How DJs Know Which Song To Pick [The Definitive Guide T… — Transcript

Learn how DJs effortlessly choose their next track by mastering preparation, music knowledge, and set programming in this definitive DJ guide.

Key Takeaways

Effective DJing relies heavily on preparation and knowing your music well before the gig.
Programming the set and choosing the right song order is more critical than perfect mixing.
Reading the crowd and adapting your track choices in real time is essential for a successful set.
Using tools and research to understand local music trends can enhance your set planning.
Bonus resources like checklists and training materials can significantly improve your song selection skills.

Summary

DJs know what to play next mainly because 70% of the work is done before they start playing, through preparation and music familiarity.
Knowing your music deeply is essential; you must listen to and own the tracks you plan to play.
Preparation involves three key areas: learning the music, preparing for the gig, and organizing the music itself.
Programming the right song order is more important than mixing skills; 95% of DJing is about song selection and sequencing.
Using pre-prepared set lists rather than random access to a main library improves performance and flow.
Understanding the crowd and reading their reactions helps DJs decide when and how to switch tracks.
Tools like related tracks features on CDJs and researching local music trends (e.g., Shazam charts) aid in set preparation.
DJs should focus on playing the right song for the moment and the audience rather than strictly following technical rules like key matching.
The video includes bonus materials such as checklists and extra videos to help DJs master song selection.
Community feedback and professional DJ insights are incorporated to provide a comprehensive approach to choosing the next track.

Chapters

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

Speaker A

So how do DJs know what to play next? When you see a DJ there in the booth and the tracks are flying onto the decks, and their hands are on the faders, and their eyes are half shut, and they're just doing their thing, how do they know what to play next seemingly effortlessly? That's what I'm going to share with you in today's Tuesday live lesson from the studios of Digital DJ Tips, the world's leading DJ school. So,

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shut and they're just doing their thing how do they know what to play next seemingly effortlessly that's what I'm going to share with you in today's Tuesday live lesson from the studios of digital DJ tips the world's leading DJ school so

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whether you use Pro DJ gear or whether you just use a controller at home for fun, the rules are exactly the same, and knowing what to play next is one of those key skills of DJing. So think about

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it doesn't matter what kind of DJ you are doesn't matter where you are in your career what kind of music you play where you are in the world what kind of gear you use while you're doing it you got to

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it. It doesn't matter what kind of DJ you are, doesn't matter where you are in your career, what kind of music you play, where you are in the world, what kind of gear you use while you're doing it, you got to

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covering it today now you don't need to grab a pen or a pencil or scribble anything down or you know write notes or anything because we have a whole article uh which I'm going to share the link to

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pick another song and then another one and then another one. And that's what you do. That's what DJs do. We pick another song every 1, 2, 3, 4 minutes or whatever. So how do you know what to play? We're

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play next so I'll give you a link for that in a little while so the the takeaway here is you don't need to scribble anything down we are live because we tend to do these shows live which means I have our fantastic

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covering it today. Now, you don't need to grab a pen or a pencil or scribble anything down or, you know, write notes or anything because we have a whole article, which I'm going to share the link to

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comments and their views on the right way to pick the next song and that means you as well if you're watching this live you can join in do type away and tell me how you pick the correct song next how

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with you underneath this video. This article also contains downloads to bonus material where you can download a checklist that helps you with all this stuff, and there's also extra video material in this. It's like a free training course on how to know what to

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in the comments as we move through today's lesson however for now let's get started because we've got a lot to get through so the first thing that you need to understand about why DJs always seem to know what to play next without any

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play next. So I'll give you a link for that in a little while. So the takeaway here is you don't need to scribble anything down. We are live because we tend to do these shows live, which means I have our fantastic

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is 70% of the work is done by the time they get there so that only leaves 30% that only leaves execution imagine someone running a marathon something I know a little bit about by the time you get to

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students who are the ones bringing this to you. They're the ones that fund everything we do. So I have our fantastic students here in the studio with me virtually on this laptop, which means that I will be feeding back with their

