Question for the forum: How to measure progress?
Question for the forum: How to measure progress? Posted on: 09.10.2013 by Johnsie Kingrea
If you don't have time to watch the video, basically I want to know what are some ways DJ's can measure progress outside of the number of gigs they play (this is an especially poor metric when you're first starting out and not playing gigs). | |
| Ervin Calvery 11.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by rdej47
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| Layne Koop 10.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by rdej47
As a comparison...from a "technical" point of view, the "best" musicians I have ever seen are in my local symphonic orchestra....and competitors in the Van Cliburn. The "technical" skills of the musicians I have seen in arenas are still "good"...but they are FAR from "the best" I have ever seen. Which musicians you view as more "successful" may vary.
Originally Posted by DJSigma
Ze Frank covered this brilliantly. The video link is broken, but the transcript is still worth the time to read. http://www.zefrank.com/thewiki/the_show:_07-14-06 |
| Lina Rawie 10.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by rdej47
I know I might get slated for saying this on here, but I believe autosync has lowered standards. Bad beatmatching leads to trainwrecks and even a beginner can tell that their mix full of trainwrecks sounds like ass, so they A) won't post it online, and B) won't believe "hey, I'm ready to go looking for gigs now!". It's like a bad mix/bad DJ barrier, lol. But with sync, the mix has perfect beatmatching because it's being done by software, but the inexperienced DJ is still making mistakes - they just don't recognise them - but because of that, some of them believe "hey, I'll pop this up on SoundCloud and post it on Facebook and my favourite community etc." and some of them go out chasing gigs long before they're really ready. Don't get me wrong though. I don't care if a mix is made with sync and I don't care if I'm at a club and the DJ is using it, as long as the mix/club evening is good. But I do wish that people would spend more time honing their skills and developing the ability to critique themselves before doing anything else. There's been this influx of DJs in recent years who seem in this great rush to get things done and they often have unrealistic expectations of how long things will take. There was a guy on DJ Forums who posted a mix up 3 days after buying his first setup and he asked "do I have room to improve?". I would fecking hope so! lol. But yeah, I'm not really sure that there are easily quantifiable ways to measure improvement, because a lot of this stuff isn't black and white. It's not like losing weight where you can say "I've lost 40 lbs!". You just kind of have to develop that DJ's ear to the point where you don't need someone else to tell you if you're good or bad. |
| Layne Koop 10.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by Patch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus...ll_acquisition "They" (who?) say that 80% of the work to run a small business that "deals with the public," "has employees," and "carries inventory" is common...regardless of what the actual business does. There are "technical" skills that are needed in any "service" business (e.g. cutting hair, mixing paint, stretching pizza dough, changing oil, carrying things up a ladder, etc). These skills do need to be "mastered" to some level before any further work can be done. But, back to the point of the "running a small business" skill set. Being a "successful" mobile DJ (these days) means understanding how to work with social media, promote yourself, market your services, etc. ALL of those skills are independent of your creative skills with music. To be "successful" at running a DJ business you MUST "not totally suck" as a DJ...and then you MUST be "really good" at running a small business. With any creative field (e.g. DJing, graphic design, fashion design, hair cutting, cooking, landscaping, etc) there are generally two ends of the spectrum: "starving artist" and "corporate sell out." That is obviously a gross oversimplification...but still useful to believe about. Many people (who exactly?) view the "mobile wedding DJ" or the "top 40" as being closer to the "corporate sell out" end of the spectrum...they might make money, but they are selling their musical soul to get it. Many people (who exactly?) view the "underground DJ" as being closer to the "starving artist" end of the spectrum, they might be true to their musical vision, but they are living in their moms basement. The overwhelming majority of DJs will never make it into an arena. The overwhelming majority of DJs who do make it into an arena are not there because their DJ skills are in the top 0.01% of all DJs. I remember an interview with Garth Brooks (oh the horrors!) as he was retiring from C&W music to raise his kids. At the time he was the #1 selling album artist in the US. He said (to the effect of)....on