Got the crowd eating out of the palm of your hand? Is it your music that does the trick or something else?
Successful DJing is all about bums on seats (well, feet on dancefloors, actually). The audience is an essential half of DJing. If you want any kind of success, you take this to heart and never lose sight of it. It’s woven into what a DJ does. It’s fundamental to what we teach in How To Digital DJ Fast.
So where does that leave playing the music you like? Where does that put your tastes, your musical aspirations? How can you fit these things around keeping an audience happy? How and to what extent you do this depends on where you fall in “The DJ Quadrant”…
The DJ Quadrant
The DJ Quadrant: Where do you fit into it?
Let’s take our first look at The DJ Quadrant. OK, so this shows various types of DJing. All DJs fit into the quadrant somewhere. If you’re playing music, you fit into the quadrant. If you have an audience (whether it’s your sister’s birthday party or a superclub), you fit into the quadrant. This graphic represents an absolute fundamental of what DJing is about.
(I said “all DJs fit in the quadrant somewhere”. It’s not strictly true. If you’ve yet to play in public, or you choose to DJ at home to please only yourself, then of course you’re not on this map. But as soon as you do, the rules apply to you too.)
Looking at the quadrant horizontally, DJs in the upper half of the quadrant are DJing primarily for the music. It’s their driver. DJs in the lower half, however, are doing it primarily for some other reason.
Good DJs can exist in every single quartile of the quadrant except iv…
But looking at it vertically, DJs on the left-hand side of the quadrant are keeping dancefloors full and happy. Conversely, DJs operating in the right-hand side of the quadrant are, for whatever reason, not – their dancefloors have voted with their feet and are empty.
However, good DJs can exist in every single quartile of the quadrant except in quartile iv. Yes, that’s right – you can be a good DJ in quartile iii, no problem. You can also be a great DJ in or around quartile ii. Quartile i certainly isn’t the only place good DJs are playing all over the world, right now, making great money and having a lot of fun.
Let’s explain by taking a closer look at the quartiles, and who fits into each of them.
Quartile i – “Full dancefloor, happy DJ”
What’s not to like? You’re at the height of your game, you’re where you want to be. Let’s take a look at the lucky types of DJ who live here:
- Superstar DJs – Well, at least some of them. These are people who’ve paid their dues, and whose audience has come to see them and them alone. The audience knows their music. These DJs probably got to where they are by making the music they and their contemporaries play. As long as they resist the temptation to go “off on one” (imagine Tiesto suddenly playing dubstep?) they remain firmly in this category
- Good specialist DJs – They’re playing in smaller clubs where the audience, again, has come either to see them or to enjoy the certain style of music that they play. Again, they’ve earned their dues. They’ve found the right gigs, maybe produced a few tracks, built an audience. They’re not all going to be tomorrow’s superstars, but tomorrow’s superstar DJs will probably end up coming from this group
- Mainstream DJs who love their music – Many DJs genuinely love the popular music of the day, and thoroughly enjoy DJing it. To them there’s no issue – they play the pop their audience wants to hear, they enjoy it and so get very good at it, and everyone’s happy. Make no mistake, though – being a good pop DJ is just as hard as being a good underground DJ
Quartile ii – “My music at all costs”
We’ve all seen it. DJs playing to empty dancefloors. DJs coming on who clear dancefloors. Two-room venues where the crowd are usually balanced, but tonight one room is over-full and the other empty. All over the world, DJs clear dancefloors. I’ve done it. If you haven’t, you will one day. Somewhere, someone is doing it as you read this. So why does it happen?
- You’ve been misbooked – You made the mistake accepting the gig, and now you’re living with the consequences. It’s just not your crowd, and there’s little you can do about it. You’re out of your depth
- You’re not watching your audience – If you’re ploughing through a pre-planned set with no regard for your audience, it’s like a one-way conversation – and you’ve got a megaphone!
