LISTEN, LEARN AND CREATE. How to dj? 1st
B.P.M (beats per minute)
The B.P.M or beats per minute of a song is the
tempo or speed at witch the music is played.
Basically it means how many beats kick in the
space of one minute. To determine the B.P.M
of a song you can simply count how times the
kick drum hits in one minute and you ’ve got
your B.P.M. To make things a bit quicker you
could just count how many beats in the first 30
seconds and multiply your answer by two or 10
seconds and multiply your answer by six.
You could use this basic formula and beat count
your records quite accurately but here is a
tip to get your B.P.M readings on your records
spot on.
Golden Rule for beat counting is: Always have the
turntable spinning at quartz-lock or
zero
(a) Listen to music like a DJ, listen to every sound,
when and how it comes in. Try to
establish an estimated B.P.M for the song.
(b) Try to differentiate between beat (drums),
bass-line, melody, percussion and vocals.
Image each element to be a separate person
playing an instrument to create that sound.
(c) Change the E.Q positions on the equalizer, and
listen to what happens.
(d) Listen to some tracks a few times over and
over picking out the different elements and
following what they do from start to end.
At first use records with basic solid drum
patterns. Records with only beats on are a good
idea to start with. Records with a kick drum as
the very first sound on them are also a good
idea at first. If you are starting from scratch buy
some records with bonus beat mixes on to
help you, second hand would be a better bet as
you really going to wear them out a lot as a
beginner.
THE BASIC ELEMENTS
Kick Drum
The kick drum is the one that kick's the beat, the
one that goes thump, thump, thump. The
one your parents hate so much, in most house
music it kicks on every beat (i.e. 1, 2, 3, and
4). On a real drum set it's the big round one that
the drummer controls with a foot pedal. The
kick drum is normally your time keeper.
Snare Drum
This drum makes that distinctive 'cha' sound. In a
typical house beat it sits on beat 2 and beat
4 of every bar, creating that famous house
rhythm of “Boom, Cha, Boom, Cha” The snare
drum arouses a lot of emotion because of its
sound. It's very often used to create a build up
to a crash drum. On a real drum kit it's the one
next to the drummer with the little strings
underneath it to give you that rolling sound after
you hit it. The snare drum is also known as
the rhythm keeper. At the circus they use the
snare to roll up emotion for a big trick ending
with the crash! Oh! Now you know what we
talking about.
Hi - Hat
The one that goes tssst, tssst, tssst. It's the part
of the drum kit with two cymbals hitting
against each other also controlled by a foot pedal.
In most house music it's the tssst sound
on the off-beat of every solid beat. Count
1,and,2,and,3,and,4. the hats on the and count.
Percussion
Percussions are sounds that add on to the drums
to make them fuller. Bongo's and Congo's
are common percussions found in dance music.
There are many different percussions like
cowbells, djembes, xylophones, woodblock,
marimbas, timbales and the list goes on and on.
Somebody that plays percussions is called a
percussionist. It ’s something you hit
Bass
Often confused with the beat, it's the bass-line,
which you don't only hear but also feel. The
bass and the drum provide the main elements of
dance music. All the rest of the sounds just
add on that. It's strange how people seem to
forget about the bass and drum while listening
to the vocals. The bass is originally played by a
bass guitar but nowadays bass-lines are
created on computers in seconds. You will later
be able to distinguish between an authentic
bass-line played by a bass guitar, and a computer
engineered one.
Melody
The tone that plays in your head after the song
has finished playing. It could be many
different sounds either a saxophone, or an organ
maybe even a violin, quite frankly it could
be any sound that creates a tune or melodic
pattern in the music. We know of many
melodies in songs that were created using two or
more different sounds stacked on top of
one another to create a unique sound. Strings
and pads can also play the melody.
Vocals
Vocals are voices in the music either male or
female or both. Musically the voice becomes
another instrument that can arouse more
emotion than any other. Vocals come in verses
and
Choruses. Vocals can be sung or just said or
rapped or beat boxes. Vocal cords are the
strings used to make these sounds.
What is a Bar?
When you hear musicians taking about a bar
they are not taking about a place where alcohol
is sold, they are talking about a section in the
music that plays over and over again in relation
to the songs time signature. A songs time
signature is how many and what value of notes
are
played in a specified time. If you here them say
this songs time signature is 4/4 the bottom
value indicates how many beats in the bar and
the top value indicates what note value those
beats are. So if we know the time signature of a
song is 4/4 we know there are four quarter
notes in a four beat bar section. Most dance
music is recorded at 4/4 time signature giving
that 1, 2, 3, 4, repeat feeling for dancing but, there
are many different time signatures even
within the dance genre spectrum. For the
purposes of this course we will stick to the most
common time signature 4/4. Now that we know
that our time signature is 4/4 we know that
there are four beats in every bar of music. So let
’ s
break it down: a musical bar is a section in
the music that plays over and over again in
relation to that songs time signature.
Cueing
What does cueing mean? Cueing means to cue
up the next record or the one in the queue?
Well, the dictionary says it's a noun that is a
signal for a performer to begin performing a
piece of music or art. Well in DJ terminology a
cue is normally what's playing in the
earphones ready to be mixed. We also speak of
cue points, they could be anywhere in the
track signally something to you, either
something's coming in or something's going out
or by
that cue you will know what you should do..
Normally your cue point would be the first beat
of a bar. Being a DJ means you have the ability to
hear two tracks at once, determine witch
one is faster or slower and adjust their speeds to
play in time with one another. Here are the
steps to cueing.
1) Put two records on the turntables, with the
cross-fader in the middle so you can hear both
records playing through the speakers.
2) Use your cue control on your mixer to listen to
the same track coming out the speakers in
your earphones.
3) Change the cue switch so that you hear the
other record you want to cue up. Make sure
the channel fader is down because with your
cross-fader in the middle you would hear it
through the speaker. [http://twitter.com/lenties]
4) Now take one earphone off one ear and keep
the other earphone on the other ear. You
should be hearing two separate tracks on each
ear.
5) Adjust the volumes of each so that you hear
both tracks at equal volume. It also makes it
easier if you listen with the open ear closest to
your monitor speaker.
6) Listen carefully and try separating the two
records in your head. Listen how the beat hits,
which one is faster or slower? You'll be doing a
lot of this get used to it.
7) Change the earphones around so that the
opposite ear is now hearing the monitor, which
do you prefer? Make sure you can do it either
way.
Cue Mix
Cue mix is a feature that most modern day, DJ
orientated, mixers have. This feature allows
you to mix two or more.
Spilt - Cue
Some new mixers have spilt-cue button on them
which allows you to hear track one in the
one earphone and track two in the other
earphone. This helps a lot especially if you don't
have a monitor speaker at all.
ASPIRING UPCOMING DJ ’S
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