any given day in Nashville there are 100 guys auditioning who sing better than I do, and there are 100 guys auditioning who play guitar better than I do, but there are zero guys who understood how to succeed in the music industry better than I do. IF this is all about the music...then immerse yourself in the music. Take music appreciation classes. Listen to all kinds of music. Totally geek out on the music. Oh...and get a well paying "day job" to help finance it all. IF this is all about the $$$...then immerse yourself in what it takes to run and market a small business. I have seen countless artist interview where they talk about the hours of time they devote to self-promotion, building a social network following, meeting with fans, etc, etc. Oh...and get a well paying "day job" to help finance it all. |
| Lakeesha Storman 10.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by Daily Crisis
I believe DJSigma hit the nail on the head. Mix and record each one, then listen back and be critical. Does each song flow with one another? Do the transitions sound jarring, or is there a better way to do that transition? Does the overall mix flow well? You could have songs that flow decent into each other while the entire mix is all across the board. I also believe variation of mixes is huge...is the transition always the same or does the DJ mix it up? If I'm listening with a critical ear to a mix, I'll notice this kind of stuff. Recording and listening is a great way to not only improve, but you can then go back and listen to some of those mixes you did six months ago and compare them to some of your most recent and go...damn, I sucked back then. But, listening and being critical of your mixes can also be a bit of a buzzkill because I'm at least VERY critical of myself. Many times, I find that going back and listening after some time away from a mix that I really like it and the issue I had isn't nearly as big of a deal. |
| Ervin Calvery 11.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by rdej47
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| Valeri Holderness 11.10.2013 | Progress and DJing is something that is really interesting because imo its one of those things where you find individuals staying static a lot of the time. There are tonnes of DJs who after reaching a certain point in technical ability, selection style, technique, etc. just stop attempting to improve at all because they've reached an acceptable standard level that is needed to make people dance at a club. In my opinion the most important thing is to actively push yourself to improve; everytime you record a new mix/play a gig, pick one thing that you are going to work on (whether it be a new mixing technique, a scratch, a new type of genre, etc.). |
| Dione Haimes 11.10.2013 | Compare yourself to where you were 6 months/ a year ago, 24 months ago i was playing empty pubs for drinks tokens 18 months ago i was playing uptown bars and empty clubs for drinks tokens, small pay 12 months ago i started my own evening , nobody came at first, 6 months ago i was playing solid clubevening s as well as my own popular one Last month i played Scotlands second most largest dance festival with Steve angello as the headliner The end of this month Im warming up for Will sparks with Paul Van Dyk in the main room and currently in talks with signing my first track to a good label Next month im supporting Tom Staar at an ibiza re-union evening (I wasnt even in ibiza this year) December im supporting Aly + Fila (FSOE) and Photographer in Scotlands largest dance venue, THE ARCHES Hows that for progress? |
| Petra Arra 10.10.2013 | nice read. as a beginner myself, I agree what the posts above are conveying. I used to be in another industry that hobbyist/amateur are setting up shop destroying the industry with inexperience. I agree to the need to have mastered the basics and workflow first before setting out to find gigs. not the other way around |
| Lina Rawie 10.10.2013 | Haha, I'm not one of those "paying your dues" guys who believes you should carry massive crates of records around for years before you're allowed to buy a controller. But I do believe there are good reasons to learn to beatmatch manually, including being able to play on a wider selection of gear , being able to do back to back sets with another DJ using a separate setup, it being a barrier to posting up crap (plus you get better at everything else while you're learning it), the challenge/reward of learning it and the enjoyment of knowing you can do a skill manually that you once couldn't do. To me, skipping learning beatmatching is like skipping learning your times tables as a kid and going straight on to learning how to use a calculator. But if someone is going to skip that step, they should bear in mind that it takes quite a while to be able to critique yourself. The "wading through more rough to find the diamonds" is one of the things I find frustrating. I've been listening to mixes since 1983 and collecting them for a long time so I'm always seeking out good new