behind the decks: establishing the dj's creative understanding

8/6/2019 Behind The Decks: Establishing the DJ's Creative Understanding

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BEHIND THE DECKS

Establishing the DJ’s Creative Understanding

Cristina DiGiacomo

behindthedecks [email protected]

www.behindthedecks.org

mailto:[email protected]











Dedicated to Professor Karen Merson, whose faith and support marked a new beginning of

my life’s work.



“The aim of art is not to represent the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”

- Aristotle, Poetics

I imagine myself being ninety years old, in a nursing home, with nothing but a set of

turntables and floor to ceiling stacks of records. This image is very clear - the room (white

and a window with a tree outside), what my housedress looks likes (white flannel with blue

flowers) and where my Technics 1200MK’s are (right in the middle of the room). I’m a

DJ into my golden years, gleefully annoying the nursing home residents and staff with my

electronic music. So how did I get this image in my head? Where did this vision come from,

this legacy I made for myself and its enduring quality?

The answer hinges on my beliefs as an artist.

There are libraries of books and works dedicated to the creative process of artists such as

dancers, musicians, writers, fine arts, and filmmakers. There are whole institutions dedicated

to supporting the established artistic creative process. There are books, articles and videos

for DJs on learning technique, DJ history, the industry or DJs themselves, but nothing

about the DJ creative process.Is the lack of this information an indication that DJ’ing is not

considered an art form? As an art relegated to the underground predominantly, the outside

world’s perception of DJs is that you are not really artists. Since DJs don’t actually play

notes or an instrument in the traditional sense, you are not artists. Since you don’t wield a



paintbrush or a pen or a camera you are not artists. Maybe you don’t want legitimacy in

the academic sense, or care about “the arts establishment” and would prefer to define for

yourself what makes DJ’ing an art form. That’s fine but here’s the troubling part: that isn’t

really happening. I didn’t turn up anything from DJs for DJs about the creative process

– it was all technique, gear, and drooling (or hating) over other DJs. Just because the “arts

establishment” or outside world doesn’t understand you, doesn’t mean that you are absolved

of understanding yourselves. Now while there is value in maintaining the underground like

nature of DJ culture, there is also value on having an educated artistic conversation about

your process. If you don’t, you are missing an opportunity to legitimize yourself as an artist.

Before a discussion of the elements of the DJ creative process and why you should

understand it, it is important we lay a “bassline” down of what you do. A DJ I interviewed

said “DJ’ing is a form of collage art. We use source material and make collages.” Collage art is

defined as “a creative work that resembles such a composition in incorporating various

materials or elements <the album is a collage of several musical styles>.” (Miriam-Webster

Dictionary) DJs assemble songs or sounds and make something completely new, whether

that is a re-envisioned song or an experience for an audience through a mix. The essence of

what DJs do is taking other forms of art and making meaning out them. In order to create

these collages, there is a process of finding the source material, making sense of it, making

connections with it, and expressing it to the outside world.

In not acknowledging your artistic creative process, you perpetuate misunderstandings and



are in jeopardy of losing the opportunity to make meaning for yourself and others. You

fly off into the stratosphere misdirected and misinterpreting what you’re doing. If you do

not connect with your creative process you lose something very special - you lose your

art. Knowledge of the DJ creative process is crucial to understanding who you are as an

artist and how you create. “The best way to cultivate creativity is to learn more about the

components that comprise it. An improvement in creative contribution is almost certain to

result from this knowledge.” (Dacey, Lennon, 1998, 8) Over the course of a few months

I have interviewed and surveyed numerous DJs in the New York City DJ scene as well

as studied creative process literature. My goal is to make the connection between what

creativity literature states and what you do as a DJ.