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isn't down to that moment it's down to what happened before sound to your preparation right DJing is exactly the same so by the time the DJ is there they're going to have set in stone whether things are going to go well or

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comments and their views on the right way to pick the next song. And that means you as well. If you're watching this live, you can join in, do type away and tell me how you pick the correct song next, how

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you're there you know what to play next so I'm going to divide this kind of 70% bit into three areas learning preparing for the gig and also preparing the music itself three areas and I going to give you looks like I've got about nine or 10

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you do it, what your rules are for getting it right time after time after time. Has it ever gone wrong for you? Have you ever cleared the dance floor? What did you do next? Whatever your stories, good or bad, share them and I will get to them

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training and also from our community and also from some bigname DJs cuz we we talk to quite a few people here uh when we prepare our stuff and from our general lives in this world so I've got some of their stuff to feed in as well a

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in the comments as we move through today's lesson. However, for now, let's get started because we've got a lot to get through. So the first thing that you need to understand about why DJs always seem to know what to play next without any

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on digital DJ tips and there is a bonus material a free perfect next song checklist and worksheet that you can download as part of this along with extra video material as well it's like a free course uh and so don't worry about

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effort is that 70% of the work is done before they turn up in that DJ booth or they turn up to play that gig or to record that mixtape or to do that live stream or to play that set wherever it

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Mac and lots of others I can see your comments coming in already right let's get started learning then the 70% the bit before gig firstly you got to know the tunes that you're playing this used to be a given when you were DJing on

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is. Seventy percent of the work is done by the time they get there. So that only leaves 30%. That only leaves execution. Imagine someone running a marathon, something I know a little bit about. By the time you get to

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know that you should play that song next unless you know that song in a way you don't really own music that you don't know there was a very famous case once where someone back in the Napster days they like downloaded I

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that start line, you know whether you finish or not, whether you put a foot wrong or not. And again, you know, marathons, it's just one foot in front of another. DJing, it's just one track after another. Whether you do it right or wrong

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told that they owed like you know5 trillion dollars to the recording industry and this 19-year-old is like what the and um they got thrown out of court because the judge said there's no way this person in any meaningful sense

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isn't down to that moment. It's down to what happened before, sound to your preparation, right? DJing is exactly the same. So by the time the DJ is there, they're going to have set in stone whether things are going to go well or

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really have that music it's not really there so you can't know to play it next if you don't really own it you don't really have it so listen to everything you add to your collection that's the first tip listen to everything you add

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not for them a long time before. So we're going to spend the majority of our time here talking about what you do leading up to that point where you're playing your gig in order to make sure that when

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random play or whatever whatever you're listening to it on hit some kind of way of playing it in a random order and make sure that you're playing the individual tracks unmixed right so you're hearing the whole song but you're hearing songs

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you're there, you know what to play next. So I'm going to divide this kind of 70% bit into three areas: learning, preparing for the gig, and also preparing the music itself. Three areas, and I'm going to give you, looks like I've got about nine or 10

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think oh I wouldn't have thought of playing that after that or you might laugh and say God they didn't go well together uh you know we're not thinking about the mixes here we're thinking about the order the tunes go in DJ is

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tips in total to share in this. Then we're going to move on to literally, you're there, you're doing it, how do you know what to play next? And I'm going to share some tips there as well from our

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I've been doing this a long time the mixing is really not that important if you can get those bits right or to flip it around the other way if your mixing is great but your programming and your tunes are wrong nothing will save you so

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training and also from our community and also from some big-name DJs because we talk to quite a few people here when we prepare our stuff and from our general lives in this world. So I've got some of their stuff to feed in as well. A

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then you're listening to the whole songs and you're thinking about the programming and finally whenever you record a DJ set whenever you are on your decks when you're when you're there actually doing it it's time to sit down and practice

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lot to get through then. Again, no need to scribble anything down because we have an article which I'm going to give you the link for. You'll find it underneath this post. It's called How DJs Always Know What to Play Next. It's over

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got them in the right order whether you mixed in or out of the song in the right place and whether what you did was was was the right thing or you overbaked the cake or you could have tried a bit

