes complete sense, and I emphatically agree. (Hell hath frozen over.) I teach that way, myself, and--although I do start off with slower tempos in my classes--I also believe that teaching at faster tempos in the third or fourth class of a beginner session is not only important to broaden their ability to dance at different tempos, it also is the best way to correct many types of flaws that will persist if they only dance to slow tempos: mostly in correcting extraneous and inefficient movement that shouldn't be there in slower dancing and that simply CANNOT be there in fast dancing because there is no time for it. Totally agree.

The first few posts touched a nerve, and I just had some fun with it. This latter post was by far your most constructive, balanced, reasonable post I have ever seen, and that tone expresses many of the same ideas in a much more palatable, balanced fashion. I don't agree that people who prefer to dance to slower tempos are wimps or fat asses or babies or idiots who don't "get it," or that they are "bastardizing the dance;" but I do agree that fast dancers should try dancing slow and slow dancers should try dancing fast if only to shake things up and keep it interesting.

damn, I didnt think I would get as flamed as I did by saying Canned.

Canned was not used appropriately, as I can see now that the fire has died down. I meant trite, overplayed, banal songs like I Diddle in SF, and Wade In The Water in USA.

Does that help

Do you know any venues that have tried ideas like?
"Mad half hour"
- 30 minutes of upper tempo songs.

I know there have been one or two venues that have been aiming at a Bal & Shag crowd by playing faster music. How successful have they been, and what kind of scene did they have in order to set those nights up.
When I was in Herrang, some of the nights in the back dance floor was aimed at the Bal / Shag crowd. I had some of my best fun Charleston dancers there. I did really enjoy the DJing. I can't even remember who was doing it, but they did a good job.

Brian

Setting time frame for faster music just means dancers will either leave or arrive in order to avoid it. Faster music typically attracts beginners and NO ONE wants to be seen on the same level as them... whatever.

If you want to encourage people to dance to faster music, you have to work it into your sets but you can't just do it for the sake of playing up-tempo tunes. You have to build some rapport within your set, using some local favorites to get the energy built for a fast piece.

No matter what you play, if they don't trust you, you're screwed.

Kalman

mousethief wrote:No matter what you play, if they don't trust you, you're screwed.

One of the best things I've read on this site. For months, I've been thinking about the importance of the dancers trusting the DJ.