One map clapping? It's the cost of disregarding what your audience has come for. Pic: Deviant Arts
DJing is a two-way thing, a collaborative process, a musical conversation. Fail to follow your crowd and you can easily drift into quartile ii
- “I’m an educator, not an entertainer” – Great DJs – and I mean really great DJs – can, at their best gigs, educate 50% of the time. The other 50% is entertainment. If you really believe otherwise, my only advice is to be very sure of your talent, because arrogance always empties dancefloors
- You’re not really a DJ – Musical passion does not necessarily make you a DJ. Producers, for instance, sometimes get pushed into the spotlight as DJs when they’re not comfortable with it. Or rookie DJs, who haven’t learned the ropes yet, think they can pack a crate of 100 tunes that they personally love and just play them, simply not realising that there is more to DJing than that. For these DJs, it’s just a case of accepting there’s more to learn, and setting to it
Quartile iii – “Fill the floor, whatever”
Despicable, huh? Playing music you don’t like just to keep the dancefloor happy? Not so fast, buster. That’s not fair and it’s also untrue. Let’s take a closer look at who lives in this quartile:
- Struggling new DJs – Most DJs who rely on DJing for a living play gigs that aren’t the best for them – some more than others. Needs must. While you may be an underground rising star, it doesn’t pay the bills, so you mobile DJ on the side. While you may be a bedroom producer who’s going to make it big one day, you DJ in your local mainstream club at the weekends to remain in the music business and to make the cash that supports you. But as long as you’re keeping your dancefloors full, and you’re personally happy with the plan you’ve made for the longer term, is this really a problem?
- Mobile DJs – Hear me out, mobile guys, as I have played 100s of mobile gigs, especially early in my career. It takes just as much skill, dedication and professionalism to do mobile DJing as any other type of DJing. That’s why good mobile DJs get rebooked, that’s why their dancefloors are full. But nobody goes
It's all part and parcel of being a good mobile DJ, and it takes skill to conduct dancefloor games.
into mobile DJing because they have a burning desire to express themselves, their musical passion. It’s not the natural type of DJing for this, because the music mobile DJs are generally required to play isn’t individual enough for all that – they’re expected to play music across the generations that’s very familiar. Instead, mobile DJs pride themselves on suiting the occasion. While most mobile DJs don’t mind their tunes, and they certainly like some of them, musical expression is not their sole driver: They see a bigger picture. They get at least as much of their satisfaction from the other elements of the job – making people happy, the personality side of it and so on, as they do the music
- Some superstar DJs – Yup, you hear me right. You would not believe the number of superstar DJs who are utterly sick of what they play, or are doing it for the money. I know, they privately tell me. They’re trapped by the sound they are known for, and get good money to perpetuate it. For every superstar DJ who’s moved with the times and developed their musical passion along with their audience’s, there’s another who’s carried on pushing the buttons and taking the cash. Before you judge though, can you really blame them? If you’re good at your job and it pays you well, do you really have to love it as much as you do when you first started doing it in order to keep doing it?
Quartile iv – “I have nightmares about this!”
What could be worse than playing music you don’t like to an audience that doesn’t like it either? Yet it happens, and it’s the trap most DJs have nightmares about falling into at one stage or another. And before you say “that’s not me, I’d never let that happen”, take a look at these scenarios:
- You’re playing music you don’t like out of desperation – You’ve tried all your usual tricks, and they ain’t working. So you decide to go for broke and break out some tracks that you’re so not all about. And they fail. Bingo. You deserve better, but nonetheless you’ve ended up in the fourth quartile
- You’re a mobile DJ with a difficult crowd – There’s nothing more miserable than doing a mobile show when for whatever reason, people simply don’t want to dance. You can hardly throw in the towel and start playing your true passion (let’s say dubstep!) to please yourself, can you? So you have to plough on, and keep trying. Most times, you’ll crack it eventually. But not always…
- You’re playing ill-advised requests – Often this happens because you’re already in trouble and looking to the requests to dig you out of the doo-doo, but if someone’s “just play this and everyone will dance” proves to be a disaster, hello quadrant iv! (We can also include being made to play music by the management here, against your judgement)
Hang on, though…
So hang on, you might be saying, didn’t you say it’s possible to exist happily in all quartiles except in quadrant iv? What about quartile ii? That doesn’t look like a nice place to be, emptying dancefloors everywhere you go because of your music passion! How can that be a fun or profitable place to exist?
Ah, but here’s where your musical passion comes in on your side – if you really do care about the profession of DJing, and about making people happy, as well.