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on Digital DJ Tips, and there is bonus material, a free perfect next song checklist and worksheet that you can download as part of this, along with extra video material as well. It's like a free course. So don't worry about

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Audience by listening back to your own Transitions and your own mixes not not the minute you stop but the next day or something right just and if you get into the habit of recording everything it's like those cameras in reality TV right

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anything other than joining in, kicking back, listening, and maybe sharing your comments. They're all coming through here live to my console. And hello to a few of our early people here as well, to Katherine and Keser, Mix Master G, Julian

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when you listen back you might think that was the gold right there in them their Hills there was the gold and I wasn't expecting it so record everything you do and listen back to it as often as you can so this is that's all about

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Mac, and lots of others. I can see your comments coming in already. Right, let's get started learning then, the 70% bit before the gig. Firstly, you got to know the tunes that you're playing. This used to be a given when you were DJing on

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here the second thing then is preparing so I've got two ways of approaching preparing your music both of them are vitally important the first one is preparing the tracks themselves so when you're preparing the tracks themselves this is about getting the beat grids

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vinyl. You listen to your vinyl. But here's the but: nowadays you can pack your music, you know, you've got streaming services, it's cheap to buy music, you can pack your library with music you've never heard before. You don't

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want to mix out and all the stuff that we teach you in the courses it's important we teach it for a reason because it means that you can load a truck onto the deck and be ready to go

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know that you should play that song next unless you know that song in a way. You don't really own music that you don't know. There was a very famous case once where someone back in the Napster days, they like downloaded, I

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the old days we never had that so in the old days the rule was get a track put it on the deck put it on the deck literally and then get it lined up and then so you know you've got something to play when

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don't know, let's say 10 terabytes worth of music, right? And they got taken to court by the record labels. It's just some kid in, you know, rural America or something and got taken to court and got

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up you know it took a while to get ready to play the next song because it was all vinyl we didn't have q points we had to manually beat mix etc etc now there's none of that now you can literally

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told that they owed like, you know, 5 trillion dollars to the recording industry. And this 19-year-old is like, what the— and they got thrown out of court because the judge said there's no way this person in any meaningful sense

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before you finally choose the track you want but you can only do that because your grids and your cues are properly analyzed the next tip is a big one make sure you analyze by key musical key is a

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owns that music because it would take them 10 lifetimes to listen to half of it, right? Unless you listen to the music that you are buying, that you're adding to your collection, that you're using in your streaming services, then you don't

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play next rather than choose something that you're worried that you won't be able to mix it's just one of those things that when you understand it and when you use it you won't be able to live without it and look into our fuzzy

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really have that music. It's not really there. So you can't know to play it next if you don't really own it. You don't really have it. So listen to everything you add to your collection. That's the first tip: listen to everything you add

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adopted by everyone yet but Pioneer DJ stroke Alpha Theta have got it in some of their gear now den and DJ have taken it algorithm in their DJ software have taken it it's a way that I can't go into

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to your collection before you add it. Listen through beginning to end. Make the time. Second tip: when it comes to learning your music, put the music that you are considering using in your DJ set into a big folder and hit shuffle or hit

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underneath so that you can look at that there's a whole article and video on digital DJ tips about it uh but key mixing key analysis is a good one to have in your Armory when it comes to being confident about knowing what to

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random play or whatever you're listening to it on. Hit some kind of way of playing it in a random order and make sure that you're playing the individual tracks unmixed, right? So you're hearing the whole song, but you're hearing songs

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or three and these are cool because they make the life of a DJ literally two or three times easier because instead of thinking every single minute 90 seconds 2 minutes 3 minutes ah what do I play there ah what do I play there ah what do

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put in a completely random order by your, you know, by iTunes or whatever it is you're using. This will again help you to learn them, but it will also, and this is the crazy thing, it will suggest transitions to you. It will suggest you

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minutes of I know what I'm doing here now you look to all the world like someone who's totally in charge your hands are on the faders your eyes are half shut you're loving it all but yet you're still changing the music every 90