If I were to ask you about your gear set up I bet you could describe in exact detail down to

the model and make of your mixer with a compare/contrast of features between the model

you have and the previous model. I bet you could tell me for at least an hour the mode and

method of your mixing skills and describe in great detail the array of presets, effects and

loops you have. There is a lot of information about technique and even more information

about gear. It’s a very specific, technical construct and vocabulary you use. You see endless

debate over analog versus digital formats even heated arguments over .wav versus .mp3

file formats. It seems very mechanistic, limited and divisive in some cases. The dominant

discussion is on a specific domain of topics - gear, technique, and other DJs. When it comes

to artistic discussion, there isn’t much other than a retrospective from a DJ about how they

describe their collages. “Artists are usually far too interested in what they are creating to be



this paper is 371 years - that’s an average of eleven years spinning. I gathered a mix of DJs

along the lines of gender, race, and genre. The level of experience is skewed toward people

who have been actively pursuing DJ’ing and in some cases making a living doing it. These

DJs are in or around the New York City area and while this is an extremely small microcosm

of the DJ population, New York City is unique because it is one of the most concentrated,

and competitive, arenas of DJs today. Because of this, it’s possible that the focus of the DJ

comments presented here are a function of this location. It would be interesting to explore

what DJs have to say about their creative process on a global scale.

The one thing that struck me about all the input from the survey and the interviews is

not once did any DJ ever refer to themselves as an artist. Sure, if I directly asked “do you

consider yourself an artist?” chances are I would have gotten yeses. However, it wasn’t

a notion that came naturally at all, the word never came up. Not considering yourself an

artist, not giving yourself permission to call yourself an artist, you will never own or present

yourself as an artist and you will not be respected as one. Another reason why it’s important

to embody the artist within is to get closer to serving your true purpose. Toni Morrison

says, “The function of freedom is to free someone else.” (Lamott, 1994, 193) Your role to the

outside world as a DJ is to help another person forget they got fired that day, or that a lover

left them, or to celebrate the beauty in their lives. Your role within the creative process is to

help yourself forget you got fired that day, or your lover left you or to celebrate the beauty

in your life. You are the facilitator of that, you serve a purpose to others and to yourself. In

order to achieve that purpose, you must embrace your creative process, because you have



one, it’s legitimized by scholars, so now it’s time to legitimize it within yourself.

There were many themes that I found in the responses I got from DJs. Some of the

themes were stronger and more universal than others and could directly relate to what’s

written about the creative process. Additionally, out of twenty-four responses to the

question “how did you learn to DJ or how are you learning to DJ?”, nineteen DJs said they

taught themselves. The rest who said they learned at a DJ academy or a friend taught them

the basics still said they taught themselves the rest. The bottom line is the learning begins

with you, continues with you and never ends. I’m ninety years old in a nursing home and

I’m still creating!

As many personal themes there are for DJs, there are theories on what the elements of

the creative process are in literature. No one theory completely relates to the DJ creative

process all at once. I have picked out elements from various readings and applied them to

what DJs do. So in essence, I am your DJ of the creative process. I am DJ’ing a mix of

ideas for you: arranging a program of established creative literature with current thoughts

from DJs, weaving my vocals through the compilation and creating a set of knowledge that you

can take and remix to fit your own style.

In The Art of Thought, “Graham Wallas described creative thinking as a four step process,

requiring a preparation phase when a problem or question is clarified as it is tackled from

many directions, an incubation phase when nothing much is happening consciously, a

sudden illumination which can be when an insight or solution is more or less fully formed,



then a final possibly lengthy working-out of an insight through testing.” (Brophy, 2009, 17)

This book was written in 1926 and it is the main sound in the mix of ideas I’m about to spin

for you.

Think about it – isn’t this what you already do? You spend time preparing: exposing yourself

to music or figuring out what you’re going to spin at a gig - it may even take the form of a

ritual for you. You spend time away from that preparation incubating: some of you giveyourselves a break or purposely do not expose yourself to music for a short period of time.

You have a stroke of insight: an idea, a solution to a mix or just knowing exactly what to

play at exactly the right time. You experiment, or test: trying out that idea or genre or

solution to see if it works. As you read through think about moments you’ve had (I have

included exercises in some cases ) that relate to the understandings established about the DJ

creative process. Also, it’s not a one to one match, the four step process, remember this

is a compilation of ideas so, there are other concepts I have included. There are concepts

that surround the knowledge and use of SELF, and what I’m calling TRAINWRECKS to

creativity. The things that can derail your creative process.

THE FOUR PHASES OF CREATIVE THINKING

PREPARATION

“In order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative.” (Tharp, 2003,



9) Have you ever thought about your amazing capacity for memory? Many of you have

thousands of tracks in your discographies and you know each and every one of them.