ones. In fact, I started a website where I planned to post several of my finds each week, but I got fed up with wading through crap and gave up on it quite quickly. Now I largely listen to mixes based on recommendations, either from friends or from blogs where someone has done the "diamond digging" for me. I'm not sure I agree that it "challenges the conventional wisdom on taste and style". I'd be a lot more blunt than that and say that it's just people posting up crap cos they can't recognise crap. lol. The more people that do it, the more that justifies it in some ways too, because someone will hear a crap mix and believe "mine's just as good as this" and off they go to SoundCloud to upload it. If you want to have a good online presence, you need to have quality product on which to build your reputation and following. It's the same with production too, as that's something that's become more accessible in recent years leading to an increase in terrible tracks, remixes and mash-ups filling up SoundCloud and making that "diamond digging" more of a pain in the butt. Again, I believe many people have unrealistic expectations of how much work/time it takes to hone your skills as a producer. |
| Layne Koop 10.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by rdej47
As a comparison...from a "technical" point of view, the "best" musicians I have ever seen are in my local symphonic orchestra....and competitors in the Van Cliburn. The "technical" skills of the musicians I have seen in arenas are still "good"...but they are FAR from "the best" I have ever seen. Which musicians you view as more "successful" may vary.
Originally Posted by DJSigma
Ze Frank covered this brilliantly. The video link is broken, but the transcript is still worth the time to read. http://www.zefrank.com/thewiki/the_show:_07-14-06 |
| Lina Rawie 10.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by rdej47
I know I might get slated for saying this on here, but I believe autosync has lowered standards. Bad beatmatching leads to trainwrecks and even a beginner can tell that their mix full of trainwrecks sounds like ass, so they A) won't post it online, and B) won't believe "hey, I'm ready to go looking for gigs now!". It's like a bad mix/bad DJ barrier, lol. But with sync, the mix has perfect beatmatching because it's being done by software, but the inexperienced DJ is still making mistakes - they just don't recognise them - but because of that, some of them believe "hey, I'll pop this up on SoundCloud and post it on Facebook and my favourite community etc." and some of them go out chasing gigs long before they're really ready. Don't get me wrong though. I don't care if a mix is made with sync and I don't care if I'm at a club and the DJ is using it, as long as the mix/club evening is good. But I do wish that people would spend more time honing their skills and developing the ability to critique themselves before doing anything else. There's been this influx of DJs in recent years who seem in this great rush to get things done and they often have unrealistic expectations of how long things will take. There was a guy on DJ Forums who posted a mix up 3 days after buying his first setup and he asked "do I have room to improve?". I would fecking hope so! lol. But yeah, I'm not really sure that there are easily quantifiable ways to measure improvement, because a lot of this stuff isn't black and white. It's not like losing weight where you can say "I've lost 40 lbs!". You just kind of have to develop that DJ's ear to the point where you don't need someone else to tell you if you're good or bad. |
| Natacha Rouhier 10.10.2013 | Write in a journal daily No joke |
| Johnsie Kingrea 11.10.2013 | So far I believe DJSigma and soundinmotiondj have brought some great insight to this discussion. Sigma I totally agree with your breakdown of technical skills, however the tricky part is again as you said you don't really know what's good from bad and a lot of things are subjective. It's a two way street, you could believe your set is technically flawless when in reality it's not received well, and vice versa you might believe your set is lame and you haven't improved much when in reality you've improved alot. The real drive behind my original post was to find more quantified metrics for measuring progress as a DJ. The reason I used gigs is it's the most obvious metric of success. Someone asked earlier what I meant by success and I would define DJing ultimately being able to entertain a crowd through music. Again there's a broad range of reason's why people do it and what they hope to accomplish, but I believe we could agree that most people aspire to at some point play in front of a crowd and entertain people (and hopefully do it again and again). I believe it's important to recognize that there's a wide range of things that ultimately lead to that success and that a successful/good DJ can't and shouldn't be defined by gigs alone. In this sense I feel that Sigma's breakdown does feed into that frame of success. To be able to