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think, oh, I wouldn't have thought of playing that after that, or you might laugh and say, God, they didn't go well together. You know, we're not thinking about the mixes here. We're thinking about the order the tunes go in. DJing is

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and you can have them prepared and you can just dive into there what little mini set should I play next I know DJs who play pairs of songs and a pair of songs is just the smallest Min set

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mainly about programming. It's not about mixing. Mixing is what you do when you've decided upon the programming, right? You need to know that programming dominates. Getting the right songs in the right order is probably 95% of DJing, and trust me,

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through their DJ I know DJs who deliberately do not play mini sets and indeed they approach their DJ by saying I'm going to break my mini set every time I play I'm thinking of one DJ in particular our tutor layback Luke

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I've been doing this a long time. The mixing is really not that important if you can get those bits right. Or to flip it around the other way, if your mixing is great but your programming and your tunes are wrong, nothing will save you. So

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he calls them sandwich sets he'll have two tracks that work well together and he'll pick a third track and he'll slice the the sandwich in half he'll put the third track in as the meat between the two pieces of bread that's the

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put them on shuffle when you're...

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little mini sets that you've already practiced it makes like easier anyway I thought I'd share that good on You Luke you're one of a kind right so preparing your music we've covered that learning your music we've covered that preparing

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for the actual gig that you'll be playing is what so few people do and it's the biggest weapon in your Armory when it comes to this stuff back in the days of vinyl we used to have I've still

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got my record box here this is my actual record box from the days of vinyl still has a s sticker of Robert miles on it rest in peace Robert Miles made one of the best dance tracks of all time this is literally the

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box that carried 60 records 60 pieces of vinyl if that I can't remember how many they fit not many and so if you're going to go to a gig and you've got one box or a very important gig you might take your

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second box you've got to be very careful about what goes in that box very careful because you've got to have a plan A A Plan B and maybe a plan C you can have a maximum of say 50 songs so it's all

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filler or all killer no filler right you should approach your DJing in exactly the same way when it comes to packing the music you're going to play at your gig even though you can take all your music with you you should never be

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playing out of that main library loads of reasons I won't go into here but you should never be playing out of that main library you should be playing out of a pre-prepared set list now I don't mean start at the top and end at the bottom I

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don't mean every transition's been practiced I don't mean you only play the tracks in there cuz you're going to pack about twice the amount of music you need if you play 30 songs an hour and you're playing for an hour then pack 60 songs

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it and and think very hard about every song what would I do if these songs aren't working what will I take to play instead and so on you'll very quickly figure out the songs which really are your killers and you'll figure out the

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songs which are risky you always want a few risky songs but not too many you'll realize that if you're packing 100 songs for an hour and a half or something you better have a few vocals you better have

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a few kind of like dubby songs you better have a few instrumentally type songs you better have some some some songs that have got a bit of punch you got have some songs people know songs they don't know a couple of styles in

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case the first Styles you were going to play don't work etc etc etc and what you're doing when you pack that crate is thinking about your gig you're thinking about where you're going to be playing you're visualizing the Dance Floor the

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people who are there and this brings me on to the second point and this is directly from another one of our tutors James hype James says I was talking to him once in a restaurant we were chatting DJ and over some food and uh

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about reading about reading the crowd and James is like well you know I pre-read the crowd and I'm like dude pen out I'm having that what is it and James explained that James will literally go on social media when he's playing in a

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city he doesn't know and he'll look at the DJs who played there recently not to see what they were doing not to see their mixing not to see how they were in the DJ booth but to see two things the

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crowd itself at their gigs because it's always like hero shot of the crowd isn't it and the tracks they were playing and how they were going down to give himself a sense of what's going on in that City

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you can do this yourself of course you can do what James does if you're playing kind of gigs in in venues but also here's a really good trick if you head to shazam.com the Shazam website you can go

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to to any City you like and look at what people are shazaming in that City it's a great way of pre-reading a city anything you can do and of course you can go to The Venue itself if you're booked for a

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special gear get down there if you can but anything you can do to pre-ad the crowd to help you to pack double the amount of music you need for a set to play at that venue is going to be super