Also, think about your lifetime in music from when you were a little kid. DJs have this

incredible ability to recall tracks and that’s a function of your creative process. So how

exactly does that happen? Well, it’s really in your preparation. Constantly exposing

yourself to new music and revisiting your music is part of the preparation phase. “Once you

realize the power of memory, you begin to see how much is at your disposal in previously

underappreciated places. The trick is figuring out how to tap into it.” (Tharp, 2003, 71)

Preparation allows your mind to register and retain sounds and also allows your mind to

begin creating patterns and connections with those sounds. So how do you tap into it? A

lot of you inundate your minds with music – some of you even have a system to keep track

of all the music you are keeping an eye on. You capture music you’ve heard and listen to it

over and over again before you buy it and then you listen to it over and over again after you

have it. Some of you take it a step further and expose yourself to other things than just the

top ten for the week. “I could be inspired by artwork, a film, another DJ, perhaps a movement - within

the arts - opera, theater, avant-guard stuff, and most often, that one song you want to share with the worl

that comes from this inspiration and begins a whole process as a DJ.” The point is that the more youfeed your mind, the more it will feed back to you.

DJs talk about being meticulously organized. Your playlists are always being optimized for

better organization and recall. Some DJs organize their music by where that music would fit

in the context of the night or within the context of what the preceding and proceeding DJ in

the lineup spins. Whatever your method, having an organizational structure and an easy way



to help you remember is paramount to helping your mind prepare for the other phases of

creativity “Before you can think out of the box, you have to start with a box. The box is not

a substitute for creating. The box doesn’t compose or write a poem or create a dance step.

The box is the raw index of your preparation. It is the repository of your creative potential,

but it is not that potential realized.” (Tharp, 2003,88)

Preparation isn’t just about exposure to stimulus and organization. It also has to do withritual. Every DJ has a ritual. “It’s vital to establish some rituals at the beginning of the

creative process, when you are most at peril of turning back, chickening out, giving up, or

going the wrong way.” (Tharp, 2003, 15) For some of you, ritual takes the form of packing

your “crate” for a gig or the steps you absolutely must execute in order for you to feel

comfortable you’re going to have a successful night. “I enjoy the process of packing my crate. I have

3000 records and can only bring 100. I spend several hours thinking does this record go with that record

Sometimes not being able to have the time for that ritual can send you into a tailspin of

negative thinking and anxiety. Ritual for you is that important. “ My best practices are and I take

this very seriously: 1) get a good night’s sleep 2) sleep in a little until about 10am 3) make sure I’m eatin

don’t get drunk the night before 4) making sure I prepare early on so not to get stressed out 5) start to pic

out tracks four nights in advance and practicing on the turntables. I need to be in a rhythm with this list o

that day.”

Intense preparation is the first and crucial step to the DJ creative process and based on the

breakdown of what DJs said in the interviews and the survey, the bulk of the responses



centered around . . . rolling bass line please . . .PREPARATION!

Try these exercises – when you are going about preparing for practice, or a gig, pay attention

to exactly what you are doing. If you discover a ritual, think about how you can incorporate

it into your process so as to set the tone for a creative experience. Another thing you can

do is pay close attention to your surroundings and the things you expose yourself to and

connect them to how they can influence you as a DJ. Finally, if you feel you are not fully

immersed in preparation as you want to be, think about what you can do to change that.

INCUBATION

“Interesting paradox of creativity: In order to be habitually creative, you have to know

how to prepare to be creative, but good planning alone won’t make your efforts successful;

it’s only after you let go of your plans that you can breathe life into your efforts.” (Tharp,

2003,119) You’ve done your preparation and then, nothing. So if nothing is happening,

nothing must be happening. That’s actually not true. Your subconscious takes over; your

mind begins to assimilate the stimulus you have given it in the preparation phase. You

actually don’t consciously realize what’s happening and that’s why it’s hard to describe or

acknowledge that incubation is happening. Basically, what this stage is about is that point

where any further preparation will be counterproductive to what you are doing. You can’t

stay in the preparation phase forever or else your mind will go into overload and you willnever move forward in creating. There needs to be a way for the mind to process what



you’ve done to it. “I spin drum n’ bass and hip hop, so if I plan to play that in a night I will try not to

listen to those genres that whole day.” It’s about allowing your subconscious to take over for a bit.

