The Buzz: Getting Started as a Swing DJ

When I started DJing for swing dancers I was pretty nervous. Like most beginner DJs I worried that I’d play a song and the dancefloor would clear. At a swing dance, all attention is on the music and if it isn’t right, it’s your fault as a DJ. It feels like a strangely vulnerable position to put yourself in when you start out. So why on earth would anyone want to do that? Especially when you could be dancing instead of sitting behind a computer?

DJing sometimes feels like dancing vicariously. When dancing with a partner, you have a direct influence on the experiences and emotions of that other person. Any swing dancer will understand how rewarding the experience of social dancing is in spite of any fear of being judged at the beginning. I think the same applies to DJing, except that you have a direct influence on a crowd of dancers at any given time. You can probably imagine how rewarding it is to see how your choices of music affect the group as a whole — or even just that one friend you’re watching, who then comes up to you gasping for air saying, “You’re playing all my favorite songs! You’re killing me! I can’t stop dancing.”

But where do you start? Well, there are some obvious things I could tell you, like: get a lot of music… swing music, and find a place to play. But there are some less obvious things I’d like to share with you that will kickstart your DJing.

First: Observe and learn. Sure, DJing is about playing music, but I think it’s equally about paying attention and understanding who you’re playing for. This brings me to my Golden Rule of DJing: Play for everybody but yourself.

I’m NOT saying you should play music you don’t personally enjoy. I’m saying that your job as a DJ is to find out and play what the crowd wants (even if they themselves don’t know what they want). Be cautious about using your own tastes as a reference. You’re not the one dancing, you’ve been sitting at your computer. You also may not be the “average” dancer in the crowd you’re playing for…

Let’s read that Golden Rule again: “Play for everybody…” When I’m DJing, I only spend half my time looking at the people dancing. They’re happy for the most part. I spend the rest of the time looking at who isn’t dancing asking myself, “Why aren’t they dancing?”, “What song could get him to dance?”, “Is she enjoying that conversation, or resorting to it because she’s a beginner and the music is too fast?”, “Are they not dancing because they’re bored?”, “Are they not dancing because they’re tired?”

With the Golden Rule out of the way, let’s get into specifics. I’ve seen many beginner DJs start from a place of loving jazz music, and probably having a collection of songs they like. But you need to really get a good understanding of two things to be a good DJ. Understand swing music, and understand swing dance culture.  If you just graduated from a music degree, played in your school swing band, bought the entire Ken Burns Jazz collection, and you’ve got your “rock-step triple step” down, that doesn’t make you a good DJ. Knowledge of jazz music theory, and having a large collection of mp3s, isn’t sufficient (to be honest, it’s probably not really necessary to start either). Spend time thinking about:

• what makes a good birthday jam song?
• what song could you play that would almost for sure fill an empty dance floor?
• are you prepared if someone wants to do a Shim Sham? Tranky Doo? Big Apple?
• if the dance is filled with beginner dancers that just learned lindy hop, what do you play for the first hour? What if those beginners just learned charleston? Balboa?

 

These aren’t rhetorical questions. They have answers, although the answers may differ from DJ to DJ. As you gain more experience you may develop your own answers to these questions, but in the mean time, here are mine.

What makes a good birthday jam song?

The speed of the song will depend on who’s birthday it is… but in general you want something uplifting that sounds good to clap to… because people will be clapping. You probably don’t want to go too fast, even if all of the advanced dancers were born this month. The song shouldn’t have any abrupt tempo changes either. Here are some examples: