How to choose song order

Thats just one of the skills that separates a good DJ from a great DJ. There’s many factors that come in to it such as the time you play, the venue, the crowd, the genre/s, the crowds reactions etc.

Although there are a few variables, you would often start with more mellow tracks and build up the intensity/hardness/euphoria progressively through your set. It will come with experience but you will gain the ability to read the crowd and make a good assumption what they may enjoy next. For instance if you are playing a house/electro set and you play a tune thats on the harder side and people start going mental then its pretty safe to say you are on the right path. It all comes with practice and good musical knowledge.

im a newbie as well and what i have learnt so far is this… every song has any energy in it… for example… some track have a good groove that make you rock your head alittle.. then some tracks have the energy to move your feet. Then it ranges to you jumping up and down with your hands in the air. Structuring a set is all about starting with tracks that are groovey but not many builds or massive breakdowns.. keep the energy constant. Then as you move a few tracks in, you start to add tracks that have more stabs and bubbly melodies (or vocals if your into that)… then over next few tracks start to introduce tracks that have alot of tension and realease… in the form of build up swooshs breakdowns. Then.. when you have clubbers in the groove… you drop ure full on tracks… ure best tracks really.

In summary you just need to hold back playing the tracks that you really want to play.. to explian in genre terms… minimal… progressive… tech-house… trance…. then take back down tech-house for the release… to let your listeners/clubbers soakin what just happened.

that the best way i can explain something that cant really be explained….lol

Yeah “music about books” just came to mind as a stupid example. 😮 It could be “dogs” or songs with “Maria” in the title or anything. However, lots of people will try to arrange music like this! Usually its not somebody who wants to be club DJ, but a brother-in-law putting together an iTunes playlist for a BBQ party, or a really bad college radio DJ who got a 3am Tuesday night slot, or something like that.

Hey, I wrote my last post in a bit of a hurry and now thought of a few other things:

There is a version of “music about books mixing” that DJs with good beatmixing skills can fall into. Blending on a musical detail that doesn’t matter. For example, mixing two songs together because they have the same synth sound, or blending two hi-hat patterns together for an interesting 3rd rhythm. It’s really cool in the moment, but doesn’t really help the overall flow of energy. Sometimes this can be amazing, but many times it can be a trap, especially when you want to show off your new beatmixing skills. Somewhere in my apartment is cassette of me ‘brilliantly’ mixing Nile Rodgers guitar riffs off of each other. It bombed in the club.

Another thing to think of with song order is planning transitions from song to song and planning transitions from song set to song set (usually groups of 3-4). In film editing this is the difference between cutting from shot to shot and from scene to scene. Once I got more experience DJing, I started thinking in terms of song “scenes” – keeping in mind songs I’d play 3-4 mixes later. Sometimes the audience reaction forces you to change your what ‘scene’ you were planning next. But that’s the fun of it.

If you really want to learn proper sequencing and song order, be a wedding DJ. Seriously. 45-90 minute sets in a ‘cool’ nightclub are not the way to learn the elusive art of song selection. You need a place where you can spin for several hours non-stop. And if you have to win over a crowd that doesn’t share your tastes in music, so much the better. A top 40 club or pub would also do. Even if the crowd are a bunch of sheep, learning to how to steer your flock is a good skill to have.

When I DJed at NYC underground clubs, people would always compliment me on my flow and sequencing. It came from years of sweating it out in “lame” clubs playing commercial hits. Funny thing is, in retrospect, I miss those DJ moments where the crowd went wild for a corny old hit as much as the “cool” clubs I spun at. Getting the crowd to move is fun no matter where you’re doing it.

I learned a lot about track order from mixes like Sasha’s GU 13. Check it out.

reason808, post: 20972, member: 831 wrote:
If you really want to learn proper sequencing and song order, be a wedding DJ. Seriously. 45-90 minute sets in a ‘cool’ nightclub are not the way to learn the elusive art of song selection. You need a place where you can spin for several hours non-stop. And if you have to win over a crowd that doesn’t share your tastes in music, so much the better. A top 40 club or pub would also do. Even if the crowd are a bunch of sheep, learning to how to steer your flock is a good skill to have.

That’s worse advice ever! wedding djs are the bottom of barrel of the deejay world. They’re nothing but human jukeboxes playing middle of the road songs for middle of the road people. A newbie will never progress to be great solid deejay being a wedding dj. A wedding dj is where never-beens and has-beens go when they fall off. It won’t teach anything about song selection because 99% of the music you play is top 40 hits from 70’s,80’s and 90’s. It won’t teach how put together a solid mix of Hip Hop or latin grooves. It won’t teach you to dig for music. It won’t teach to be creative and experiment mixing songs you initially thought would not work together. Playing song to make 60 year old aunt betty dance won’t teach you about song selection because aunt betty has piss poor taste in music and is stuck in the past.

to answer the OP question all songs can be mentally catagorized. Some songs you know people will dance to they 10,9. some songs some,most of the people dance to they 8,7 and some songs most people won’t dance to but will love to hear they 6. The magic foumula for rocking dance floor is:

song 1: 10,9
song 2: 10,9
song 3: 8,7
song 4: 10,9

Rinse and repeat for how ever long your set is.

I stand by what I said. Being a wedding DJ is certainly not cool, or creative. But its definitely a good boot camp for song order, which is what the OP was asking about. Cool underground clubs only give new DJs short slots where they can’t really watch how song order affects a crowd over time. Weddings let you see things for a whole evening.

I’ve DJed at a lot of places and situations that most people would think are pretty cool, cutting edge and creative – including hip-hop. Being a wedding DJ helped build the foundation to get there. Having played for both, I think mainstream crowds are much harder to figure out and entertain than underground cutting edge crowds.

BTW – I have not DJed at a wedding for well over a decade.

D.J.Manhattan, post: 21073, member: 1201 wrote: + That was a bit harsh about wedding DJ’s I am sure you are quite wrong.

I’m not wrong wedding djs don’t even mix most of the time they just fade songs out. do you actually think you could develop the skill of someone like Z trip or Jazzy Jeff or Q bert being wedding dj? Of course not wedding dj’s are mostly hasbeens,people who used have great skill,quit deejaying for a few years comes back and plays simple songs for simple people to make extra money. Or they are never beens, people who never put in the time and practice in order to develop great skill so they’re stuck playing simple songs with very little skill mixing songs for simple people.

D.J.Manhattan, post: 21073, member: 1201 wrote: I am not understanding your formula… could you be a little more clear in your explination? Also I really don’t think that there is a “Magic formula” nothing in life has a “Magic pill”.

it’s very simple formula there songs that everybody dances to such as:
Commodores – Brick House
Michael Jackson – Billie Jean
,etc

Then there are songs that most of the people dance to such as:
Berlin – Metro
Freestyle – Don’t Stop The Rock
etc

Start the first two songs of your set with songs Everybody dances to then your 3rd song will something most people dance to then repeat. Two songs everybody dance to one song most people dance to. It’s not magic it’s simple time tested formula every good set follows this. The only problem comes when those who have not trained to ears to know what songs everybody dances vs songs most people dance to.