“When there is a free interchange between the conscious and unconscious mind, creative

people are able to retrieve material in the unconscious and to look at problems in a fresh,

innovative way.” (Dacey, Lennon, 1998, 38)

So what this means for you is that over planning and not giving your mind a rest can actually

defeat your efforts in being creative. It also closes you off to being able to tap into the

emotional part of DJ’ing which is very important. It’s important to let the part that makes

you YOU shine through. If you are always bombarding yourself with stimulus you lose the

opportunity to let who you are into the process. Some of you take this form in how you

prepare for your night. You know that over arranging a set can be constricting. “ I don’t pre-plan a set, I vaguely plan.” It’s difficult to let go, as you can be obsessive when it comes

to preparation and ritual but you must take the time to let things mingle in your mind -

that’s where the connections, pattern making, recall, and emotional significance starts to set

in. “ ABOVE ALL ELSE: taking time to rest that day. Make a meal and watch a little TV.”

Try this exercise: If you are feeling overwhelmed or have track overload, take a break. If you

have been working on a transition for an hour or more, move onto something else. You can

always revisit it and if you do that you may experience . . .

ILLUMINATION



“Creative people are able to explore possibilities and to toy with concepts which allow them

to generate hypotheses, express the ridiculous, translate from one form to another, and

transform concepts into improbable equivalents. From this arise hunches that often lead

to creative ways of seeing life.” (Dacey, Lennon, 1998, 42) Now we’re getting into the fun

part – those hunches. It’s like the startling revelation that a song goes perfectly with another

song, or that a melody is linked to another track from years ago. These are the connections

from incubation coming through into your consciousness knocking you back. Illumination

is an artist’s favorite phase in the creative process - it reminds you why you do this.

“Aristotle suspected that great insights begin as the result of a person’s own thoughts,

through a process that has become known as associationism . This view proposes that the

mind consists entirely of ideas (words, images, formulas and so forth), each of which is

associated with other ideas.” (Dacey, Lennon, 1998,, 17) “I build a set in my mind.” So how

does that happen? Usually, it’s one track or sound that triggers a flood of associated tracks or

sounds. This is associationism - your unconscious is triggered by a conscious thought, and

the stimulus that has been incubating in your mind gets cross-referenced, pulled together,

joining with your emotions, in a way that makes sense. This is part of the illumination phase

of the creative process. What triggers illumination though? DJs talk about being in high

pressured situations and the answer just reveals itself. Anxiety, pressure and “the moment”

can sometimes trigger an illumination. “You don’t really know you can do it until you’re there.” The

reason for that is that pressure puts the mind in overdrive where it’s connecting widely and

rapidly for answers to ease the anxiety and reassure the mind. “I was pressured to go on and I



tapped into my creative self, it was fight or flight and a primal instinct took over.” Another trigger for

illumination may not be directly related to your situation or to pressure. It can happen when

you’re sitting having coffee and doing nothing at all. That’s because you have been creating

steadily and consistently and are feeling confident in your process. That is also a function

of properly preparing and incubating your thoughts. “Anxiety is a mechanism that leads us

to consider more possibilities than we otherwise would, whereas confidence enables us to

continue our present line of thought despite the lack of any quick success.” (Boden, 2010,

273)

Try this exercise - write down your last three “aha!” moments. Ask yourself, what were you

doing, what was the connection made, and can you trace back how you think it happened?

EXPERIMENTATION

You have experienced an illumination and you’re anxious to test and see if it works. The

act of trying it out is experimentation. DJs love to experiment - and this is where technique

comes in! You see technique is not the creative process; it’s the manifestation of it.

Experimentation is about seeing it through, putting it out there in the world, whether you’re

by yourself or in front of a crowd. You’ve generated some excitement in yourself, you’ve

solved a problem and now it’s time to try out the solution. The experimentation phase is a

very meaningful phase, because you have to see and hear how your insights will work and

you have to test and experience how you will react to it.



