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View Full Version : Familiarizing yourself with your music.



DJArmani
04-15-2012, 12:22 PM
I have about 4,000 songs on my laptop now, but half of them I don't even know. Some of the genres I don't like listening to, so I just have the tracks there. The problem with this is when I'm live I don't know what's hot and what's not in certain genres. For example, I mainly do house and hip-hop so I know all of the dancefloor fillers, opening tracks etc. But then with spanish, club, and old school hiphop I'm not too familiar with the tracks. And how long and miserable would it be to listen to a genre you don't really like and every song in the genre?

DJ SB
04-15-2012, 01:40 PM
Pretty long and miserable! Thats why I really only play genres I enjoy. The more music you get to know, the more similarities in music structure you can naturally identify which really helps you mix well even if you don't know a track well.

DJArmani
04-15-2012, 01:59 PM
Wait, what do you mean "similarites in music structure" ? And yeah I would play genres I really enjoy, but sometimes when I do family parties, they want me to do genres like Bachata, Merengue, and Salsa (since i'm spanish) which I did do back when i started but just because it was what the crowd (my family) liked, and got everyone dancing. But now I'm into house, and hip-hop, some reggaeton. But then again, I don't wanna turn down family just because i don't like the music they want me to play. I do more of my friends parties since I'm older, I started when I was 11 and now I'm 15.

Timmy G
04-16-2012, 01:29 AM
By "similarities in music structure" he means that you will soon realize and feel how each genre is built so to speak. Like for house tracks, theres a phrase change every 32 bars or so... For example if you listen to hip hop all the time it is pretty easyto distinguish where the hook will come in. Or when you're listening to house it's relatively easy to feel a drop coming in. The more you listen to a genre the more you will realize how it functions.

mrkleen
04-16-2012, 09:40 AM
Like for house tracks, theres a phrase change every 32 bars or so...

There are 4 beats to a bar - in house music, things change every 8 bars....or 32 beats....not 32 bars.

DJArmani
04-16-2012, 11:28 AM
oh okay, i understand now.

DjDisArm
04-16-2012, 11:32 AM
start listening to it..i'm kind of in the same boat..i play rap/hiphop & r n b..i also have a lot of trance/dance stuff that i havent gotten around to listening..but yeah i have some exploring to do

robmixx
05-16-2012, 01:50 PM
Only advise I can give is, start listening to your music. I have over 4,000 songs as well, but 80% I recorded directly from my record collection so I had no choice but to listen to them. It takes time but it is worth it when you play live and need to use them for your performance. Peace be with you...............Rob Mixx

moyo wilde
05-17-2012, 08:56 AM
structure with most hip hop, r&b, pop and rock it is 16 bars of verse and 8 bars of chorus verse chorus rinse repeat. that would be 99% of the time every now and then somebody changes it up.sometimes at the end there is an outro not often mostly adlibbing though; rock pop r&b change up of the chorus etc; hip hop like "we/xxx city/xxx crew in this mf" "199x" that type of thing for maybe 4 or 8 bars fade out.

tommydiaz9
05-25-2012, 12:11 PM
What's up man?

For years I always had an issue with organizing my music, just trying to find music to play on the fly. I found it very hard to keep track of all my music and memorize my music. I started using Mixed in Key to organize my music. What that application does is that it basically analyzes the key your music is in and encodes that information in the track's metadata. After I'm done doing that, I store my music on I-Tunes and organize it by key, genre or whatever I like. After I started using Mixed in Key, I noticed that everything comes together much better and I barely spend time looking for music. Using that method along with creating smart playlists I no longer have to stumble searching for music. You can also use tags on whatever program you're using to identify your music even better.

You should also take a look at this tutorial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJpm2p-nNqg.

If you are interested in hearing the results of what I was explaining to you, I would like to extend an invitation to you for my online show that takes place every Friday Night from 8-10 on www.deephouselounge.com


I hope this was of good use to you.
Cheers!

DJArmani
05-25-2012, 12:18 PM
@tommydiaz : thanks! I'm about to search up MixedInKey to find out more. But I also use smart playlists and put my music into different folders, the only problem I have is my spanish because I don't know what tracks are hot and what tracks clear dancefloors. I'm more familiar w. my hiphop, house, and reggaeton/dembow because that's what I usually mix.

Sean
05-25-2012, 12:25 PM
How did you end up with the songs if you don't know them? Maybe your first answer should be to stop pirating music and buy the tracks. When you get something for free you put little value to it.

Neophyte
05-25-2012, 12:27 PM
How did you end up with the songs if you don't know them? Maybe your first answer should be to stop pirating music and buy the tracks. When you get something for free you put little value to it.Took the words out of my mouth...

Djsmylez
05-25-2012, 01:02 PM
Get some radio apps... Use pandora... I have a desk job, so I'm plugged into music all day. Learn what's popular even if u hate it...

If Ur mainly a club dj, then u may not have to worry much with playing what you don't like. But if u have aspirations of being a true mobile dj, you better develop a love for crappy music. Lol.

Also as u get new music, listen to it and organize it right then and there. Then pretty much every song in Ur library would have been heard by you at least once.

Sigma
05-25-2012, 01:34 PM
How did you end up with the songs if you don't know them?
I've bought a lot of music that I didn't know.

DJArmani
05-25-2012, 10:34 PM
Did you ever realize the first three words of 'assume' are 'ASS'? You just made an ass of yourself . It's called a record pool with other DJs, and exchanging music with other DJs. Quit making an ass of yourself Sean.

Salvo
05-30-2012, 12:13 AM
Even though I play house. I play a wide variety of house (deep, tech, jackin etc). So i make it a point to stay as organized as possible. I ultilize itunes playlists to start off my organizing. Most of the venues I play at have CDJ 2000's. So I utilize the usb capabilities. I use rekordbox to make more specific playlists within my collection. But to me whats most important is to listen to my music as much as possible.


www.DeepHouseLounge.com

Nick Bike
05-30-2012, 01:27 AM
don;t do shows with genres u don;t know or like?!

otherwise - get cracking and do some research to know what's hot and what's not - as well as to what you actually like and can get into.

DJArmani
05-30-2012, 09:53 PM
I wish i can only play house gigs, the thing is at this point, I just take whatever gig possible. When I become more known and get my word around I'll definetly be playing way more house.