WHY You Should or Shouldn't Play All the Tracks from a Play List Given to You from the Client

0:00 The answer is a definite yes, but also a definite no

Alright ladies and gentlemen, should you limit the amount of tracks given to you from the client to play at their event, whether it be a wedding, bar mitzvah, birthday party and so on? Now the answer is a definite yes, but also a definite no. I will explain. Now let's imagine worst case scenario, you turn up... And the client, prior to the event or on the day, thrusts this playlist in front of your face and says play all of these tracks and the event is let's say an hour and they give you 20 tracks. Well that's going to be difficult because if these 20 tracks aren't really floor fillers and they're tracks that the client loves, they may not entice people onto the dance floor so you could have a very hard night.

But forget about that, if you think about it, now this is based on an average. A radio track, sort of tracks you hear on all kinds of radio stations are roughly about three and a half minutes long. So if you imagine, if you take away a little bit of the beginning, a little bit of the end because you're sort of chopping and mixing them in, then theoretically you should only be able to play about 20 tracks per hour anyway, which means that you would have to play Every single, if they wanted all of those tracks played, they wanted all of them played, you'd have to play every single one of those tracks, be very clever and you just about get away with it in one hour. Now that is an absolute extreme. On the other hand, if they gave you a playlist of 20 or 30 tracks and the event starts at 7 in the evening, goes on till 1 in the morning...

1:43 Time play

Then, of course, you can play all of the tracks or you should be able to intertwine them with other tracks that you're playing during the course of the evening. But this is the key here, you see. What you've got to think of is the amount of time you have to play the amount of tracks. The client is going to give you and you have then got to work out in your mind how many tracks you will physically be able to play from that playlist based on the amount of time that you have to play. So for example, if your event starts at nine o'clock and finishes at 12, that is three hours. So you're probably going to play 50 odd tracks. If the client is going to give you 50 tracks to play, then you have to explain to the client that or first of all ask them do they want you to play every single track? If the answer is yes, then you have to explain that if these tracks

3:12 It's not the hard part

In the playlist are not floor fillers or bangers. It's highly likely you're going to have a very difficult time keeping people on the dance floor because they may be great tracks for the client who can reminisce over the tracks they played many years ago, but it's going to be a nightmare for you to intertwine those tracks out of the playlist. Alternatively, if the client says well here are 30 songs just do your best and we want you to play at least 10 of them that's a definite then you can get away with it because you can intertwine. So really in a nutshell what you've got to weigh up is the amount of time you have and the amount of tracks in that playlist Also, the amount of time you have and the amount of tracks in that playlist that you have to play. They want you to play. Now, again, this is the hard... It's not the hard part. This is pure logic. If the client says, we want you to play all of those 50 tracks, and like I said earlier, you've only got about three hours, then you will have to explain to the client exactly what I said earlier, is that some most one, two, whatever.

Also, during the course of the evening say it again and again if people are not on the dance floor and the client has demanded that you play the tracks from that playlist. You need to explain to the guests that you are playing tracks that the client has Not demanded, but asked you to play. So, you're not putting the onus on yourself. People watch you and think, God, you're a crap DJ because no one's dancing. What you're doing is you're explaining to the crowd members of the public that it's not your fault. You are giving a service. You are playing the tracks that the client wanted you to play. Therefore, you're not really in control of the playlist. Now, I hope that makes sense. Practice and enjoy. Thank you very much.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.