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helpful but here's the third one that again so few DJs do this in your DJ software there is a history area if you go into the history area after after your gig it will show you every track you played in the order you played it in

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and now you obviously maybe not at 4: in the morning but now the next day you can look through your set and you can remember and you can see what worked and what didn't work you can see the tracks

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you never want to play again you can see the little mini sets that actually work that maybe happened on the night now you can drag them into a mini set for next time so this idea of pre-prepared for the gig by packing a

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set pre-reading the crowd and so on visualizing the the set having a plan B and then looking through how it worked this is all preparing for the gig and learning from your gigs and all of this has happened before you've even

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literally well apart from the the the looking through your playlist of course but I guess looking through your playlist after the gig is preparing for the next gig all of this has happened away from the venue this is

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preparation which is cool isn't it because if you can just do two or three of those things that you've never done before you you you'll have a better idea about what to play next at your next gig but now I want to talk quickly about how

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to actually know what to play when you're there when you're in the moment when you're on your decks I mean I've got this lovely little Flex 4 here that I've been teaching on today so I keep cutting to this but of course you could

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be playing on this you be playing on Pro gear where when you're actually on the gear and your hands are on the faders and like I say your eyes are half shut you're loving it your headphones on what

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are you going to play how are you going to know how are you actually going to know when the robber hit the road that's what we're going to talk about next however before we do I just want to grab

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a few of your bits of feedback and comments uh from the community I'll pull in the comment uh the comment station here uh so Mix Master G says use related tracks this is the feature on on cdjs but there's also a similar feature on

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denim DJ gear for instance and in some DJ software as well use related tracks and you'll have a choice of next tracks that you know will work with the current plane track and this is technically BPM key and maybe genre is included in there

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as well so thank you for that Mix Master G that's a great one harmonic boom on Twitch hello twitch family says I separate tracks into smart crates so smart crates are intelligent playlists playlists that are created by by rules

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like I want all my house music from this year that's from 120 to 125 BPM with an energy level of three or above to give you an example set those rules the playlist will fill up with all those

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songs useful stuff I separate tracks into smart crates I BAS some on genre but my genre field may have multiple genres listed so it can fit into multiple crates it makes it easy to switch between genres as well so like a

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tech house to Tech to tribal house to tribal house right I know what you mean so if you have it's almost like cross songs that cross between genres you have in more than one smart playlist so it allows you to move smoothly between your

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genres I like that thank you harmonic boom but then harmonic boom goes on to say you've got to watch the crowd and see what gets a reaction and what that reaction is we're going to get on to reading crowd in a minute uh so gram

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points out that related tracks are great hello people over there on YouTube by the way but unfortunately sorat doesn't have that or help you with it no you're right serat doesn't Max says algorithms DJ has got a related track feature that

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has saved him Time After Time know your music taking too much music will make you feel like a bunny in the headlights says Mix Master G thanks for sharing that Mix Master G uh so uh this separates two types of DJs says the

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house of house on Twitch uh the ones that prepare everything and play basically a fully prepared set and the and then it kind of cuts off uh I I would argue no it doesn't at all all good DJs prepare I mean I know the best

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DJs in the world I work with James hype I work with layback Luke I work with um I work with uh Jazzy Jeff I'm going to see Jazzy Jeff next week to to film our next course they all prepare the they

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they prepare their sets out of their skins so that when they're dejing they can be totally in the moment it's important to realize it's not an either or and I'm not saying here you should practice every transition far

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from it and this is freeing you from having to do that so don't think that it's an either all don't think preparing means you can't be a DJ on the night or vice versa I'd much rather be a

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well-prepared DJ when literally I'm forgetting I'm forgetting it becomes effortless I'm just doing my thing uh I'm looking through my carefully chosen tracks for the night and the right one for next is Just Happening I'd much rather be that DJ than someone who's

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completely stuck and playing an awful set so please don't think that it's an either or uh right so um I'm going to move on now to the how we know what to do on the night then as I promise you

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this is the 30% this is the next bit now I'm not going to go into too much detail about this mainly because we've got an awful lot for you about it so I'm going to push you to the article so remember

