Alex Moschopoulos

Thanks for filling in. My week was a mess with work, transit problems and other “fun”. Here’s a few new ones on my end, albeit they’re not “new new”:

Title: Lekker
Artist: Max Graham and Maarten De Jong
Label: Re*Brand

It came out in 2014, but I recently encountered it listening to Paul Oakenfold’s set from Creamfields 2014. I just loved the thump when the tune unloads after a minute, and then the synths simply have a nice body to them. I know trance isn’t a deeply loved genre all over, but when you compare the good to the crap, this comes off to me as “good”.

Digital DJ Tips has you covered – http://www.digitaldjtips.com/how-to-dj-training-courses/

Start slow, have fun, be patient, and practice. Ask questions here as needed.

However i keep saying that referring to the tomorrowland style electro/progressive stuff as EDM is no different as saying i like rave music or dance music.

It’s tough, as some people are insecure die-hards. I used to use the term “EDM” as a means to describe all electronic dance music. This was before the whole pop explosion and all. Even then, I’d get junglists, minimal techno fans, etc…all bashing on how I’d lump their precious genre in with others they hate…namely trance.

People need to lighten up. EDM is pretty much dead based on what I’m seeing come out now. So how do we describe all this music in general, but still differentiate it from rock, rap, jazz, classical, etc?

So if thats true then house music basically started off as a general term for sort of disco music?
I am right?

House music has been jokingly termed as “Disco’s Revenge”, but it’s true. Even Frankie Knuckles spoke of how his music at the Warehouse was mainly disco. Just more underground and newer stuff. Most people only saw “disco” as the cheese of the late 70s. It only gained the term “house music” for the reason you stated. I also like to think many used it in marketing mainly because “disco” was a taboo term in the 1980s.

Funny enough how many clubs in the 80s played this “new disco” that sounded less “live” and “strings” and more “synth”.

i Just get annoyed that my friends dont look up the history of dance music and respect where it all came from, they also seem to think DJing is just beat mixing and i said, “so what were those people called that played music in clubs and on the radio before people started mixing records together then? ”

You’ll always run into that. Even to this day I still get veterans popping up on social media, bashing on anything that isn’t analog vinyl. I used to fight, but now I ignore. The reality is there aren’t many venues/big events that push analog vinyl. Maybe timecode, but not analog. It says to me that digital has taken over, and the haters aren’t the majority opinion.

When I see someone ignorant on the “history”, I just ignore them. My own research into the history of it all was purely intellectual curiousity. I mainly wanted to see what it must have been like to be at Sunrise, or the Warehouse, Loft, or even a Northern Soul night at the Wiggan Casino. I wanted to see how things melded and evolved, like how much funk music and reggae influenced the modern sounds of house and rap.

I’ll never expect average people to fully “get it”, but instead focus on what makes me happy in DJing. If I had to be an evangelist in anything with this…it would be to highlight what I think is “good music”.

At first I could fathom saying “it’s ok” when it’s a rookie ripping tunes just to learn how to DJ from…then choosing to replace them with legally-purchased tunes when he/she is ready to post mixes online or play live at an event.

However, I think that logic is flawed because it won’t teach a rookie “quality over quantity”. When you have access to it all, then it’s easy to fall into the trap of grabbing anything you get your fingers on. Better to buy legally simply because if you have a budget, then you’re forced to think “quality” in the music you buy. To only buy stuff you can fathom playing over and over for a long time…as opposed to a few times.