Experimentation is also where you can see your relationship to music. There’s a concept

called FOCAL LENGTH that I attribute to how DJs view their music. “When I apply a

critic’s temperament to myself, to see if I’m being true to any DNA, I often think in terms

of focal length, like that of a camera lens. All of us find comfort in seeing the world either

from a great distance, at arm’s length, or in close up.” (Tharp, 2003, 37) Some DJs look at

music from a wide lens or an epic sensibility, full track by full track. Some DJs see music in

snippets; close up, measure by measure. This is your Focal Length and it’s a part of your DJ

DNA. Some DJs even get so close in their Focal Length that they see note by note, or beat

by beat, like beat jugglers. The way you experiment with music is how you see it in relation

to your Focal Length. It’s very rare for a DJ to feel comfortable with multiple Focal

Lengths for example fluidly moving from an epic perspective to slicing down to the beat.Focal Length is also an important concept in relation to how you view the night. I had a DJ

tell me that they looked at their set as a chapter and the night or the party as a novel. “You

can’t think of your set as individual, you must think of the whole night. Each set is a chapter of a whole

night.” So how they see their contribution is just a piece to a larger story and experience.

They coordinate in advance with other DJs to see how each other would fit into the larger

context of the night. Talk about a Meta Focal Length! It’s no surprise that this DJ is a

resident of one of most successful underground parties in New York City. Maybe their

understanding of Focal Length helps them design a great experience. Try this exercise:

reflect on your Focal Length - are you a soundscaper or microscopic, minimalist or complex,

Meta or individualist? Or maybe it’s not one way or the other for you, perhaps you are

somewhere in between. Learning about your Focal Length is important so you can use that



understanding in how you view yourself in relation to music and it will help you in making

certain creative decisions. Here’s a quote that might help you think further about your

relationship to music: “You must have the perception of music as bigger than you. Some people think th

they are the vessel of the music, or the creator, or they can affect the song, but music has to be bigger tha

you.”

I don’t need to tell you that you need to practice. Every DJ knows they need to practice.

“Mastery also enlarges the mental environment. This is partly why experience, and the

motivation to acquire it, is such an important aspect of creativity.” (Boden, 2010, 242) An

interesting thing happens in your practice/experimentation phase - you make mistakes.

Guess what - you’re supposed to! Some DJs have found answers in their mistakes - they

have let their mistakes lead them to other insights. What seemingly might be a mistake tothem; it’s just not what they intended to do, but it sounds good. That’s why they’re called

happy accidents. “I take two records and I work on the same beat juggle pattern over and over again and

then I’ll make a mistake. And then take that mistake and create a whole new pattern out of it. Part of th

process is using those mistakes.”

There is a flip side to this however; you may want to reconsider purely experimenting

when you are performing in front of a crowd, as in trying something you’re not confident

with. If you’ve gone through the entire process and are playing in front of a crowd there

is a time where you will improv, or change direction – you are confident that your process

has prepared you to experiment. This is why you need to practice, explore all possibilities

and really know yourself. You never want to start with the experimentation phase and do



something new in front of a crowd. “ If you want to practice, practice at home, this is real, so don’t

fuck up that mix, what you are doing is going into people’s mind and experience and memories.” DJs talk

about never playing a song they just got that day, and haven’t really listened to, in front of

a crowd for example. “Private failures are great. If you let down your guard, or lower your

standards, or compromise too quickly, or leave something in that should be rejected - you’ll

have to deal with the other, more painful kind of failure, the public kind.” (Tharp, 2003, 169)

Part of experimentation is also stepping outside of you . There needs to be a time where

you have to be fiercely objective, and measured, with your work. You need to see it as a

whole, to live it for the first time, as if you’ve never heard it before. This is difficult if you

are so close to it ( which is why getting feedback from people you trust can be important in

experimentation as well ) but you need to see if the work, well works! Does it really express who you are, does it live up to your standards, are you communicating a point of view, is

there a track you’re just not sure of. “Immerse yourself in the details of the work. Commit

yourself to mastering every aspect. At the same time, step back to see if the work scans, if

it’s intelligible to an unwashed audience.” (Tharp, 2003, 41)

You can think of experimentation also as part of preparation – the process doesn’t have to

be linear, point A to point B. You are not only reinforcing the preparation phase through

practice, for example, but you are feeding back into your mind additional stimulus, which

will then be incubated again and create more insights later.



THE KNOWLEDGE AND USE OF SELF

“Each of us is hard wired a certain way. That hard wiring insinuates itself into our work.

