Hi and welcome to the forums. Enjoy your time here.
Nothing wrong with a healthy helping of ambition.
Clearly practicing your skills is important. We suggest daily short sessions (max. 30 minutes) over 1 or 2 long(er) sessions weekly or irregularly. Also record your sessions if you have an option. Listening back and figuring out what you think could be done better/different is a great way to improve.
Book the How To Digital DJ Fast course if you haven’t already. It’s a treasure-trove for the starting (digital) DJ. It will teach you all the basic techniques and how to do them right, saving you the trouble of trial and error and making your short practicing sessions as efficient as possible.
Next to skills on the deck, the single, most important thing to learn is “what must come next”. And unfortunately that is something that can’t be taught (although there are general rules that apply) and that you can’t practice sitting alone in your practice room. It can only be learned playing out, i.e. in front of a real life audience.
The bad news is that it is highly unlikely even a small local event will put you on the decks if you can’t show any kind of experience, the good news is there is a boat load of opportunities out there to play out. House parties, birthdays, small bars on quiet nights, things you organise yourself at the local community center, public charity activities or even the home game for your local soccer team, anything to get you out of your bedroom and into the real life where you learn that all-important skill. Bonus: you can get noticed by your peers and possibly by others that are potentially useful to you in securing a more “professional” gig. Also you will start to feel more like a “real” DJ and your confidence will show when talking to venue-owners and event-organizers.
Finally, while starting the above, also start cultivating contacts in places you’d like to play (clubs, bars, etx.). Go there as a customer, see what other DJs do. Make friends with the manager, but also with the door guys, the regular DJ, the house tech, the bar staff. Don’t ask to play, but slowly let them know that you are an aspiring DJ. Offer to come in on a slow night and play. Offer to be a stand-in in case the house DJ(s) has a holiday or falls ill. There was a place I really like to play. I came in on every busy night, but at the beginning before it really got busy. In a few weeks I knew most of the staff by name and vice versa. I then started coming in on a slow night. On wednesday from 21:00-22:30 it was dead and the resident didn’t show up until 22:30. At some point I asked if it was ok if I got behind the decks and played some music for the few guests, but mostly for the staff. Two months after that I was replacement for their residents and I ended up playing there an average of 3-4 times a month for a while (til my career took me elsewhere 😀 ).
Again, things happen outside your practice room. Both gaining essential skills and experience and making valuable contacts that can lead to getting known in the circles you want to be known in. Contacts breed contacts. The people you know will know others in the business.
At the end of the day, DJ-ing in your bedroom is a hobby. Playing out and eventually getting paid to is work. You have to be (pro)active and make things happen for yourself.
Hope that helps some.
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