They can have the crowd exactly where they want them, dancing to music they didn’t know they liked…
Remember the great DJs I spoke of who educate and entertain? These people actually enjoy living right where quartiles i & ii join. Through their enthusiasm in the DJ box, their mixing skills and their clever programming, even their star quality, they can take a crowd in their hands and move it towards quadrant i, while playing music that lesser DJs simply couldn’t get away with.
They can switch between quartiles i and ii at will, until the quartiles blur into one, and until they have the crowd exactly where they want them – dancing wildly in quartile ii, to music they didn’t know they liked until this precise second.
For many, that’s what DJing is all about. But it’s not easy, and there’s no short route to perfecting it.
Yet if you remain humble, always watch your audience, accept your bookings carefully, know when you’re compromising, and keep passionate about the whole art of DJing, not just the music, you’ll have gigs that are enjoyable – and that keep you out of quadrant iv!
So where do your gigs fall? Do you take and play shows in more than one quadrant? How do you combine your love of music with what your audience wants? How important is it to educate your audience as well as to entertain them? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
Now go to:
How To Read A Crowd (And What Happens If You Don’t)
How Can I Calm A Rowdy Dancefloor?
How Much Do Audiences Care About The Way DJs Mix?
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Tags: The DJ Quadrant
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I am definitely the ii one… I am playing House / Electro tunes but my audience wants to hear charts. In my opinion, you don’t have to book a DJ to play charts because there is no space for express as a DJ. You are just playing the top 40 or something but not the tunes you are really into. Real nice mixing is also not possible in most cases which is annoying. I am actually trying to make a good mix out of 60-80% remixes of favorite Songs, 10% original Charts tracks and 5% ordinary Electro tracks. This is working very well on one day and not so well on the next. For me it is a punishment to play such gigs where almost a nearly zero tolerance line for other music like electro is. I am currently spinning from time to time in a youth centre for 14-17 year olds so you get what I mean
. But I love to spin so this is fun anyway. 
[ link ]Marc, you’re doing exactly the right thing in trying to work out ways of “breaking out” of Qii while still having fun! “I am actually trying to make a good mix out of 60-80% remixes of favorite Songs, 10% original Charts tracks and 5% ordinary Electro tracks. ” – perfect. I wish you lots of luck.
[ link ]Thanks for your positive feedback Phil. I follow your Blog since half a year and it helped me out with some tricky questions. Thanks for your work! Back to topic: I meant 60-80% remixes of charts, maybe it was a bit unclear in my first post. This is what I made to become a bit more attention from the crowd but it not really happend: http://i.mixcloud.com/Czany I would be proud if you have a short listen
Thanks for all Phil!
[ link ]Although i have only just started djing house parties, using vocals samples, or looping vocals from popular mainstream songs with tracks you really love is a good way to keep everyone happy.
[ link ]Yup, this is true, and is part of the way that mixing techniques can bridge Qi & Qii. Brice touched on it yesterday in his pop article.
[ link ]I just saw Green Velvet do this. He put an Adele acapella over a Techno track. The crowd went nuts!
[ link ]This was a very good read. I think I jump between I, II & III…
[ link ]I find myself in all but the iv…
[ link ]I play as a mobile DJ on weddings, birthdayparties, companygiggs and other. But I also play clubs (mostly top 40 chart clubs)
In rare occations on weddings I get lists of some tunes I do not like so then it is a iii but only in rare ocations. When I play clubs I tend to do as you say in the text i go from i to ii when I have the ordience trusting me and I always read the dancefloor. Sometimes I can play more sometimes less from ii….
But most of the time I am in the i. Mostly because I love music and there is not mamy tracks I do not like really.
I like 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 00s new. All genres and I like to blend.
I also have no difficults mixing any music as long as it is not to much difference in BPM but then there is other ways to mix it.
Bpm mixing EDM for 4-5 hours is just not fun for anyone IMO not me nore the ordience.
I’ve had moments where I was in Quartile I, where I was on fire, loving my set, and the crowd loving me.
Had many more where it seemed to be slipping on the border of Quartiles I and II. They didn’t hate the music, but honestly didn’t care either. No one dancing, but no one leaving or making requests.
Most gigs I’ve been in though have ended up being Quartile III. Usual case was I was booked to play one style or sound, but found out the promoter went and filled his event with an audience who didn’t want that. So I’d be booked to play deep house or trance, but the crowd I end up facing wants pop or rap music. I could have stayed in Quartile II and just be a snob, but I felt like I was doing a disservice to it all with that.