That’s not a bad thing. Actually, it’s what the world expects from you. We want our artists

to take the mundane materials of our lives, run it through their imaginations, and surprise

us.” (Tharp, 2003, 40)

I am adding the knowledge and use of self as part of the creative process as I believe it is

important to recognize where you, as a person, fit into the creative process experience. This

is about how authentic you want to be. “I have been blessed with a DJ residency that allows me

total creative control and I use it to its fullest - maximizing my own esoteric joy, my emotional freedom,

translating that joy and freedom via the music to my audience.” There’s a conundrum with DJ’ing -

are you purely yourself, or are you a reflection of the crowd, or somewhere in the middle?

You should reflect and make sure it’s not performance pressure or perception anxiety

that is driving the middle road for you. I don’t know any DJ that doesn’t dream of being

completely themselves in their process. “I never played a record I didn’t like.” If you are saying,

I wish I could be myself but I have to play what the crowd “tells” me to, then you need to

think about your values as an artist and how you can feel more grounded in your work. You

are not satisfying your desire as an artist and that affects your ability to progress creatively. There’s a lot of debate about that and it’s a constant thread throughout the creative process,



the crowd being used as a filter for certain choices. “ I serve a function but I want to do it on my

own terms.”

A more direct expression of pure artist desire is “the secret stash”. I know about the

secret stash. The stash of music you purely love, that inspires you, but only bring it out

when you feel like you have the love of the crowd, or sometimes you never bring out at

all. "Carl Rogers studied creative individuals to determine personality traits that are most

closely related with the potential for creative production. The ability to evaluate situations

according to one's own personal standards. This is an important quality because the value

of one's creative work is established not by others' feedback but ultimately by one's own

opinion. The creative person certainly considers others' evaluations but chooses to draw on

himself or herself for the final judgment." (Dacey, Lennon, 1998, 41)

Another aspect of SELF, is being open minded. You need to be open to all kinds of

possibilities in your process. What this does is help you deal with a lot of questions and

challenges that may come your way. You will have a fuller repository of ideas to draw from

during your creative process. “The person who is open to experience does not separate

himself from the process of life by repression but rather gives himself over to the life

processes within him.” (Barron, 1969, 168) The more open you are to ideas, even if you

don’t agree with them philosophically, only builds your knowledge of self and therefore your

use of self. An expression of knowledge of self is the “I just know this song is good” feeling you

get. How do you just know? That is your knowledge of self and of the human experience



coming through. “How do I know that this particular creative decision on the dance floor,

going from x to y is right? What makes me so sure I’m making the right choice? The answer

I whisper to myself is often nothing more than “it feels right”. And part of the reason it

feels right is that the move has been reinforced in us over centuries of practice. Every dance

I make is a dive into this well of ancient memory.” (Tharp, 2003, 70) Your personality, your

values, your ethics, your dysfunctions, your upbringing, all of that means something because

it’s what makes you part of the human experience, which ties directly to your role as a DJ of

facilitating and honoring the human experience of your audience. “ I start a mix depending on my

mood. I express a certain vibe that comes from a place in me.” Whether you realize it or not, you have

a choice on how much of that comes through in your process and your work. The bottom

line is that you need to access very deep parts of yourself to be creative.

TRAINWRECKS OF THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Now that you have read about some of the fundamentals of the creative process, it’s time

to learn about some of the things that can get in the way of it. These are things that can

trainwreck your creative process.

RIGIDITY

A lot of DJs I talked to respect DJs that try different things or incorporate genres that on



paper are totally different but in actuality work quite well and make sense. There is a saying

by a 16th century Japanese master swordsman who said “Never have a favorite weapon.”

( Tharp, 2003, 169 ) The point is that you need to expand your repertoire if you are going

to function at a highly creative state. This goes for respecting genres that don’t fit your

current taste; it means exploring genres more deeply to see if there are congruencies

with your preferred sound. You can always work out technically two disparate genres of

music if they have elements and a sensibility close to what you are seeking (experiment!)

