Hi, everyone. I'm new to DJ-ing dances. I'm not new to swing nor DJ-ing. My experince though is in comercial radio. I can use any and all sage-like advice you have to give.
i've DJ-ed a couple of times and I've heard I'm wonderful and I suck, luckily I don't take stuff like that except with a grain of salt. So any general advice would be much appreciated.
Rookie --Help Me!!
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GemZombie
- Posts: 772
- Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2002 2:46 pm
- Location: Alpharetta, GA (Formerly SLO, CA)
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Do you dance?
Most of the DJ's here dance. We find that if you're DJing for dancers, you are obviously more in tune if you are also a dancer.
The sad things is that most "DJ's" will play their interpretation of "Swing" when asked to do so... that interpretation usually ends up being old played out standards, or neo swing of the likes of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. That might be great for a wedding or whatnot, but for actual dance events most of the dancers have moved on and have different tastes.
If you're new to Swing DJing... stick around here for a while, see who we talk about, check out some playlists from the regular DJs and see what you can learn.
Good luck
Most of the DJ's here dance. We find that if you're DJing for dancers, you are obviously more in tune if you are also a dancer.
The sad things is that most "DJ's" will play their interpretation of "Swing" when asked to do so... that interpretation usually ends up being old played out standards, or neo swing of the likes of Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. That might be great for a wedding or whatnot, but for actual dance events most of the dancers have moved on and have different tastes.
If you're new to Swing DJing... stick around here for a while, see who we talk about, check out some playlists from the regular DJs and see what you can learn.
Good luck
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mousethief
- Posts: 984
- Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2003 1:29 pm
- Location: dfw - a wretched hive of scum & villainy
I do dance, as much as possible. I live near Albany, NY, travel to Ct. a lot. I do try to mix things up a bit, the problem I've been running across is finding non-standard material. While I do need to increase my library in general my main problem comes when I try to find songs that aren't Basie, Ellington, Louis, Frank, or Ella and still dancable. The few times I've tried (Hot Lips Page and Susan Tedeshi to be specific) I got a lot of "What in the hell..." looks from people, even though the songs are dancable, at least in the terms of rythem and feel.
A lot of us here would probably be pretty happy if a night of dancing consisted of nothing BUT the above (minus Sinatra :)Remnent wrote:While I do need to increase my library in general my main problem comes when I try to find songs that aren't Basie, Ellington, Louis, Frank, or Ella and still dancable.
As far as general advice:
We have perennial arguments here about whether a DJ should be a service and should play whatever the crowd wants to hear (and thus keeps the floor full) or whether he should just play what he likes and get hired based on that. Obviously there is a middle ground which most of us fall into, but I think we tend to identify with one or the other of those camps.
So I would, if I were starting out, think about whether I would play songs that I don't like in order to please dancers.
Once you figure that out, it becomes easy to determine what music to buy. If you want to please the dancers, look up the "top songs of all time" thread (top 25?) on this forum and buy all the albums containing those songs.
Listen to your music a lot. You have to know your book pretty well to be able to satisfy the crowd.
Some people subscribe to the "flow" method of DJing where songs played one after another are relatively similar in feel and tempo, but over time they change subtly so that you wind up somewhere else. People are divided on this subject too...
We have perennial arguments here about whether a DJ should be a service and should play whatever the crowd wants to hear (and thus keeps the floor full) or whether he should just play what he likes and get hired based on that. Obviously there is a middle ground which most of us fall into, but I think we tend to identify with one or the other of those camps.
So I would, if I were starting out, think about whether I would play songs that I don't like in order to please dancers.
Once you figure that out, it becomes easy to determine what music to buy. If you want to please the dancers, look up the "top songs of all time" thread (top 25?) on this forum and buy all the albums containing those songs.
Listen to your music a lot. You have to know your book pretty well to be able to satisfy the crowd.
Some people subscribe to the "flow" method of DJing where songs played one after another are relatively similar in feel and tempo, but over time they change subtly so that you wind up somewhere else. People are divided on this subject too...
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mousethief
- Posts: 984
- Joined: Mon Mar 31, 2003 1:29 pm
- Location: dfw - a wretched hive of scum & villainy
Maybe he meant Frank Foster!julius wrote:A lot of us here would probably be pretty happy if a night of dancing consisted of nothing BUT the above (minus SinatraRemnent wrote:While I do need to increase my library in general my main problem comes when I try to find songs that aren't Basie, Ellington, Louis, Frank, or Ella and still dancable.
On a serious note, it will really depend on what you, Remnent, define as swing and what moves you personally. Judging from your list, I might recommend looking at Mill's Blue Rhythm, Chick Webb and Buddy Johnson. For newer artists, I might suggest Duke Heitger (New Orleans sound), as well as The Boilermaker Jazz Band or The Campus Five (for a hotter sound). You might also want to look at Johnny Hodges, Lester Young, etc for one-offs outside of the big bands.
Kalman
"The cause of reform is hurt, not helped, when an activist makes an idiotic suggestion."