D.J.Manhattan – Learning Journal

Slow Monday.

Last week has been slow. I practiced a little bit and the rest of the time I’ve been using to get my head into the game and set up a serious game plan. I am going to start again at the basics and focus on quality. I also want to try setting up a weekly video blog that go along with these posts. Ok, so start with the basics… I bought the online video course from Digital DJ Tips and will be using it as my start. I think it gives me a good directional focus. I will write up a quick review about each video that I watched to give you guys a basic idea of what it is. I am starting today and each monday I will give a detailed outline of how the previous week went. This will be a four week challenge with key things to focus on each day and each week.

Week#1

Key things to focus on each day:
– Practice mixing for one hour.
-Use the music only in the Main crate to get to know the songs really well.
-Record each set.

– Sift through the music that I own and pick out my all time favorites.
-I have to make sure that I do not add on any fat. If I am not sure about a song I will put it off into a maybe file and listen to it again in a few days.
-I must listen to 30 minutes of new music a day as a minimum.

This weeks Focus:
-Compile 30 minutes of very select music
-Post a 30 minute mix on MixCloud and Youtube (If I can).

Thanks Phil! I definately agree, and no worries I know there will be both plenty of success and plenty of failure and I am ready for both. There is a really cool quote that has stuck with me for a long time, “Every failure is a brick in my Castle” and I am only starting to build it.

Woaw Woaw Wwwwooooaaaaawww….. I’ve been gone for quite a bit lol. But I’m back!

And let me tell you its been such a fun ride so far! I’ve been having crazy amount of fun doing mixes and searching for gigs. I can’t even describe how much I love all this… That is mainly why I havent been posting on these forums, just not enough time to do everything I want. Neways there are so many lessons and experiances I must share. I will do that over the coming weeks but for now here is the breakdown.

First – I ordered a new laptop 2 months ago and the screen broke within 2 weeks. I’ve been waiting for it to get fixed for 1 1/2 months now and im finally getting it back tomorow.

2nd – I went to the Veld Festival in toronto for two days and let me tell you it was a crazy crazy experiance! I had so much fun there. I also got 2 tickets free by mistake and got to invite two friends that sunday EPIC! I now see why ppl love Deadmou5 so much his sound live is amazing! But he wasent my favorite… Steve angelo, Steve Aoki and AN21 were epic along with Avichii. Check out the pics here! http://www.facebook.com/#!/D.J.Manhattan
3rd – Promotion, Sunday at veld I brought 250 of my biz cards. I then took pictures of all the hottest girls (My gf is awesome and helped me!) then I gave them my card to check out veld pics… its sooo easy and so much fun :D. I only got a couple of new likes but w/e thats an extra few people who see where im playing. and I made a promo friend.

4th – Crown and tiger. My friend plays at this bar and couldent make it one friday night. I went out and killed it. There was roughly 200ppl. they liked me so much that they want me to do their Satudays every week. Kick ass!!!!
Now some importaint lessons I learned.

– Preparation is soooo importaint. I started this new thing where I set up 30 min mixes. I order the music from 1 – 10 or so and then i cue the points where i mix in and out. Then i play that out live. Not only does that give me a good idea where to start and were to go but also good ‘Focused’ practice. Very importaint is that I dont play any premixes because I can switch music up at any point. Check out the two mixes I have up now here: http://www.mixcloud.com/djmanhattan/

– Playing out live is crazy fun and you should start as soon as possible. Fuck… Knock on as many doors as possible this will be crazy amounts of work. You must put your foot in the door somewhere. And it very true what many ppl say, you will never be fully ready. I spent a full week preparing a play list for a friday night only to freakout at start of the night because of some cables then didint know which music i should play. Once i got comfortable i rocked it pretty hard. Rule of thumb is that if you practice at home on the regular you will do fine in front of a crowd even if you dont feel your good enough because…

– mistakes happen and honstly many ppl dont even knotice. Yes… I admit it… I made a few mistakes. Nobody cared! (except my dj friends gf who is with him all the time and has an ear for it). Everybody loved it.

– Music selections is super importaint. I will go with music selection and basic mixing as the most top two importaint steps to a live gig. fancy stuff comes after you are used to those.

– Have fun! Dance and party with the crowd! Enjoy what you are doing!

– My last importaint lesson that I learned is that I love this… I love doing this so much… And nothing is a chore for me. finding music, editing, sitting at home for hours working on your line up… playing out… Everything I love this so much… so much that i am having trouble balancing my gf (who i love just as much) with this.. but i manage and she is super supportive.

Last but not least I want to switch my name to something else and i am stuck between two. Arthur Gold or Arthur Vega. Story behind this is that I want to use my first name but i really dont like my last name at all esp because of my dad and personal reasons. So il pick either gold or Vega and use that as a stage name for a while before i switch my actual last name.

Thank you Phil! It means alot. Only thing I regret at the moment is not watching your vids more, I bought the course but havent gotten around to it. I promice I will start tonight and make this my most productive month yet! 😀

Another great weekend for lessons learned!

Friday night was house party timez! My good friends gf was having her b-day at her house so naturally I packed up all my stuff and played her some music. there was 15-20 ppl there so nothing much it was still very fun.

Lesson… I read some article Phil wrote and in there he mentioned do not use your own home speakers for gigs. I should have listened. Half way through my time playing they over heated and completly cut out. I couldent get them back up and running that night and i couldent figure out how to hook up her stereo speakers from her home sound system so my gig was ended short… My speakers work fine now but I will not use them for something like this again. I didint realize how much stress they go through.

Saturday I was still feeling tired for the other night but i took it like a trooper at my residency. It was Nuit Blanch in T.O. so we were expecting barely any ppl. I played really chill tribal and house until my boss came up and said he wanted vocals and ‘songs’. Ofcourse i switched it up right away but hearing a comment like that made me realize one importaint thing.

Lesson… As a DJ you are hired by someone who expects something. They have their own expectations on what they want and what sound they expect. I am hired to play top 40 and dance music. I have some choice and can put in alot of the stuff that i like but playing it for as long as i did that night was my mistake on my part, also i think being tired had something to do with it. So I asked for a redbull and brought up the energy then killed it since more ppl came in at it wasent as bad as we thought it was going to be. Ppl were dancing and i was having a killer time. Thing is unless you have a crazy good name for yourself or a crowd that follows you with commitment you MUST satisfy the ppl who hire you and you dont have a choice. I am lucky that i am allowed to play pretty much w/e i want but i must be smart and realistic about it. the night ended well and he was happy.

This week i will be focusing on getting regge music and more veriety of rap artists. I will also start working on a great one hour long mix that il use to set up a mix tape. Also there is sractching to learn and i must start learning ableton. times are getting busy but if i am to make it the way i want to make it… they next few years will be the bussiest of my entire life and i must make each second count. Nothing is more importaint then your lifes dream.