LOL, now THAT would be a great DJ training tool. Phil, what are we waiting for? 😛
Pretty much what you are asking us is how to DJ, LOL. While there are some tricks, they’ll be very broad and generic at best. The best tip is to go out and do it as much as you can, have fun doing it and accept that falling and getting up will be part of your early learning curve. It’s not an on/off thing, not something you one day wake up and “get”. I’ve been DJ-ing for 38 years and still have the occasional “oops” moment if a track I just KNEW had to come next, really wasn’t.
Anyway, there will usually be (mostly) girls that are just aching to dance. Make sure you please them, they will attract other people who might be reluctant to be the first ones on the floor. Keep your eyes open. When a new track drops, how does the audience react, are they happy to hear that tune, or are they looking at you like you are crazy? Make no mistake, people will acutely stop dancing and just walk off the floor if they don’t dig your next track choice. Not a problem, people come and go all the time on a dance floor, unless the majority walks, in which case you did pick something that didn’t work.
One of our tips here at DDJT is to build up your sets using mini-playlist, 3-4 tracks that fit together well, have the same energy and vibe and that you know how to transition well into and out of. If the crowd reacts well to the first track you play out of your mini-playlist, the extra tracks you can play next give you time to think ahead, pick your next playlist, etc. And if they don’t like it, just abandon that playlist and move to the next.
By the way, a genre that might not work at point A in the evening, might work wonders at point B, so because they didn’t like, say, Reggae at 10pm, doesn’t mean they won’t like it at 1 am (after a few more drinks and nostalgia have set in). And the other way around.
Hope this helps some, but at the end of the day, it’s gonna be you out there. No handbook, no machine, no software that can make those choices for you. Which is a good thing, or they would have built that machine already and we’d all be out of a job, (paid) hobby or just something fun to do.
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