entertain people you can't shower your set in FX, transitions should be seamless, music selection is key etc. You can be successful by working on these things and being more prepared for future gigs. Sigma and soundinmotiondj both made some interesting points regarding mediocre DJ's being able to get gigs. After their posts I believe it's also important to recognize the difference between your technical skills and networking skills. It's important to be prepared to play a great technical set but networking and all those soft skills will also have a huge impact on how often you will be booked again. I believe this is equally as important and requires deep thought on ways that you can track progress on whether your networking is really working or not. And if it isn't how can you adjust? Again I believe the more you can quantify both technical and soft skills and track results the more likely you'll be able to achieve success. What do you guys believe? |
| Layne Koop 10.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by Patch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus...ll_acquisition "They" (who?) say that 80% of the work to run a small business that "deals with the public," "has employees," and "carries inventory" is common...regardless of what the actual business does. There are "technical" skills that are needed in any "service" business (e.g. cutting hair, mixing paint, stretching pizza dough, changing oil, carrying things up a ladder, etc). These skills do need to be "mastered" to some level before any further work can be done. But, back to the point of the "running a small business" skill set. Being a "successful" mobile DJ (these days) means understanding how to work with social media, promote yourself, market your services, etc. ALL of those skills are independent of your creative skills with music. To be "successful" at running a DJ business you MUST "not totally suck" as a DJ...and then you MUST be "really good" at running a small business. With any creative field (e.g. DJing, graphic design, fashion design, hair cutting, cooking, landscaping, etc) there are generally two ends of the spectrum: "starving artist" and "corporate sell out." That is obviously a gross oversimplification...but still useful to believe about. Many people (who exactly?) view the "mobile wedding DJ" or the "top 40" as being closer to the "corporate sell out" end of the spectrum...they might make money, but they are selling their musical soul to get it. Many people (who exactly?) view the "underground DJ" as being closer to the "starving artist" end of the spectrum, they might be true to their musical vision, but they are living in their moms basement. The overwhelming majority of DJs will never make it into an arena. The overwhelming majority of DJs who do make it into an arena are not there because their DJ skills are in the top 0.01% of all DJs. I remember an interview with Garth Brooks (oh the horrors!) as he was retiring from C&W music to raise his kids. At the time he was the #1 selling album artist in the US. He said (to the effect of)....on any given day in Nashville there are 100 guys auditioning who sing better than I do, and there are 100 guys auditioning who play guitar better than I do, but there are zero guys who understood how to succeed in the music industry better than I do. IF this is all about the music...then immerse yourself in the music. Take music appreciation classes. Listen to all kinds of music. Totally geek out on the music. Oh...and get a well paying "day job" to help finance it all. IF this is all about the $$$...then immerse yourself in what it takes to run and market a small business. I have seen countless artist interview where they talk about the hours of time they devote to self-promotion, building a social network following, meeting with fans, etc, etc. Oh...and get a well paying "day job" to help finance it all. |
| Lakeesha Storman 10.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by Daily Crisis
I believe DJSigma hit the nail on the head. Mix and record each one, then listen back and be critical. Does each song flow with one another? Do the transitions sound jarring, or is there a better way to do that transition? Does the overall mix flow well? You could have songs that flow decent into each other while the entire mix is all across the board. I also believe variation of mixes is huge...is the transition always the same or does the DJ mix it up? If I'm listening with a critical ear to a mix, I'll notice this kind of stuff. Recording and listening is a great way to not only improve, but you can then go back and listen to some of those mixes you did six months ago and compare them to some of your most recent and go...damn, I sucked back then. But, listening and being critical of your mixes can also be a bit of a buzzkill because I'm at least VERY critical of myself. Many times, I find that going back and listening after some time away from a mix that I really like it and the issue I had isn't nearly as big of a deal. |
