A: I guess my plan is next to look at my favourite tracks and try and put something I think people will dance to together, using your lists to steer by.
B: I guess 90% of what you want to do yourself (the top level, the set) you can get from using precomposed tandas from others, and would be obstructed by composing your own.
A: Trying to build an evening from tracks in advance worries me the most - deciding which tandas to put where in the evening, how to create build and change momentum and mood when there is no evening there...!
B: Well spotted. Like choosing steps before you have the music. I suggest you forget trying to "build and change momentum and mood". This is largely a myth anyway. Consider yourself a buffet cook rather than a set meal chef.
A: This is strangely reassuring! But are you saying the order of orchestra is almost irrelevant?
B: Order of feel - not orchestra - does matter.
Any novice DJ who might need (or would benefit) from building a playlist using 90% of other people's tanda groupings isn't ready for the task.
ReplyDeleteSites like 'Tanda of the Week' (and others), along with those DJs that either provide printed lists of the music they are going to play at an event, or who otherwise publish what they did play, after the event, can be a useful learning resource or guide - but that all depends on whose list it is. Some are great: others are dire.
If you hear a particular DJ (preferably a few times, for consistency) and like the music that they play, and the way they organise the songs, both into tandas and the way that the tandas are sequenced, then they may be a much more helpful resource - but ultimately, we each need to find our own 'voice'. Otherwise, we could just copy an entire set (particularly if we think it a good one) and consider the job done.
A novice DJ will also be constrained by the extent of their own music library. A collection of as few as 500 songs (as long as they are the 'right' 500) could provide wonderful dancing for, say, a monthly milonga for quite a while. Published tandas frequently rely heavily on 'hidden gems', and the novice will probably not have them, anyway.
Applying Pareto's principle is a good strategy. 80% of what most regular dancers know well and like dancing to is to be found in those 500 songs. You may need a collection that is very much bigger to maintain the quality of music, when selecting the other 20%.
Clive wrote: "Any novice DJ who might need (or would benefit) from building a playlist using 90% of other people's tanda groupings isn't ready for the task."
ReplyDeleteI've met plenty of novice DJs who would benefit from building a playlist 90% from existing tandas and are ready for the task.
Likewise novice DJs who would benefit from reusing 100% of an existing set.
Much of value can be learned from just the experience of playing the music, without composing the tandas themselves. This includes the basics of soundcraft that are sadly lacking in many so-called experienced DJs.
"Sites like 'Tanda of the Week' (and others), along with those DJs that either provide printed lists of the music they are going to play at an event, or who otherwise publish what they did play, after the event, can be a useful learning resource or guide - but that all depends on whose list it is. Some are great: others are dire."
Well of course. But part of being 'ready for the task' is ability to distinguish good from bad. And that is something anyone with a fair ear for the music easily learns through milongagoing, before they consider being a DJ.
No novice DJ should feel discouraged by the fact that bad setlists exist may be reused by others.
"ultimately, we each need to find our own 'voice'. Otherwise, we could just copy an entire set (particularly if we think it a good one) and consider the job done."
Copying an entire good set does indeed do a better job than all too many of the 'own voice' DJs I hear in the UK.
"Published tandas frequently rely heavily on 'hidden gems'"
Only bad tandas.
"and the novice will probably not have them, anyway."
Thank goodness for that.
Building a playlist from 90% existing tandas is a very good idea; but doing it with other people's tanda groupings suggests that they are not ready for the 'art' of DJing, even if they are gaining useful experience in the 'craft of it'.
DeleteI hope you'd agree that the 'actual' DJs work should be acknowledged by the novice?
Clive wrote: "I hope you'd agree that the 'actual' DJs work should be acknowledged by the novice?"
DeleteI can see problems there. The novice would have to ask the DJ doing the playing for the name of the DJ who did the composing ... thereby risking offending an Artist! :)