Hello everybody

Hi Callum and welcome! I’m sure someone more experienced will be along shortly to give you some advice but for now I’d just like to say a big hello and all the best with your goals!

Peace

Tyler

You’re welcome…

Songs don’t necessarily have to be in the same key for them to sound good together: For example a song in Gminor, would mix well with a song in Bb Major. That is because although they are different keys, they share the same key signature, that is they have the same number of sharps and/or flats in the key signature.

To expand on this (I’m making an assumption that you have no musical training, if this is wrong then please forgive me!!!), take the key of C major.

You would play a scale of C major by playing the note ‘C’ on the piano, and then playing every white note in between until you came to another ‘C’… C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C (A complete scale would consist of 8 notes, or an Octave. A scale can consist of several octaves, but we are keeping this simple). The key of C major has not flats or sharps in it.

The relative minor of C major, is ‘A’ minor. This also has no sharps or flats in it. To play this scale, you would play the note ‘A’ on the piano and then play every white note in between until you get to the next ‘A’… A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A. This would be one octave of an A-Minor scale.

The same rules apply as you move throughout the scales.

You can find a list of the major keys and their relative minors on this website… http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/lesson.php?id=282

I know its a guitar website, but the principles remain the same (The table is about half way down the site).

As for rules; in music people make their own rules.

What sounds good to one person might not to the next. Its very subjective.

How the rules of music have been “stuck to”, has changed massively as music developed and continues to change as music develops – music is organic and constantly changing. For example, if someone gave you the start of a piece of piano music by Bach, and asked you to complete it, there are a very strict set of rules as to how you would go about completing it. Its very difficult, but with practice it can be done (It was taught a lot in the first year of my music degree). There have hundreds of books written on the subject!

As music developed, people moved away from these strict rules and the results have not always been well received. Take for example a piece called “The Rite of Spring”, by Stravinsky. When this was first played to the public almost 103 years ago , it literally caused a riot; some people loved it, some people hated it – it was very different to what people were used to hearing.

Move on to the 1920’s and a composer called Arnold Schoenberg and you come across something called the 12 note tone row. He devised a system where he would choose 12 different notes and arrange them into a row. He would then compose a piece of music by using these notes, but not allowing himself to repeat a note until he had used all 12 of the notes in the row… the pieces he created are somewhat an acquired taste.

At the other end of the spectrum is 4′ 33″ by John Cage. This piece starts when someone presses start on a stop watch, waits for (you guessed it) 4 minutes and 33 seconds and does nothing, before pressing stop, which signals the end of the piece. Cage would argue that the sounds that occupied this space in time (someone coughing, a chair squeaking, a police going past with it sirens on) were the music. Consequently, no two pieces will ever be exactly the same length and will never be identical. Different people will hear different things and no two people will experience the music in the same way?

So why all the rambling? The point I am trying to make is that you should stick to the basics, and then make your own rules. Develop your own style.

No. You don’t always have to mix in key. Laid-back Luke is a massive advocate of the mixed in key software, but then in a recent seminar he gave at ADE, he told us that he was moving away from harmonic mixing and playing what the crowd and he wanted to hear. You’ll find that sometimes, moving to a completely unrelated key is a great way to lift or chill your set out, depending on which you go.

Music won’t always obey the rules, sometimes two tracks that are in seemingly unrelated keys will sound great together. There might not be any other that they sound great together than “They just do”.

They key is experimenting and finding what sounds good to you and what your dance floor wants to hear. People will request tracks from you, and I can guarantee they won’t have stood talking to each other to make sure that they have chosen tracks that are in the same or complimentary keys… people will want you to play what they want to hear.

I know some reading materials and courses have already been suggested to you. One book that I found really helpful was “How to DJ Right: The Art and Science of Playing Records”, by Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton. You’ll find a used copy on Amazon for Pennies/Cents/Whatever plus P&P/S&H/Local Equivalent….

There is no substitute for experience… Listen to other people playing (You’re probably a little young for attending club nights and raves, but there are thousands upon thousands of videos on youtube), get to know your tracks, stay organised, play out as often as your can and practice, practice, practice!!! I’m also a big advocate of recording your practice sessions and listening back to them – what sounded great when you were mixing might not sound so good second time around and you can figure out why, and what seemed like an absolute train wreck of a mix might not sound so bad when you listen back to it. Be self critical… self praise is no praise. The one guaranteed way to make zero progress is to listen to yourself and think “F**k yeah I’m awesome”. Even the best DJ’s in the world make mistakes, but they acknowledge them and learn from them. Thats why they are the best!

Sorry for the massive post everyone, I just went off on one and before I knew it, War and Peace had occurred. But I’ll be happy if someone learns just 1 thing from it!

Enjoy!

Callum, you’re welcome. Sorry it was a bit of a long post, but I get bogged with too much detail sometime. Glad you took something away from it though!