I will say the onset of digital DJing has helped save my butt many times when I ended up in those scenarios. So rather than tell a promoter or audience that I only have one style of music in my record box, I had a whole hard drive of variety to go around in and find the happy medium.
A lot of this is why I moved back into being a hobbyist and only take gigs when I know it will be guaranteed Quartile I situation. I can tell now when a promoter understands and it booking me for a suitable night versus an amateur who has no clue. I’ll be nice and suggest some more mainstream DJs I know, simply because those guys will do better by that crowd over me.
I did end up in Quartile IV once. Was booked to DJ a small party of Polish teens, and they hated me simply because I was not Polish. Can you believe that? They wanted their buddy to DJ (he normally DJs their parties), but he declined on that one night when they first wanted to book him. I was so happy when the night ended.
I do see many DJs sit in Quartile II, and that bothers me. My old school buddies tend to do this. They want to have a night of 20-30 minute pre-planned sets of them tricking, scratching, and quick-mixing like they did in the 90s, but they continually end up with an empty room and people constantly asking them for different music. I still can’t believe they don’t “get it”.
They wanted to throw a 90s night once, but I remember their interpretation of that was old Chicago hardhouse quick-mixing and old rave anthems…when the normal audience’s interpretation of a 90s night was a DJ playing hit tunes of MTV like Color Me Badd, Young MC, EnVogue, etc. What a mess that night ended up!
[ link ]Ha Haa!
[ link ]Very interesting!
Keep up the good spinning by the way!
After years of playing in the bedroom, back rooms and small parties. The one thing that got me nearer to Tile 1 was playing to students.
I went to university in 1995 a touch older (in my 20s), thinking everyone would be cool and into my underground house tastes. How wrong I was. The only way I could get a gig was to play the 80s nights, which was easy as I had a huge pop collection due to being older than the 18-19 year olds freshers.
It made me lose my snobby elitest music attitude and realise that I had to entertain. A few weeks with a que around the block at 9pm made me soon change my ways and start enjoying commercial music alongside my own tatstes.
At the end of the night I’d prefer a full dancefloor of strangers cheering to the Jackson 5 that a few mates nodding their heads to Jurassic 5
[ link ]i can admit that I play a night in QIV. I try to sell out and people still tell me to play something else.
[ link ]i play old, they call it tired, I play new they call it unfamiliar,
i play gaga, they want rihanna, i play rihanna they want gaga,
i play loud they want soft, i play soft they want loud,
i mix it up, they want an identity, i play it straight, they want variety.
any club in QIV just needs live bands or a juke box or to just close.
I might be bouncing between Qi and Qii. I’m mostly a mobile dj, playing at students gigs, and, especialy for the girls, there is often a zero tolerance for music different than top 40. I would love to play my music like Hed Kandi kind of music, disco house, deep soulfull groovy house, Nu Disco and electro house.
However, many don’t want to hear that and you have to balance out. I kind of learned to have respect for popular music. There are some realy golden songs (I think of Kevin Lyttle – Turn me on, and Mohombi – Bumpy Ride), and it delights you to see the crowd go wild. You still can keep your own style, playing the music you like and the audience like. For example, there is no way you will hear me play lady gaga, but I like to add in some latin flavours, regaeton, even throwing in some salsa, older R&B songs from Usher, and some others classic songs from the good old days which used to be popular but who are a bit forgotten. There are always tracks I call “transition songs”. Like Pitbull does. After that, I can use some of the music I like, or add a cheerfull disco house track, and go back back again to more mainstream music. That way, I can still express myself.
[ link ]I am a Dj in the Mississippi Delta “home of the blues”!! In Mississippi almost all djs are mobile….they are not your average mobile gigs..simply clubs that require sound systems…I was booked in a town by a club owner because his patrons insisted!! I didn’t discuss details and accepted the gig!! I showed up and was required to play on the “house sound system” A overly loud clipping, distorted, bass deficient mound of crap…The night was a nightmare because my tracks didn’t sound right….I usually hover between 1 and 2 quAdrant….shitty sound took me #4 with thoughts of quitting…because taking I’ll advised requests….I play mainstream music that I like and “ram bass though their ears” like a mad man!! Oh yeah…f*** dubstep!!