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I've got an article I'm going to be sharing you on how DJs always know what to play next without ever panicking I will give the link to this article over on digital DJ tips where there's more video material and downloadable cheat

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sheets and stuff it's like a free course on this subject I'll give you the link underneath uh the video uh on YouTube and Facebook so find that there or just go to digital DJ tips uh and click the

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search bar and search for how DJs always know what song to play next uh you will find it that way as well Google's quite good for that too if you didn't know uh so yeah it's out there it's easy enough

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to find this article but there'll be a link underneath right I'm going to share with you some principles now on how DJs know what to play next and then I'm going to share with you a very quick fire set of

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ways that you can approach this they're all written down in the article and in the sheet so I'm not going to go into much detail uh on these at all so firstly let's share the principles of knowing what to play next so the first

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thing is um there's a difference between warm up and peak time so when it comes to reading the crowd people say oh reading the crowd it's like a it's a dark art you know it's like manual beat mixing reading the crowd DJing is hard

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isn't it no it's not it's just experience it's just watching people it's just seeing whose feet are tapping and who are smiling and who are looking like they're going to be dancing soon and so on but the end of the day there

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is a difference between looking for those things when there's no one dancing or there's a couple of people dancing and when you've got a full dance for so let's look at them both the warmup really you want to be DJing to the

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people who are already dancing now of course the first and the most important job is to get someone dancing uh in Western societies generally if you can get the girls dancing the boys aren't far behind I know that's not a blanket

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rule but tends to work uh for a lot of people so if that works where you are then go ahead get the girls dancing first but the point is you've got to get someone dancing right as soon as you got

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someone on the Dance Floor generally people will start to follow but play for the people who are on the dance floor right that's your job as a warm-up DJ how do you get those first people on the Dance Floor well apart from the the the

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girls rule the dartboard rule is a good one which is basically the genres that you think might work imagine they're arranged on a dart board now throw your your musical darts all around that board play a bit of everything and then keep

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an eye on people and then you'll very quickly figure out what is and isn't going to work that night obviously don't play your bangers play your slightly lower energy tracks but play a bit of everything uh and throw your darts and

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then in the end you'll figure out what the the genres you should be concentrating on are when it comes to peak time though that's different this is a tip straight from Carl Cox so Carl says look when you're warming up play to the people on

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the dance floor but at Peak time play to the people who aren't play to the people who are around the side use your crowd reading what are they likely to dance to What are they kind of tapping their feet

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to when you play because the people on the Dance Floor are there now you've got a nice full dance Flor how can you get them interested because at the end of the day for it to be a mega night

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everyone has to have had a chance right the dance floor is not normally big enough to hold everyone and the bar needs to take some money um so you need to be rotating so how are you going to

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get the people who aren't dancing up and that should be in your consideration when you're thinking what what what to play next how are you going to switch it up a bit right you do need to switch up

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as events go on right so there is a few principles let's now talk about about some quick fire ideas to help you know literally what do I play next like I've got a track playing what track do I play

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now cuz again we're making this decision every two or three minutes at most for most DJs nowadays all the way through our DJing careers so we ought to know this stuff so I'm just going to Quick fly through these because these are

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coming straight from the article which I'm going to give you a link to so uh start and end each set with the practice oh hang on a second I'm just going to uh that actually that's a very good list

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the one I've got on the screen now is a very good list and I'm not going to go through that now I recommend you go and have a read of that on the uh on the um on the site uh on that article these are

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the ones I want to go through uh so have a smaller music collection than you think you need uh it's much easier to play a great set from a music collection that's small and that you love than that is big and that you don't

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know everything of uh think about telling a story have a beginning middle and end um when you're practicing set transition practice drills say 20 random tracks and try and work with them this will give you the confidence to play

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what you know you should be playing next at the set itself um have a collection swap evening with a DJ friend this is a great one try and play out of each other's DJ collections watch other DJs and how crowds react to them what can

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you take from there and of course play in public as often as you can all these things are going to help you be confident about knowing what to play next in your DJ sets now there's a whole load of advice over there that can

