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music energy on the dancefloor – without EDM

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  • July 20, 2015 at 10:39 am #2226881
    bob6397
    Participant

    Some people on here will say “Play to your audience – not to yourself”. And this is true – there is no point playing for you (IE only playing music you like) if you are in front of a live audience.

    However – I think that a DJ will never produce his/her best work if they are not playing tracks they really know – and if you don’t like them, then you are unlikely to know them well enough.

    I would maybe consider starting your sets off at an even lower energy level – to give you somewhere to go. This would then mean playing those tracks you play not as warm up more in the livelier part of the evening. This however may not work depending on your music – so I would recommend finding something that you do like and then using “Recommended” lists etc. to ifnd more tracks similar – and build up your collection that way.

    If it was me though, I would play to my audience – if they want EDM, then I play EDM 🙂

    bob6397

    July 20, 2015 at 11:05 am #2226901
    Douglas Budde
    Participant

    Unfortunately that’s the reality… nobody likes to change, but its inevitable…so many top DJs started out playing different styles only to realize that if they didn’t change, they would not get booked; very few remain faithful to the core like Paul Oakenfold (trance), Milk & Sugar (disco house), etc…
    I personally dont mind playing EDM but if I know I can get away with sneaking in a few disco house tunes…
    Going back to your question, I dont think its possible because the sonority (or whatever you want to call it) its different, so instead of thinking that you will loose your soul if you play EDM, think of it more like playing for the customers and in between what they and you want, make a compromise….
    Long live HOUSE!!!

    July 21, 2015 at 3:11 am #2227191
    Richard Bolt
    Participant

    I was in the same boat as you.
    And what I did to get around it was to start searching the internet for mashups.
    Look for songs that you know and love and see if someone on Soundcloud or Hearthis have come up with a mashup of the vocals you know, but incorporates some of the high energy EDM in to it. I find that way, I can still enjoy the track by “singing along” with the lyrics.
    Don’t forget, that a lot of 90s music is high energy too – so some retro stuff in your sets may help as well.

    July 21, 2015 at 8:04 am #2227221
    DJ Vintage
    Moderator

    To me personally EDM is just a label. Like Disco once was. So many artists, so many sub genres. I may not like Trance in general (just an example guys, don’t shoot me LOL), but that doesn’t mean I can’t find 20-30-40 Trance tracks that I DO feel like. Or a real life example, I am not into classical music at all, but … there are some classical tracks that I really like.

    All it means for you as a DJ is to a) familiarize yourself with the genre a bit more, with an open mind, and to find those tracks you do like to a certain degree and use them in your sets together with other stuff you want your audience to hear and dance to. The odd thing is, that once you start to study other musical genres with an open mind and the intention of finding something you DO like amongst the zillion of available tracks, you will start making distinctions and be able to direct your search better towards the sub-genres that you feel suit your DJ style better.

    Having said that, and being a mobile DJ to boot, being flexible and ready for change is always a good thing.

    July 21, 2015 at 5:47 pm #2227491
    Guy Hagen
    Participant

    The problem is that you’re not structuring and pacing your sets well enough, not that people’s tastes are different from yours. People are generally much more open to new and unfamiliar music than you might expect. If it sounds good and is presented in a way that flows well, they’ll be into it. Don’t blame EDM.

    I agree with Bob that you should play those warmup tracks later into your set. I listened to them, and they do NOT strike me as warmup tracks. They’re certainly danceable, but people will get tired and bored quickly if you start off with such high energy tracks. You need to give them a place to go.

    So try finding slower music that people can just hang out to and not feel obligated to dance. Here’s a good example

    August 3, 2015 at 3:08 pm #2233001
    Ronnie EmJay
    Participant

    If I tried playing EDM in Ministry of Sound, Fabric or Egg, without being Guetta etc, I’d never be allowed back!

    Here in Valencia, Spain I took a gig to pay the rent and ended up having to play EDM, partly because of the management. I was playing more UK commercial deep house and there were as many people dancing to that as there were for EDM but the management are more comfortable with music they know – there were lots of tourists from France and Italy so I’m sure they knew Tchami, even if the Spanish management didn’t!

    I find I don’t really like the current EDM of now which is much harder and seems like an offshoot of Dutch Hardstyle, while I prefer the more melodic and musical EDM from Sweden for example. I find the reaction from playing Calling or If I Lose Myself is much better than say David Guetta’s Shot You Down (I still prefer the mid-2000s version of this..!). When the drop comes, people have their hands in the air and sing along. With the current hard EDM sound it’s more jumping around than dancing, eg. Boneless (which to me sounds just like Tujamo’s other song Who, so I play them back to back)…so I don’t think it’s necessarily the hard beats that give the energy either. A good melodic well-known/liked song can get a better reaction eg. Calvin Harris’ Feel So Close or Guetta’s Wild Ones gets a much better reaction than say DVBBS’ Raveology to take an example.

    You can also use pseudo EDM/commercial deep house … Oliver Heldens and Tchami use sounds from both styles to straddle the edge, though they can be considered more EDM I guess.. but usually go down well.

    You have other slower songs that will get the energy up despite not being a “hard” sound, eg. Clean Bandit’s Rather Be, or The Magician’s remix of Lykke Li’s I Follow Rivers.

    I play usually deep house, tech house and techno styles where the crowd do not want EDM at all (thankfully!) so you can just find harder sounds in those genres if you like.

    I made a commercial mix without typical EDM tracks that I’ve played to get energy up when I want, so you can see how BPM differences and mixing songs in with others can do this:
    https://www.mixcloud.com/Mjolnersson/ronnie-emjays-idea-of-a-good-commercial-mix/

    Also, I like to start a night around 115bpm and work up to around 124/125 when it’s deep house, techno mabe to 128-130bmp. eg. a song like Hoodlum gets the energy up, but it’s also because it’s a good song and makes you want to dance, whereas hard EDM makes people jump than dance (and I love dancing, so I’ll always want people to dance!).

    August 3, 2015 at 3:09 pm #2233011
    Ronnie EmJay
    Participant

    Apologies for the long rambling post. Too much Red Bull last night at my gig and I haven’t slept yet 🙂

    August 3, 2015 at 3:11 pm #2233021
    Ronnie EmJay
    Participant

    PS. I’ve been booked in Spain to play deep / tech house man times and then turn up and the management say “we want commercial” and when I have to play EDM the people I brought with me aren’t happy and may leave as they hate that kind of music. I;ve found this bait and switch by management quite common in Spain, sadly.

    August 3, 2015 at 4:03 pm #2233311
    Ronnie EmJay
    Participant

    Also a song like the Cheerleader song will get a betterr reaction than generic sounding EDM that is not a big song.

    August 5, 2015 at 2:29 pm #2234591
    Dom James
    Participant

    Sack it all off and just play Drum and Bass…

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