As the saying goes “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. In the context of this article “play” is in reference to playing music, DJing etc. and “all work” is about never practicing. Writer Peter DeVries said ““I only write when I’m inspired, and I make sure I’m inspired every morning at 9am!” It’s a smart move to hold yourself to a little more scrutiny than just messing around.
“Why do I have to practice?” you ask, “I’m as good as I want to be.” My mother always used to say “When you stop learning .. you die”. I know that sounds kinda morbid but I knew what she meant. Webster’s dictionary defines life as “the ability to grow, change etc”, so if you stop learning you stop growing and if you stop growing you no longer have life so you must be dead.
I don’t know about you but when it comes to my job, I don’t want to be the walking dead. I was that for years when I worked in the corporate world. Now that I get to do something I love full time, I want to be the best I can be so I don’t have to ever go back to being the walking dead.
DJ Craze is the only solo DJ in history to claim the DMC World DJ Championships trophy three times consecutively (1998–2000). When he was recently asked how he gets in the “zone” when he DJs Craze replied, “I don’t know … I just have fun.” If you have ever seen one of his battle routines you know there was a whole lot of practicing that went on before the competition that makes it able for him to “have fun”.
Craze went on to say “In 20 years from now I wanna be like you.“ I had fun when I was like 20 … I don’t wanna look back and be like ‘man I was like representin’, I was keeping it real.’ I’m having fun and that’s what it’s all about” Now you may not be a battle DJ or even the type that does any type of turntable tricks but practice time can help you in so many ways. Have fun … but learn to get more out of your “fun”
You cover many things when it comes to practice time that you may not even think about getting more familiar with your equipment, muscle memory for things like turntable tricks or just a better knowledge of structure of the songs you play. The speed and focus of spinning live sometimes keeps you from actually hearing the songs you’re playing.
Practice time away from the crowd will give you one less thing to focus on and allow you that little bit of extra mind power to notice a new mixable point or breakdown on the song. Even though listening to new music, setting loops, setting cue points and so on is very important you can not count it as part of practice.
There are different parts of the DJ’s job before they spin in public. Music prep is it’s own job, whether its finding new music, actually getting new music or preparing your files (crates, playlists, tags etc.) that should be done pre-practice. Set your practice time for only hand on the equipment, volume up time behind the decks. Make sure that those things are done either before or after practice time.
A recent study was done in the physiology department at the University of Colorado-Boulder. The study asked participants’ to remotely manipulate a robotic arm for a repetitive task while the researchers measured the amount of oxygen they inhaled and carbon dioxide they exhaled to determine their energy output. The amount of energy they used decreased by 20 percent from when they started as they increased in precision and efficiency of the task.
Professor Ahmed explains “we form and then update an internal model – a sensorimotor map which our nervous system uses to predict our muscles’ motions and the resistance they will encounter. As that internal model is refined over time, we’re able to cut down on unnecessary movements and eliminate wasted energy.” But that’s not the whole story “Energy expenditures continued to decrease even after the decline in muscle activity had stabilized. In fact this is when the greatest reductions in metabolic powers were observed.
The very time when it looks to an observer, and to the participant that nothing is happening they are becoming more efficient.” “Less effort on one domain means more energy available to others” In short keep on practicing, even after it seems you have learned all you can learn. You’re getting better and better, even when you can’t tell you’re improving.
DJ Steve Dee said “I read somewhere in some theory book if you practice for one year and give up everything, women, wine … everything, if you give it all up you will be the best at what you do”. It may take a short time or much longer than you want, but anything is possible … unless you quit. Remember the concept of practice goes way beyond DJing, it can help you in every area of your business and life.
It doesn’t matter if it’s playing music, public speaking, customer service, record keeping or even learning how to cartwheel, you always have room for improvement. Treat each day as an opportunity to be better than you were the day before. Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes progress and progressing at what you love makes it a lot more fun . All work and no play may make Jack a dull boy but more play will make Jack better at what ever he chooses to do.