Access yourself

In the last ten years, no doubt that the DJ industry has become more saturated with aspiring DJs eager to share their passion for music discovery, mixing, and curation around the world. It’s all too easy to become stagnant with common habits of mediocrity that DJs fall into.

Everyone loves success stories, especially when it comes to DJs that you know. While statistics on DJ success rates are non-existent, one of the major obstacles to a DJ’s growth is mediocrity – failing to use your abilities to do and be more. Mediocrity is self-inflicted and so is excellence. If DJs can choose mediocrity or excellence, why do people choose the former more often than not? Here are some traits that define mediocrity in most DJs and how to avoid them.

Your persona:

Humility and being real are tremendous weapons you can use to sell yourself. Portraying a fake persona – image of others as your own can potentially be very damaging. More DJs do this than you might expect. When your name is also your brand, this can potentially be very damaging and unauthentic – it alienates you from your fans as they can’t truly figure out who you are. This quality hinders your chances for gigs and better networking opportunities.

It takes a long while to genuinely find yourself as a performer and discern yourself from the rest. If you stick to and improve on your areas of strength while remaining consistently humble, your actions, as well as music, will do the talking for you and brand.

The effects bank:

Effects such as echo, flanger, filter, phaser, reverb, robot, and many more are creative ways to manipulate and add drama to our DJ sets. When a DJ loses him/herself while manipulating the audio using too many effects as opposed to letting the tracks speak for themselves is a buzz kill – mediocre, especially from a listener’s perspective.

Set discipline goals for yourself – minimal track play all dry without any effects, three to five tracks back-to-back to help keep the music energy constant, separates you from the rest, and give your audience a unique experience.

The playlist

Playing the same playlist over and over again every week from previous gigs happens all too often. Unfortunately, people do notice and comment about the lack of creativity and effort on their limited track selection. These DJs developed a habit of knowing what works and fail to innovate when they play to a new/more selective crowd.

Yes, the playlist from previous months rocked the crowd and received numerous compliments. Should you choose to believe, that same playlist might not suit or replicate future gigs. This habit creatively kills the creativity in you silently and drops you to the depths of mediocrity. It can be challenging for weekly residents to come up with new sets every week. You constantly have to be looking for new music and rare remixes that help you break from the norm.

Go through your library and listen intimately to tracks you haven’t played in a while. You’d be surprised to find some gems you forgot about. Also, consider taking a break for a week or two and listen to different styles of music from other DJs for inspiration.

The booze:

Beginner DJs and some more matured professionals tanking-up on alcohol will help dampen down the adrenaline and face the crowd easily – loosen up your playing. On the other side of the coin, most professional DJs choose not to drink during their sets while sticking with water throughout.

Trying to bringing a level composure and calmness to your nerves might be okay. However, a drunk or high DJ can quickly become a sloppy caught up with the crowd and music. There are small things that alcohol can do to affect your sets like – your output levels become loud, your track selection is clouded, reading the crowd is short-sighted and eventually, your sets evolve to an aggressive and perplexing performance.

Finally, excessive ego and laziness are the roots of most mediocre habits in all creative industries. The more you settle for mediocrity, the more it begins to look like genius and excellence. Humility, professionalism, and committing to constant never-ending improvement every day goes a long way. You will easily differentiate yourself from the rest by pushing more every day, every gig, every track.

My recommended party pace pusher for this week is Falz Feat. Ms Banks – Bop Daddy.

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