[ link ]“Oh yeah…f*** dubstep!!” LOL!!! You mean the music that goes wobble-wobble-wobble? If there’s one genre I find to be divisive, it’s dubstep. “come on, Stone. Please no more dubstep” “but they asked for it, dawg” “I don’t care. No more dubstep”
[ link ]I’d say dubstep is better described by wob-wob-wob.
[ link ]This article is extremely great, I was so confused in whether to play what I like or what everyone likes in a house party tonight, so I assume Im on quadrant ii.
[ link ]The thing is that I never use only play and make transitions, I always play around with cues, effects to make it more different than others, then they started to tell me to just play the song with same beat and everything, I don’t think that’s fun to mix so what can I do?
José Reach said it nicely: play some “transitional” songs the audience likes and goes crazy, then you can throw in a song you like.
Yet, consider it always as a try and don’t be offended if the audience doesn’t like it.
There’s a nice scene in the movie “Everywhere and Nowhere” where the DJ is reluctant to play “his” song. When he finally plays it, the crowd doesn’t go nuts, but you can see that they enjoy it.
Humility prevents your fall.
[ link ]Recently, I had to modify my whatever-gets-the-women-dancing. Selfish types pick songs just so they can have all the dudes watch them. They don’t think about everyone else. No, the world centers around them. I try to come to a comprise. I’ll play requests I don’t like…if it fits the overall vibe. Then, I play the music I do like. Usually, that works out for me. Now, when it comes to quadrant 4? For me, that happens when management wants me to play music no one wants to hear. One time, they wanted me to play Mariachi music for a Day of the Dead theme. Yet, many folks weren’t feeling it.
[ link ]Most of my well-paying gigs have been mobile gigs – weddings. And the best thing about them is that they expose me to tons of new music that I wouldn’t have known otherwise. I’ve really enjoyed it, in my experience. I end up starting research and prep for the gig in quartile iii, but end the gig in quartile i, having developed an appreciation for my customer’s tastes.
[ link ]Really good, everyone wins!
Broadening your tastes is a GREAT way to move to Quartile i.
[ link ]I’m definitely a i and ii DJ.
As an eclectic DJ I think it is a lot easier to “switch between quartiles i and ii at will, until the quartiles blur into one, and you have the crowd exactly where you want them”
Also I don’t work clubs so there is no dancefloor to clear. I consider the night a success if I can create a musical journey that takes people from foot tapping to head nodding and finally dancing.
Even if I don’t get them dancing but the place is busy and alive with good cheer it is still a success.
I usually get the required result by playing what I love and peppering my set with a handful of quality (zero fromage) pop tunes from the past and a bunch of classic underground tracks that crossed over into the mainstream.
For instance tonight I started with rare Donald Byrd and some new funk by The Stance Brothers then slowly worked my way into some classic party hip hop (like Chubb Rock and Young MC) but within half an hour I was mixing Michael Jackson – Billie Jean with Midnight Star – The Midas Touch and an hour after that I was deep into a pure broken beat nu jazz session and that was when I had people up dancing.
I started with stuff I liked but the crowd was kinda indifferent to, worked my way subtlety into stuff they all knew and loved then bounced back and forth between popular music and stuff that sounded similar to the popular music until I was playing a strictly underground set and they were loving it. Then when I had them fully on my side I went all out and played stuff that would usually empty the place but instead I had the place rocking because they trusted me.
As for quartile iii I only ever go there if I have no other choice.
I really really hate the commercial stuff nowadays so I almost always refuse weddings and I avoid working commercial venues. But of course there are always those rare occasions when you have no money and there’s no other choice but to accept that wedding.
For me that is when the dreaded Quartile iv can arise!!!!
[ link ]Sad to say I’m in quad iv…last week at this house party i was felt like selling my equipment. I was depressed man!!! i played some old/new rnb to loosen the young 20 something year old girls up then some hip hop old/new rap for the fellas and no one would dance. I even put some banging reggae on and a few a the girls danced together but it still wasn’t any satisfaction for me. It took for me to play some dance/pop/Baltimore house music to get these “kids” to dance. I just never thought young black kids wanted to hear levels by avicil or David Guetta. i think im gonna switch to being a house dj……..
[ link ]You would be surprised what people want to hear.
