Phil Morse [Morse - Rock The Dancefloor: The proven five-step formula for total DJing success

Praise

Phil Morse is on a lifelong mission not only to get more people into the world of DJing, but to make sure they do so in the right way. Ive read and watched his work over many years, and have always found his approach to be both accessible and comprehensive a rare quality indeed. With this new book he breaks down the process of learning to DJ into simple steps any music fan could take.

Mojaxx, DJ City

Phil just delivers the goods when it comes to DJ education and he does it in a way thats very comprehensible, not pretentious or preachy. There are many ways of succeeding as a DJ nowadays, but the competition is fierce, so you gotta be versatile and always stay on top of your game. This is where the advice of such an experienced DJ tutor with a background in journalism and club promoting becomes invaluable.

Karsten Hainmueller, Traktor

An extremely thorough and comprehensive look at the art of DJing. If you cant rock a party after reading this book and using the classic techniques and cool tricks it presents, you should probably try something else!

Baptiste Grange, Serato

Rock The Dancefloo r ! is a great asset for any DJ looking at how to get ahead in the DJing industry. The book contains a wealth of knowledge and practical information, that will help boost any DJs career. Phil has amassed a veritable fount of knowledge from his time as a DJ and also as founder of Digital DJ Tips. His five-step system is an easy to follow guide for both beginners and experienced DJs. A great read whilst taking five from the day to day, or travelling from gig to gig.

Mick Wilson, DJ Mag

There arent many experienced, intelligent and sober people in this game, so when one of them commits to writing a full no-stone-unturned guide to DJing, you know its an essential purchase!

Rik Parkinson, Pioneer DJ

If you are starting out as a DJ then this book is a no-brainer. If youve been a DJ for years then this book is a no-brainer! A 360 insight into the world of a DJ from instruction to getting yourself gigs and everything in-between.

Mark Walsh, Marked Events (BPM Pro Show Organisers)

Phil from Digital DJ Tips has just created the one-stop resource for DJs that taps into thousands of hours of real life, real industry and real time DJ experience. From choice of equipment, music preparation and mixing techniques, right through to playing out in different scenarios and how to best promote yourself, securing a long-term career path in this most aspiring and creative of industries, this guide has it all and more. This is your fast-track solution to removing all the hurdles that beset any DJ starting their journey just add your creativity, imagination and dreams and Phil will provide the rest!

Paul Tinman Dakeyne, producer/remixer

I wish there had been a book like this when I started DJing. Its the essential How-To guide for any new DJ starting out, and has a lot to teach old dogs like me, too!

David Dunne, club DJ, radio presenter and former head of music at MTV

Phil really knows his stuff. His experience as a DJ, his success with Digital DJ Tips and, most importantly, his compassion in helping DJs of any level makes this a must-read for anyone interested in playing music for others.

Constantin Koehncke, Native Instruments

For Tony

Introduction

This book will teach you how to be a great DJ. Whether you want to land a dream gig in your favourite nightclub, play at that cool lounge bar in your town, set up as a mobile DJ, or just provide the music at parties for friends and family, everything you need to know is within these pages.

You wouldnt be alone in wanting to learn this. In an age where DJs are just as important as rock stars, its not surprising that more people than ever are getting interested in the art and science of spinning tunes. Nobody ever forgets their first big dancefloor experience, or the DJ who provided it. Who wouldnt want to be in his or her shoes, at one with the crowd, gratefully receiving all that adoration and praise from a packed dancefloor?

As with so many things, DJing has been utterly transformed by the arrival of the digital age. Record shops largely no longer exist, having been replaced by online download stores and streaming music websites. For minimal outlay, you can buy DJ gear small enough to fit in your desk drawer that working in tandem with your laptop does so much more than the old-fashioned turntables and mixers of only a generation ago, and at a fraction of the cost. This has radically altered how todays DJs learn the craft, and given them a much wider choice of venues to play in beach bars, cafes, and other smaller establishments, which could never fit traditional gear into their premises, happily welcome the new breed of digital DJs. The ways DJs share their work, gather a fan base and promote themselves have also completely changed in just a few short years.

Yet as the barriers to entry have lowered, making it sometimes feel like everyone is (or says they are) a DJ, paradoxically, the path to becoming a great DJ has become less clear. While learning the technical skills of DJing on old-fashioned equipment could be tricky, at least the route was clear. Nowadays, there is a hugely confusing choice of equipment, software, music file formats, and features that, at the same time as making digital DJing hugely exciting, has made it at best, puzzling, and at worse, a potentially expensive minefield for inexperienced DJs. What skills are you meant to be learning? What shortcuts is it OK to take? How will you know when youre good enough to play in public? How exactly are you meant to stand out and get ahead when everyone is a DJ?

Thats why I wrote this book. As a DJ myself for over a quarter of a century, with a career thats taken me from the bars and clubs of my native Manchester to no lesser a venue than Privilege in Ibiza, the biggest club in the world, Ive learned a thing or two about what it takes to achieve DJing success. As a self-proclaimed geek, too, I was one of the first to adopt digital DJing, back in 2004. The magazine I wrote for, iDJ , started passing the very earliest digital DJ controllers to me to review, because I was the only person who knew how they worked. I immediately saw the potential of these new devices to revolutionise the world of DJing, which over the next five years they duly did, just as Id predicted. Taking my skills from learning to DJ the old way and applying them to the problems I could see the new generation of DJs having with this type of equipment and software, I founded Digital DJ Tips, which has gone on to become the worlds biggest online DJ school, training tens of thousands of DJs in more than fifty countries. This book is the result of my experiences both as a DJ and in training others.

THE FIVE STEPS OF DJING SUCCESS

The book is divided into five core steps: Gear, Music, Techniques, Playing Out, and Promoting Yourself. It takes you logically, clearly and practically through the minefield, helping you to find the best tunes, master your equipment, practise effectively, smash it when you play your first gig, and then do all the things you need to do to keep the bookings rolling in. Whether youre a complete beginner, a bedroom DJ, a semi-pro, an experienced DJ returning to the game and curious about all this new technology, or even a musician or music producer wanting to add DJing to your skills and further your career, this book has been designed for you.

Whatever your type of music and wherever in the world you are, the truth is that, as a modern DJ, your skills need to be universal and transferrable. A mobile DJ might get the chance to play a club gig, and have to change their music radically as a result; a bedroom DJ may aspire to play a local festival, and need to know how to use the equipment provided instead of their own set-up; an underground DJ may be cajoled into playing a family members wedding, and need to learn a whole new way of filling dancefloors.