DJ philosophy and analogy behind reading the crowd

0:01 Let's say mobile function or a nightclub

Alright folks, now this particular video is, in a sense, it's a bit of a discussion and hopefully it will let you understand the whole philosophy about reading the crowd where a DJ is concerned. Let's say mobile function or a nightclub. They both are sort of completely different but then again they're both almost exactly the same. Hopefully I'll go into that very shortly. But anyway... I'm going to try and put forward a bit of an analogy, comparing, let's say, reading the crowd to a couple of bits of wood and some water. Now you're probably wondering what the hell? Now let's imagine we've got a bit of wood there and some wood there and in the middle we have some water. The water is the music, the piece of wood here is the DJ, the piece of wood over here is the crowd. Now if everything is still and stagnant, nothing's going on, then guess what?

The water is going to stay perfectly flat. All of a sudden, if the DJ, the piece of wood, starts to move, because he or she has now started to play some music, that water is going to move. So there's going to be a wave, there's going to be some force going from this part across here, logically, to the crowd. Now again, if you think about it logically, the crowd listen to the music and it's up to them whether they want to move. If they don't move, they'll just stand like that and the DJ has to think, let's play something else. If they do start to move, then of course there's going to be a bit more movement in the water. Now of course logically the crowd cannot change the music because the music is at a constant depending on what track is playing. But what we're doing now is we're taking this movement from the crowd to another dimension because DJ makes water move.

2:18 For example, if you're playing hip-hop, maybe put some oldies on

Water makes crowd move here. Crowd move and they send off this weird signal to the DJ who gets the vibe from the crowd and thinks, yeah, I like this, I'm going with this, and whoa, I like this music, I'm going with this music, and he's going or she's going, wow, I like the way they're moving, let's carry on with this feel. So all of a sudden it's a two-way situation. It's not just DJ thinks I'm going to play my tracks, sod you lot. It should be a case of DJ plays the tracks, the crowds start to move, the music moves inside this little box here and everyone starts to jump about and enjoy themselves. Now then, let's imagine we have a scenario, first of all, mobile DJ, and all of a sudden people start to leave the dance floor.

Well, maybe it's about time then that you should maybe change the particular genre of music or maybe the certain style. For example, if you're playing hip-hop, maybe put some oldies on. If you're playing oldies, maybe put some hip-hop on. So that way, you're just keeping it slightly different. You're changing the feel. Now also, again, we need to look at it from a slightly different angle because just tell me if this has happened to you. Mobile DJ, all of a sudden you're playing one particular style. Two or three people leave the dance floor, then two or three more do, then a few more, a few more. Before you know it they're all gone. Well occasionally, not all the time, occasionally it's because people just follow people. They're dancing along and some guy is here and there's a lady dancing next to him. She leaves the dance floor. All of a sudden he feels it's psychological. He actually feels, oh dear, there's a gap now in between me and the crowd watching. Oh, and he feels a little bit vulnerable so he will move away. And then other people do.

As soon as two or three go, then four or five go, six, seven and before you know it, they've all gone. And you're there standing like a bit of a muppet. Well, don't worry because sometimes that does happen. People will just tend to leave for no apparent reason whatsoever. So at that point, it's occasionally a good idea not straight away to stop playing the music and put some... No, I'll start again. It's at that point not a good idea to stop that particular track you're playing and put another one on because you think, oh shit. What do I do? Let it play. Let that particular track play and then go on the microphone and just say something and then just come in with an all-time classic or something that people should know. Theoretically then they should come back on the floor. Now taking that to, let's say, a different level in relation to...

4:25 A nightclub, let's say for example

A nightclub, let's say for example. You're there, you're playing these wonderful tracks, you're here, you're playing the tracks, the water's moving, the crowd's moving, and all of a sudden, let's say they stop moving that much, and the water maybe isn't moving enough for them. Alright, because you're playing the tracks, these are the tracks here, and they don't seem to be pushing the crowd enough. Now at that point, maybe in the mix you need to up the key, up the tempo slightly. Or maybe you need to just decrease the key. Or maybe you need to have a jump to lift them back up. So of course the jump will all of a sudden, bosh, make that water move quite considerably. And again, when you do change the key of the music in relation to the key you're playing, you will have quite a change. So you'll go from a nice smooth curve to all of a sudden...

There'll be a bigger curve and you will see the crowd start to react more. And when they react more, that vibe goes back to you. You react more. That's why it's a two-way scenario. It's not just the DJ playing the music for the crowd. And then the crowd, should I say, again, the other way of looking at it, I suppose, is the crowd saying, come on, here we are, just put something on for us. Now, it is such an in-depth... If you're in front of a crowd in a nightclub, treat the music as water. You're pushing that water over to them and the more you can push over to them the more they will move and as they move more you get the vibe from them and in turn Thank you for watching.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.