[ link ]I spun for ‘white’ crowds that only wanted to dance to classic 80′s/90′s Hip Hop. The key is being prepared to address any genre. Don’t give up. Failing at times is a good part of djing!
Definitely straddled i – ii – iii in the course of the parties I’ve played in 2011 since getting falling back in love with it all thanks to DDJing!
If its a private party I’ll take a few requests early on to pepper my set with stuff the person who’s party it is really wants to hear, but strictly speaking my set runs to a similar formula at most gigs (so far), being;
Probably start a bit more in Qii (but often the crowd start to show signs of enjoying the groove) with slower funky hip-hop, soul, funk n’ beats moving into mid-tempo funky breaks. Thats often my first hour or so wrapped up and is essentially the warm up phase for me – sometimes find by the end of it I’ve reached into Qi – sometimes not!
I’ll then switch up to faster BPM ‘crowd friendly’ house, disco, breaks and a few current chart tunes (but generally remixed versions so they feel a bit different) which can lead me to living in Qiii for a while.
But If I have the party “with me” I’ll go a bit harder and faster with some breaks and even arrive at a couple of dubstep remixes of reasonably well known tunes (Qi-ii time again, but sometimes it goes off!). Then to really push it if I can feel a good response to something edgier I’m into some DNB but again, always tunes that people will recognise (have an absolutely killer Prodigy / Limp Bizkit DNB tune that normally slays the dancefloor!) and at this point it can be all three in one Qi-ii-iii!!!
And after that craziness I’ll swing back to some really funky classics – some disco rap, commercial pop (MJ and the likes) and pretty much anything that takes my and the crowds fancy. If its all worked out I generally find I’m fully in Qi by this point and all bets are off on what I’ll drop to keep the dancefloor alive!
Won’t pretend I’m the worlds best DJ technically but the parties I play all seem to get a good reaction, so I’ll just keep on keeping on and hopefully I’ll get more and more Qi responses as I improve my style in the future!
[ link ]You can put some things that you like in to most gigs even really commercial ones, the trick is knowing when to stop and get back to the usual fodder lol
[ link ]Exactly, the old “straddling Qi & Q2″ trick
[ link ]Ha Haa Haa!
[ link ]This article was FANTASTIC!
Thx for the inspiration!
Been doing some dj-booking for venues, and the dj who does quartile 2 and 4 never gets booked again by me.
I want dj´s that can play what the crowd wants with a straight face. I don’t want house-dj’s playing top-40, the crowd can feel when you fake it.
If you a really good dj U can get quartile 2 to become quartile 1, but that only happends when you learn to lead the crowd, instead of followin it.
[ link ]Definitely been in all four at different times. Number 1 on Friday just gone and definitely number 4 for most of last night. A mixture of a tough crowd, poor requests that I stupidly fulfilled and me being shite….
I’ve learnt over the years to never venture in to number 2 any more and have had some fantastic gigs in number 3.
[ link ]Guilty of all 4. The crowd can feel when you fake it, so these day´s i simply don´t play tracks i don´t like. People enjoy when they see you enjoy yourself. Nowadays i even start playing some of my favorite tracks in my cans just to make me happy before getting into it. This weekend i turned down the Skrillex remix of Avicii´s Levels, probably the hottest pop track here right now but i knew it would clear the floor so i skipped it. (and i do like it personally.) Sometimes i clear the floor intentionally to keep the bar busy and rebuild it all again. I´m lucky enough to have a very mainstream and quite wide musical taste and enjoy small complicated dance floors with poor working class people letting of steam. The bigger the more impersonal it gets.. /Casca
[ link ]I DJMUKLUK am a very versatile DJ hip hop was my main but the thing is in my everyday life i love music i can club dj one night and do a corporate gig playing billy idol the next then i can go video dj for another so to ME i play what the people love because i am those people i love all music i even like Heavy Metal rock older country pop top 40 and underground and i did all of this with With NO EGO I LOVE TO DJ for all crowds NO EGO
[ link ]I agree to this to a point, except that I think it would be better illustrated through a venn diagram rather than a quadrant. I fall pretty evenly between 1&3 with a *bit* of 2 sprinkled on. I play a lot of stuff I am either tired of hearing or is too mainstream for my tastes, but its a crowdpleaser, a lot of stuff that is brand spanking new but totally destroys, and a small peppering of minimal that *I* like but understand that flavor isn’t for everyone. Keep a balance, if you dont keep your crowd happy, they will empty out, and you wont have anymore gigs. If you dont keep yourself happy, you’ll dread going to your gigs and lose your passion.