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contains things like you know do you play the same genre or do you play a different genre do you play something at the same tempo or a different Tempo in the same key or a different key something they know or something they

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don't know do you change the mood up or do you keep the mood where it is what do you do with the volume etc etc etc that's the stuff I'm not going to go into now because it's all there in the

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article so do go and take a look at that and that list I went through there is one of many it is literally like a free training course this this article we got here called how DJs know what what to

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play next uh without panicking so go take a look at that so I just wanted to uh kind of end this because I know it's been quite a fast lesson and I hope you haven't been trying to write everything

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down because it is all in the article I wanted to end it by as we always do heading over to you guys and girls and talking to you about this because ultimately we are in a big feedback loop

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here just like at the DJ and the dance floor are in a feedback loop you're watching them they're watching you everything at the end of the night hopefully is is one big Unity we're like that with you people all of our training

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everything we do is informed by you is shaped by you and ultimately it's made better because because of our wonderful students so I'm going to now head over directly to our wonderful students and anyone else who happens to have tuned in

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to this show uh and we're going to share some of your best comments here as well uh so uh let's grab a few starting from the bottom I'm starting from people who are just commenting right this second is there

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any software that can put your set in a particular order yeah your DJ software there's all kinds of columns you can click to get it into a different order uh so that's a good uh a good tip experiment with that you can put it in

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BPM order you can put it in energy level order if you give all your tracks an energy level you can put it in from energy level one to five which will generally be early in the night to the

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end of the night and so on Lots you can do there Victor says 18 minutes 18 minutes is usually a good time to play a different genre it all depends on the set if you're playing a mobile DJ event

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then one of the ways of approaching mobile DJing is how we teach in our courses is definitely change the genre up you know a bit of this a bit of that kind of thing 18 minutes works for you

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sometimes less sometimes I wouldn't say much more um but a lot of you saying BPM and key are good ones to stick with um Nicholas says I'm not sure about checking your crowd in advance uh people surely know what to expect from people

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like James hype and so on no James is very very cognizant of the fact that he has to play music in certain places that work for that place um I here's a really good story this is those of you that know this show will expect

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this stuff from me this absolutely blew my mind so I um I study as well as teach and I'm studying Beethoven at the moment and the way Beethoven Rose in Europe back in his day as a composer bover was

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a child prodigy and a performer before he was a composer I mean he did write music right from the off but he was he was a performer he played music and Beethoven toured be Beethoven's dad literally sent him out on tour and one of the things

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that Beethoven's dad told him is when you get to Paris and Vienna and Saltsburg and Munich and when you arrive in all the big great cities of Europe in the in the beov Beethovan era um you find out what they're into find out

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what's being played in the concert Halls find out what songs are popular and you base your you base your performances around that you give them what they want before you give them what you want to give them and this is a great rule that

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is being followed ever since by anyone who tours around playing music James knows it I used to see DJs that did it and didn't do it back in my day so I used to promote a nightclub for 15 years

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every Saturday night I booked all kinds of DJs big and small the DJs who wanted to play their own music did it towards the end of their sets because they spent the beginning of their sets getting everyone on their side so just bear that

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in mind if it works from James hype to Beethoven to me it's probably going to work for you as well uh but thank you Nicholas yeah you're right people do know what to expect but don't think bigname DJs don't change their sets up

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to suit where they're playing because they do uh so Wayne talking about mobile DJing says on private functions I used to request an A and C list from the client a being the must playay record these L lists definitely helped on the

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night so uh in the comments you will find a link to the if you're live with us here today you'll find a link to the article thank you team for putting that in harmonic boom says I tend to start

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out more mellow and work my way up higher on the harmonic chart uh so you're using key mixing to kind of move the key up and up and up as you go along it's a good way of approaching it it's

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not something that I would allow to dominate over the right song for the people in front of me right now personally for me being in key is a bit of a bonus but thank you for sharing that uh so this is from uh I am Preacher

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Man who agrees with me it says play for the girls period there we go it's obviously working for you Alex is Into The Minis sets idea says I usually have a string of tracks that work off each other after finding a Vibe the audience

