Event Tech Report: Streaming Music. Does This Work for a DJ?
We checked in with DJ Lee Dyson.
Lee Dyson: "There is certainly no shortage of options these days for finding new music.
Pandora first created the Music Genome Project but like all great inventions some other companies have expanded and even enhanced the idea.
Call me a romantic but I do think we are so flooded with options now that something gets a bit lost.
As someone who grew up on cassettes and records (and eventually CDs) I remember the feeling of walking out of a store after hours of browsing with a bag full of goodies that I own.
I’d spend time reading the liner notes and listening to the album or CD from start to finish in correct song order as the artist intended for me to hear it.
As a DJ I’d spend hours and hours in dingy record stores picking through bins of crap just to find that one golden nugget.
Many times early on in my career I had to decide if I was going to eat well that day or come home with 3 new albums.
We will soon be to a point where nobody actually owns anything anymore.
Everything is cloud based and streaming so you are just renting access…not owning the music or art.
So depending on your views as a consumer that can be a good thing or a bad thing.
Artists definitely don’t think streaming is a good thing….they barely get pennies per stream.
So how does all this affect the event/DJ industry?
For now I’d say streaming is mostly relegated to personal use.
As I DJ - no matter how good a WiFi connection is - I wouldn’t trust that a stream won’t drop out in the middle of my set so I can’t imagine DJ’s giving up their laptops and hard drives anytime soon.
Then there is the issue of what a DJ really does during an event.
Room awareness and the ability to read a crowd while constantly adapting your set list is what keeps the energy going and can make or break an event. Streaming, much like an Ipod is unable to do this…at least not yet.
To give credit where it’s due though I’ve found streaming services very helpful in expanding my repertoire of music and in researching songs to use for specific themed events.
Streaming aside, I still think one of the most amazing music related inventions of the last decade is Shazam. Finding new music is great but thanks to Shazam no longer does anyone have to say “what IS that song!?!”
Lee
Truer words have rarely been spoken. Besides our emotional attachment to our own record collections, we have all experienced the holes in the cloud. We recently produced an event in one of the most gorgeous settings ever, Amangiri in Utah. We did not even have cell phone service. And yes, that was a challenging situation for me! Thank heaven for live music!
Very best,
Janet
Comments
Post a Comment