[ link ]The worst night ever was a night at my residency where I fit into each of those quadrants at some point or another…all in the same night. It was a nightmare. In the long run, I’ve been careful enough to live in quadrant one. But that one night of all 4 quads totally thre me for a loop. I guess my advice is: don’t get caught up in your own hype. Stay humble and have fun. The moment you think your a dope Dj could turn into a night of hell lol. It was a good learning experience and I’ve been smart enough to never repeat those mistakes again.
[ link ]what an awesome article, and the comments too…im not a dj, im just learning to dj because i love music and wanna satisfy my self doing something new…if i end up one day DJing on a gig it will be for fun, where i and the crowd enjoys (of course if its coming by hand with some $$ will be very welcome haha)…
and as soon the fun goes away i will stop doing it :l
and i would like to be on Q4, just to know how does it feel haha!
[ link ]In truth I heard tiesto drop some dubstep at last years bal en blanc
[ link ]DJing at Qiv: humiliating
Doing a Qi the next night: priceless
I had the luck to play Qiv and then Qi/ii to the same audience on two different nights
It was a company incentive on my island and I was hired to DJ to DJ two nights for the team.
First night was based on a wishlist done by the marketing lady who thought (only) about what her boss liked… he was 45 and the team was in their 30ies…
The worst thing that can happen: I was feeling embarrassed and that led directly to desaster. And the more emarrassed you get the more difficult it is to get out of it. Needless to say, the night ended (luckily) quite early due to motivational meetings the next day in musical desaster and lots of complaints to the organizer who booked me.
Second night, second chance. I took the lead and I kept my focus at the audience (and less at the next song). Also, I politely rejected every request with a smile saying “don’t worry, we’ll get there”:) and truly led the dancefloor (instead of being chased by it the night before).
Result: one of my nicest Qi nights so far.
[ link ]Bonus: received a tip that doubled my income.
I offered my friend to DJ at her party.. She made a favorites list which consisted of 80% bachata, salsa and merengue.. So I went on and downloaded the songs, not knowing at ALL how to mix those together, and frankly I don’t think that’s possible either. So I ended up in QIII mostly and even sometimes in QIIII for a couple of times..
Worst night of my life!
[ link ]You live and learn
[ link ]I totally agree with your view as I have been all of them DJ’s and it truly boils down to being observant of your crowd and critical of what you play and when you play it. The best way to work is to play as if it were you on the dance floor and the question is what would make me dance because that’s one of the reasons your a DJ because you want to make people dance and of course educate them by removing their blinkers without them knowing it, we are 007′s of the music world. Still loving the music and mixing at 42 and enjoying the digital age although I am a vinyl junkie of old.
[ link ]“Educate them by removing their blinkers without them knowing it,” – good words Simon.
[ link ]I loved reading this, as I’m an aspiring DJ as well! The only problem is, I’m only 14! From my age, people generally automatically believe I’m no good. Do you know how someone my age can get their start out here? XD It’s even harder because I generally mix electro house/complextro/trance songs, which apparently most kids my age arn’t into. (Although electro house is getting bigger!) Thanks!
[ link ]I’d definitely start building a following online, where your age is completely immaterial.
[ link ]Awesome. Just informative and Yoda-like. I’ll read anything you write, Phil.
[ link ]I tend to fall into a small gray area between i and ii. But…it’s more of a ii for me. I mean, my last gig was only ten people, which I’m completely fine about because I’m just happy to be playing, but I wish there would be more people that appreciated the music I’m into.
[ link ]Is there any quadrant that is appointed to the dj who has possession of an emerging genre that has not yet been introduced to the audience? all of anyone who has rode in the car with me or heard my afterhours sets have given me a flabbergasted response, but what about the rest of our audiences majority? I only ask because I truly don’t want to put out something so defiant towards genre and overall unique to an audience that isn’t ready for it until I work out my programming and integrate it with something familiar to them.
Thanks for your time, a response would be nice, even if you are battling with a similar issue.
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