- but you can’t create an experience that offers delight and surprise if you are too rigid in

your thinking. “There is nearly always the ambition to achieve a style that communicates

tinglingly rather than falling into a pattern that is so enclosed the work dies before it begins

to communicate with its audience.” (Brophy, 2009, 116) One way you may find answers

to your tendency for rigidity is in your box or discography. Try this exercise: look at yourdiscography, is there a common sound or theme? What other genres can you explore that

might have those sounds or elements. Perhaps a more down tempo version of what you

already spin, or a genre that has a different beat structure, might be a way to explore and

expand.

PERFECTIONISM

There are two kinds of perfectionism in my opinion. There is perfectionism as it relates

to having standards, and perfectionism as an indirect expression of anxiety. Perfectionism

as it relates to standards can take the form of pushing yourself to make the best mix you



can, or holding other DJs to high standards when considering putting them in your line-up.

However, when you experience perfectionism in your Preparation phase for example, when

you spend hours and hours searching for music and organizing your playlists, or so much

time configuring your gear, then you are experiencing anxiety about something. This can

be especially apparent in Experimentation when your mix has to be absolutely perfect, but

you’ve been working on it steadily for months. When you feel blocked from moving fluidly

between phases think about what’s causing that. At any point you need to be mindful of

your perfectionism - your work will never be done, you have a lifetime of creation ahead of

you and sometimes you just need to let go . “People over think it and have unfinished projects because

they just think too much about it.”

DENIAL

We’ve all been on the dance floor when a DJ is trainwrecking, they know they are train

wrecking, and they will not cut to the next track. They keep trying to work out the

train wreck because they refuse to admit that it’s not working. It’s painful to watch and

probably even more painful for the DJ. That’s denial. At some point you’ve had to come

to terms with the fact that maybe your love for a certain genre is completely off for a

segment of the night, but you press on because you are convinced it’s the right vibe for that

moment. That’s denial. You are forcing yourself to engage with a gear set up and that’s

not comfortable for you physically, or you feel it’s breaking your connection to the music,

the audience, and yourself - but you go against your natural inclinations. You know it’s



inhibiting your creativity because you’re reminded more about your set up than any other

aspect of your process. It is one thing to challenge yourself and get out of your comfort

zone, and quite another to feel uncomfortable all the time and refuse to look into why or

what you can do to feel more connected to DJ’ing. It’s important to know when you are

in denial and go through the painful process of recognizing and rectifying it. When you are

getting cues within yourself, or the dance floor, that something isn’t working - listen to those

cues, it will help you dig deeper as an artist. “Denial becomes a liability when you see that

something is not working and you refuse to deal with it. You convince yourself you can get

away with it, that your audience won’t notice the weak spots. You won’t get very far relying

on your audience’s ignorance.” (Tharp, 2003, 218)

ONE PHASED’NESS

“People often speak as though intuition were a magical searchlight which unerringly finds

its target, a special capacity for producing significant ideas. One reason is that they think of

intuition as the hidden mental faculty explaining ‘creativity’, a concept which has positive

evaluation built into it. Another is that creative individuals sometimes speak in this way

too.” (Boden, 2010, 36) I have heard many of you say how it’s all about intuition, emotion

or chance. While creativity uses a lot of self and subconscious thought, you run into danger

when you think it’s the only thing that’s going on. What happens when you chalk everything

up to your subconscious is you give yourself permission to be lazy. It’s about emotionsso I don’t have to prepare or experiment, I’ll just wing it - I’m just going to incubate and



illuminate! The reason the four phase approach exists is because the four phases have to

work in harmony with each other. There’s no cheating this – you have to work hard and

immerse yourself to be highly creative. Also, you hear from other DJs is that it’s about

vibe and emotion which is great, but remember no one is articulating or documenting their

process so take what they say at face value. Finally, focusing only on technique can be a

train wreck to creativity. Remember, technique and experimentation is not what drives the

creative process, it’s the manifestation of it. “It’s important to recognize that demonstrating

great technique is not the same as being creative. Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven we all

keyboard virtuosi, but each demanded more of his music than the exploitation of keyboard

skill.” (Tharp, 2003, 164)

COURAGE

“My anxiety thinking can cause me to underestimate myself.”

“A person needs a healthy self-respect to pursue novel ideas, and to make mistakes, despite

criticism from others. Although there may be self doubt, it cannot always win the day.

