Your Questions: I’m Scared To Play In Front Of Other DJs!

Digital DJ Tips reader Christoph writes: “In my hometown in Germany there’s a DJ voting contest where the DJ with the most Facebook Likes on a picture wins a DJ set. This contest is sponsored by a music company from here, so a lot of people with knowledge about DJing will be there. And out of 35 entrants, pretty much all of them are more professional than me! If I win (it’s just a case of asking my friends to Like my entry) how should I handle it? I will always feel like the little kid who got a controller from his parents and has no idea about DJing. Please help!”

Digital DJ Tips says:

I can guarantee you that everyone feels this way at some time. For me, I still felt like it five years after starting a club night that got me gigs with practically all of my DJ heroes – a night where I played every week and hundreds of people came just to see me, never mind the guests. Yet I still felt like a fraud, like I wasn’t a “real” DJ, and that if someone came up to me and said as much, I’d drop my head and walk out, never to even think about being a DJ ever again. It’s crazy, but it’s just something in the way us humans are made that we put down our own efforts and raise everyone else’s, completely irrationally.

As long as you are musically inclined, DJing is a skill, not a talent. That’s great news, because it means you are potentially as good as anyone else. Sure, some people are sheer geniuses, but the majority of DJs have an ear for music and have put the required hours in to get good at it. If you have the desire to win this competition, you deserve to be there. Turning up is half the battle. In your heart you know you’ve got what it takes, so start calling yourself a DJ right now. Nobody else is going to come up to you and pat you on the back and say: “Hey, well done, you’ve now qualified to be a DJ!”

If you’ve got the music, you know what you like, and you practise your mixing, you’re a DJ – so hold your head high and try not to allow yourself to feel less capable than the rest of them.

Have you suffered a DJ’s “confidence crisis”? How do you deal with feeling inferior against other DJs? Please share your thoughts in the comments.