These are strange times. 6 months ago, the world was trundling along, much the same as it had for decades. Sure, there were problems, but nothing we hadn’t seen before.
Fast forward to now, and we are facing an unprecedented global situation – a pandemic in a globalised world. We talked a bit last week about ways to deal with COVID-19 as a DJ – even after such a short time, that seems like a curiously innocent, naive time, where things like washing hands might do the trick. We have to adjust to the reality that lots of us are now, or soon will be, basically housebound for several weeks (maybe even months) at a time, and unable to perform to dancefloors in the way we love.
I’m not going to waste your time with yet more talk about the virus – there’s enough of that everywhere else.
Today, I’ll be writing about how to make the most of a situation nobody wanted or asked for. This skill is one of the keys to a good life – the ability to find opportunities and lessons in even the harshest adversity will make you stronger and happier, and give you the power to turn any situation to your advantage.
So – what’s the problem? We are DJs. DJs rely on busy dancefloors of happy people dancing like they don’t have a care in the world. With lockdowns and quarantines being enforced around the world, flights being grounded, and clubs being closed, we are left with cancelled gigs and empty diaries.
Easy to be downhearted – but this gifts us a lot of time to get down to all those projects we have been putting off, and to lay down the groundwork for better times ahead.
Opportunity dances with those already on the dancefloor
There’s a lot of things you can do now to set yourself up for the upturn down the line.
1. Revamp your online image
When’s the last time you updated your bio on Soundcloud, changed the profile pic on your website, or curated your Instagram page so that it looks good to a curious potential client? Even just an hour or two can make a huge difference to how people perceive you when they first look you up or discover you.
2. Become more active in online DJ communities
Facebook pages, Instagrams, Reddit, DJ Twitter – there’s all sorts of places to network, even if you are not able to go out and shake hands and share drinks with people. Find the ones that are relevant to your corner of DJing, and get involved, be of value, make relationships – I’ve made a ton of friends, and gained a lot of bookings, directly from online contacts that ended up leading to real-world opportunities.
3. Hone your skills
Once you have plenty of gigs, its easy to forget the importance of practice. If you have cancelled gigs, use that time to practice. Gigs are one thing – but at home you can safely try those blends you aren’t sure about, experiment with scratches that are just outside your comfort zone, test out tracks that you are nervous to play in front of a crowd. Its a lot easier to take chances when you have no dancefloor to lose, and you’ll learn a lot more trying out 50 mad ideas at home than you will do playing a safe set in front of a thousand people!
4. Work on your marketing
This is related to point 1, but slightly different – you can’t control who comes to look at you, but you can strongly influence who you put yourself in front of so they can’t ignore you. Emails cost nothing – see what contacts you can find from websites or a friendly message to social media accounts for clubs and promoters, and look at ways to build up a fan mailing list. Point 2 helps here – if you’ve made friends with people, you can share useful emails where appropriate. If you’re feeling more bold, phone calls are always an option, and so much more personal than emails. Develop a strategy for your social media posts to make them more effective, interact more with fans, and those who you want to work with in future.
5. Get more music content up
So you’re stuck at home, and you’ve completed Netflix? Fine – do those mixes you’ve put off for ages! Get your decks set up with a video camera and record a routine or a livestream! Use the relationships you’ve been developing to find out what your fans or potential clients want, and give it to them – people are going to be BORED in a lockdown, and you have the opportunity to entertain them. And they will truly appreciate the people who help them through this!
6. Do some thinking
This one is underrated in our modern world. All action, all talk – which has its place at times. But when is the last time you put your devices down and went for a walk, and really just thought? How many of you have good ideas in the shower – you know why that is? You have given your brain some space. Find a way to just let your mind wander, think about the things you want to do, the places you want to DJ, think about how you might achieve your goals – ultimately, you know your aims and your circumstances better than anyone else. You’ll be amazed what things come to your mind if you let it have some space. Boredom can be an incredible source of inspiration!
7. Dig for tunes
There’s obviously a whole treasure trove of originals, edits and remixes over at Heavy Hits. Use the charts, the playlists, the search facility and you’ll uncover some gold. Outside of that, if you are looking for inspiration – a good trick I use on Spotify (no idea if it works for other streaming services, but I would guess so) is to create a playlist, put a selection of tracks in there of the style I want. You can add key words to the playlist name and description to help Spotify. The algorithm will then offer you loads of suggestions in a similar vein – and the more you add to the playlist, the better it gets at finding suitable stuff! Listen to mixes by DJs you respect, and make notes of the best tracks (f there’s no playlist, Shazam is your friend!). Check out the playlists on radio stations you enjoy – they are usually posted online.
8. Make tunes/remixes yourself
If we are all stuck inside, how can you get other people thinking about you? Obviously, DJ mixes help – but you can multiply this a million times by having a track of yours blow up. There’s a reason why most DJ line-ups actually end up dominated by producers – they are more famous because their songs get their names in people’s heads all over the world. DJs often moan about how unfair this situation is, and maybe thats true – but thats the way it works. It takes a while to learn how to make tunes well, but if you are stuck inside indefinitely, its a good time to start on those Youtube tutorials! And a decent mash-up or edit can get your name in the crates of DJs all over the world in a matter of days!
9. Develop better habits
I’m a huge believer in the value of habits. So much of what we do is automatic, we do it without even realising – why is that? Its because it is a habit. It might be good, it might be bad. You have the power to shape those habits, and in doing so make yourself a happier, more productive person – without feeling like you are doing all that much, because after a while, habits seem almost as automatic as breathing. I use an app called Habit Bull, and also another one called Habit Share (which allows you to compete against someone with the same habit aims, which I am finding incredibly helpful!). Use this time to think about what you do, why you do it, whether it serves you. Aim to get rid of bad habits, and take on good ones. I really recommend the books The Power of Habit and Atomic Habits.
10. Organise and refresh your crates
Its easy to get lazy with your crates and folders when you are a digital DJ, especially once you have tens of thousands of tracks to choose from – where do you start? It can be intimidating. But deleting tracks you don’t use any more from crates you rely on, and updating with new tracks, or old classics you’d forgotten about, is a great help. To give an example – as I write this I have iTunes on shuffle. Sometimes I delete a track. Other times I go and drop the track into the suitable crates, as it has shuffled on to something I hadn’t thought about yet. Sometimes it is worthwhile to start whole new folders, and delete old favourites, just to shake things up a bit and make you think about your selections. Go and look at set histories from a couple of years ago – I bet there are tracks there that are great, but somehow have slipped off your radar.
11. Read!
I already mentioned a couple of great books on habits. Much of the mindset behind this post, I got from The Obstacle Is The Way and How To Think Like a Roman Emperor. There’s a million blog posts about self improvement on sites like Medium. There’s so much wisdom out there, and once you take some of it in, you start to see the ways in which you can apply it to your own life and career, and you want more. Take this opportunity to grow your knowledge.
12. Expand your skillset
There has never been a better time to learn new skills. Youtube tutorials are free and plentiful (although sometimes you have to go through a few to find the good ones!). Then there are loads of online courses, from places such as Udemy. You can learn about basically anything you want – so use that thinking time to come up with ways you can strengthen yourself. Maybe you want to learn how to make better looking graphics for your artwork, or shoot and edit videos, or you want to learn about marketing.
The scope is endless – the limit is your imagination!
As you can see, that’s 12 ideas straight away, and its certain that I have left some good ones out! I will be revisiting this topic in the coming weeks, to focus more on specific points from the above list.