| Alycia Niederriter 10.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by arsman
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| Lina Rawie 10.10.2013 | In terms of technical progress, it's difficult when you're a beginner, because a lot of beginners don't really know good from bad, or good from great. Being able to critique your own stuff is a skill in itself and one that takes time to develop. I believe recording your mixes and listening back to them is a worthwhile thing to do. It's a bit like losing weight in a way - if you look at yourself every day as you're trying to lose weight, you don't see big differences, but if you compare a pic of you at the beginning to one of you 6 months down the line, you can clearly see the difference and it's the same thing with mixes, particularly as your "DJ's ear" improves and you become more critical of yourself. The things I listen for in other DJ's mixes are..... The 4 basic technical skills - Beat matching, phrase matching, levels and EQs. Also, overall sound quality too. I would say that the most common mistakes are related to phrase matching and that's largely because common gear now has auto-sync and auto-levels, so because those things sound OK, the inexperienced DJ doesn't really notice that their phrase matching is messed up. Variation - A more experienced DJ will use variation in technique. For example, I listen to some beginner hip-hop mixes and they're often "no frills" mixes where the DJ just overlaps a few bars of each tune while taking the bass out of the outgoing track, which is fine, but that's all they do and they do it every time. Effects/scratching/loops etc. - Again, this stuff is easy to do at a basic level, but doing it well, doing it at the right times, getting the frequency right etc. is something that comes with experience. I've heard many a n00b mix that's packed full of effects, almost like the DJ believes "well, I have all these effects so I might as well use them", rather than them believeing "does this actually sound good?" and again, what constitutes "good" changes as a DJ gets more experienced. Music knowledge/choice - Obviously, you can't really judge a DJ on their music choice that much (if at all I suppose), but depth/breadth of music knowledge does make a difference to me as a listener. So yeah, I believe there's 2 ways to measure progress. Doing it yourself by recording your own mixes and listening back to them with a critical ear based on everything I've said above, then comparing older mixes to newer ones, and also, the feedback you get online, particularly from your peers. You mentioned gigs in your video and of course, if you're getting regular bookings then you must be doing something right, but I believe it's also important to remember that being a great DJ doesn't necessarily mean you'll get gigs over a mediocre DJ. Getting gigs can be about socialising/networking, who you know, being in the right place at the right time, luck, your location, whether you play for free or undercut other DJs etc. I suppose it also depends what your goals are. When I started DJing, I wasn't believeing about playing gigs at all. I wanted to try and master the craft so I could make mixes that were as good as the ones I heard from other DJs. There was no Internet back then, so only a couple of people ever heard my mixes as I'd give them a copy on a tape, but that was fine. It wasn't really about that for me. I only started playing gigs when a friend of mine who's also a DJ got a gig and asked if I wanted to do it with him, then it kind of took off from there. Obviously a lot of DJs are gig-focussed and they went to get from "buying gear" to "playing gigs" as quickly as possible, and that leads to a lot of them rushing ahead too fast IMO. |
| Bethann Olortegui 10.10.2013 | first you get the money, then you get the power, then you get the woman |
| Petra Arra 09.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by Daily Crisis
you have to have the skill to get gigs to have experience. then more experience will lead to more gigs and more gigs MAY/CAN lead to popularity. There are others out there are playing gigs that are still shitty. just saying |
| Brunilda Kora 09.10.2013 | There are 4 levels of competence: Unconscious Incompetence Conscious Incompetance Conscious Competence Unconscious Competence Can't get anywhere Unconscious Competence without going through the other 3 levels of competence. |
| Hellen Mindrup 09.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by Daily Crisis
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| Alycia Niederriter 09.10.2013 |
Originally Posted by ksonic
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| Elise Coronel 09.10.2013 | I'm confused: are you asking about success as far as popularity or skill or something else? |
| Johnsie Kingrea 09.10.2013 | I apologize for the shaky video as well. First time using the Youtube Capture app on my iPad Mini and I may have been shaking the table. (Note: I will pay the cleaning bill if you puke). |
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