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are liking I play into that string of tracks uh I love it that's cool um so uh one or two more then knowing your music uh you're playing working the crowd with knowing the music you're playing and working the crowd with Peaks and valleys

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uh and then working up to a final Peak works for me says kinetic we didn't really talk about this how to structure a set big because we're talking about how to know exactly what song to play next but maybe it's a good time to speak

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about that so when you're structuring let's say you're playing the whole night let's say you're playing 10: in the evening till 3: in the morning or something imagine that this is time right this is 10: in the this is 10:

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let's get my computer off by the way I'm going to draw you an air graph it's like VR again isn't it this is the time right early in the night end of the night and this is the energy level here right so

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early in the night over here your energy level is going to go up like this and then Peak and then just towards the end you're going to dip a little bit towards 3:00 right but it's not going to go like

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that smoothly because actually it's going to be full of little ones of those like a fractal so it's going to go like that lots of them and overall the big line they make is like this but it's full of lots of

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little ones and there your Peaks and troughs you're building up to an Anthem you're giving them a breather building up to an Anthem giving them a breather turning a corner building up to an Anthem giving them a breather getting

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slowly more energetic as we approach our 1:00 2:00 in the morning Peak and then a little dip at the end just to let people know that it's all going to close so if you could think of your set in that way

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as both on a on a on a hour by hour level but also on a mini set by minis set level another reason to have minis sets adding a bit of tension and release as was shared there by kinetic uh then

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you will be on the right on the right Road I think it was kinetic who shared that anyway whoever it was uh thank you uh so um I think we're probably more or less there now I'm just having a little

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look now uh to see if there's anyone who said anything that trig either triggers something for me or that I've not covered yet it's another good reason uh that we are that we are here live because I can get I can get you lot

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pushing me back on course when I uh when I miss something that I really want to play I really wanted to say but I don't think so I think we've kind of covered it here I we covered everything I'm just

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scanning your your comments and uh yeah we're good um lot of chat about whether vinyl is the way forward it's never going to be the way forward again it doesn't mean it's not brilliant I play a 7in DJ set and I know other DJ tutors

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and people in this game in this teaching game are also very fond of 7 in as well he's looking at you Mo jaxs uh I love vinyl I love my 7in collection I love doing that stuff but it's not the way

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it's going it's going to be digital all the way from now on trust me uh but anyway look thank you very much everyone for tuning in today I hope I've given you some food for thought but remember the whole point about this is

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that you don't need to remember anything you just watched head over to the digital DJ tips website and look for how DJs always know what song to play next without ever panicking this goes into a lot more detail than I've been able to

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go into today there is a downloadable cheat sheet uh and worksheet that you can grab from here and there's more video material as well on this rather large article uh it goes uh it goes very deep on this topic and it's like a free

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course uh in knowing the right thing to play next so it looks like you're doing it effortlessly which is what we all want isn't it thank you very much as always people I will not be here next week because I will be with DJ J Jazzy

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Jeff locked deep in in in uh the studio recording our new scratch course which is coming from us and Jazzy Jeff very very soon so I will see you in a couple of weeks time for the next Tuesday

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lesson meanwhile from the studio this is Phil saying get good get out there make the moments I'll see you again very soon bye for now for

Topics:DJ tipssong selectionDJ set programmingmusic preparationcrowd readingmixing vs programmingDJ gearset list preparationDigital DJ Tipslive DJ performance

Frequently Asked Questions

How do DJs decide which song to play next during a live set?

DJs decide what to play next primarily through extensive preparation, knowing their music deeply, programming their setlists in advance, and reading the crowd's reactions in real time.

Is mixing skills or song selection more important for a great DJ set?

Song selection and programming the right order of tracks is more important, accounting for about 95% of DJing, while mixing is a complementary skill used after deciding the track order.

What tools or methods can help DJs prepare their sets effectively?

DJs can use features like related tracks on CDJs, research local music trends via platforms like Shazam, and create pre-prepared setlists to ensure smooth and appropriate song transitions.

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