Effective practice session

When you learn a language, your end goal is to be able to speak that language better in everyday situations. When you have a DJ practice session, your goal is to play a better DJ set. One of the core beliefs you should have is practicing correctly makes perfect. If you have music you love and want to share, the technical basics can be taught with the end goal to do better at what you have learned.

Let’s start with the basics. Being a good DJ involves regularly practice in terms of technique, music selection, and professionalism. You have to understand exactly what to do during your practice sessions. And, most importantly, how do you keep them interesting and fun?

What this means is that if you feel like you are stuck in a rut and can’t get past a roadblock the best way to organize your DJ practice session is by building it around a DJ set. Arranging your practice session around actual DJ sets has many advantages. Here are a few tips:

1. Define your objective

What is it you need to work on? Do you need to get comfortable with your equipment? Do you want to mix without syncing? Would you like to work with acapella? Whatever it is, set yourself a goal before you begin, and keep it in mind as you play – it’ll keep you focused, and only by doing this will you know when you’ve got there.

2. Pick your song

Depending on set-out objectives, make your practice session as close as possible to an actual DJ set. You may end up with a new mixtape a few times. If you are recording your practice sets (and you should), you may end up with a solid new mixtape to share with your fans. All with practically zero special effort. Recording your practice sessions is a great way to find out what areas you need to improve on. This allows you to put yourself in and experience your set as an audience member, which is very different from listening to yourself as you mix. You’ll learn about your tendencies that you may not notice.

3. Listen to your session

After you practice, take a break and playback your session to get an idea of what you’ve accomplished. Think around your pace, and reflect on how you can enhance the mixes that didn’t work. List transitions that you’d like to redo and tweak, making note of their time-codes so that you can refer to the next time. If listening back to your stuff seems like pain or a waste of time, then you should work harder to make something that you are proud of – or just wait a while before doing so.

4. Know your tunes better

Professional DJs know more the tracks to be played like the back of his hand. He or she knows where the breakdowns are, where a good point to mix out is – all of this and more stays fresh in the DJ’s brain by listening to their tunes hundreds of times. And there’s no better way to learn your tracks than DJing with them (practicing with them ahead of your actual gigs)

5. Challenge yourself

Making a new pair of tunes sound well together in a mix is a mini-challenge for each transition. By doing this repeatedly, you will learn to be less afraid of unharmonious tunes helping your mind to concentrate on the overall direction of the set, making you a better selector.

6. Practicing isn’t always fun

There are some things that you need to practice more than others – maybe it’s a scratch that you’re trying to nail or a transition between two songs that’s always given you trouble. Whatever it is, you’ve got to realize that while DJing is fun, practicing to get better at DJing can also be difficult. You get better when you work on things that you aren’t good at – and failing repeatedly at something that you’re trying to improve on isn’t a great feeling. To keep practice sessions from feeling like backbreaking work, split your sessions into two: Practice what you’re already good at (which feels great), and then practice what needs improving (which doesn’t feel great). This retains the fun factor of DJing while still having ample time to work on your weaknesses.

7. Don’t overthink it

It is also the most important piece of advice we can offer – don’t think, do. Practicing and getting good gave me the confidence and the skills I needed to do what matters – book gigs, see different cities, and make money doing something I loved.

Often seek to strike a balance between using the same strategy over and over and performing like a real-life DJ set. It’s important to stay focused, dedicated to practicing, get it right, and move on. For you to become a better DJ faster effective practice sessions play an important role and that’s how you progress and evolve as a DJ.

My recommended party pace pusher for this week is Kizz Daniel – Pak ‘N’ Go