Breaking generally accepted rules, or even stretching them, takes confidence. Continuing

to do so in the face of skepticism and scorn, takes even more.” (Boden, 2010, 271) You’ve

been there. The stage fright, the intimidation you feel around DJs you look up to, the

moment when you’re alone and nothing is working out. The anxiety, the fear you will be

judged. “You confront your fears and have faith you will make it. You must believe that you’re good”.

Being courageous is something DJs find hard to do - despite the posturing you may see.



You’ve been so misunderstood by the outside world and treated as props or caricatured

in the media. You’ve bought into the fact that playing out is the only way you can respect

yourself as an artist. You get messages from the DJ hero worship you see in the culture

and you feel you need to be just like them at the expense of your voice. Courage is about

trusting the process, knowing when you’re ready, working hard in the face of adversity, rising

above the posturing, not compromising and taking gigs not in your chosen genre because

you think you need to in order to get your name out there. Why is it so important to get

your name out there at the expense of being who you really are? There are so many ways

to communicate your art these days that you do not have to be something that you’re not.

That takes courage. “Courage is made up of such characteristics as “having a passionate

love for something”, “not being afraid to be alone”, and “daring to go against the crowd”

courage is essential to the creative act.” (Dacey, Lennon, 1998, 230)

BEING OK WITH NOT MAKING IT

So many DJs have given up for periods of time. It’s a sad fact that our culture and the

industry grinds people down who just want to do something they are passionate about.

Giving up is the hardest thing for any DJ to do, and when you do it, it’s completely, as in

sell your gear, your music, and completely walk away, sometimes for years. It’s almost as if,

well I didn’t “make it” so I’m giving up. I’m going to tell you that lots of artists never make

it and you know what, they’re ok with it. Because they have discovered a personal artistic

journey despite ever getting signed to do a compilation or play to a capacity crowd. For



them, the process of creating is enough. Unless your core value as a DJ is making money

and nothing else, so not “making it” is your only issue, do not give up the wonder and

the joy of creating. “Perseverance results from having faith in one’s plan, in oneself, and

possibly in the assistance of some higher power. An individual will feel quite tempted to

eschew the hard work of repeatedly re-examining the problem and generating more unusual

solutions. Only those with the stamina and intrinsic motivation for a creative project are

likely to persevere and thus to succeed.” (Dacey, Lennon, 1998, 234)

REGRESSION

“Regression is a reversion to previously successful behaviors when current behavior is

unsuccessful.” (Dacey, Lennon, 1998, 37) Sometimes when you’ve had a bad gig, or you’re

feeling pretty low about yourself, you take it easy. You spin only tracks that have the same

BPM or you get stricter in spinning only one genre since that genre has consistent sounds.

You go into a mode of safety and security sort of like a reset button back to when you felt

good about yourself. That’s called regression. Regression can serve a purpose or it can

hinder you. Regression in the sense of overcoming a bad experience to get your confidence

back up can be useful - but be mindful of how long you stay in this state. Staying in that

regressive mode, because you want to be safe, not because you have realized you need

to revisit and hone something in your process, is in essence not challenging yourself or

expanding your horizons. You won’t move forward. The point of fulfilling your creativepotential is to keep trying and to stay motivated. If you keep moving backward or using the



reset button, then chances are you will never achieve the success you hope to.

EGO

“An unrealistic self-image can block the most suitable strategy of action. People who

misjudge their own intellectual resources, or even their personal traits, may abandon a task

too early or pursue it without chance of success.” (Boden, 2010, 273) I want to define ego

for a second because what I’m saying is a little controversial. I’m going to share this quote

as context for what I mean by DJ ego and it’s the only time I’m going to reference a DJ

not talking about themselves. “ I would want all DJs to be humble. I feel that there are a lot of DJs

out there that have big egos. They like to let the whole world know how great they are but in reality mos

of them are mediocre at best.” If you have an inflated self-image, EGO, chances are you are

misjudging who you are as a DJ and you will rush into a situation where you can damage

your experience and opportunity for learning. You also will not see through what you need

to in order to progress, you will just be assured that you’re great or right and move on,

lessening the opportunity to grow. If you believe that your way is the right way and you have

nothing left to learn, that is a symptom of an inflated self-image. The problem with that is

there is no recognition of your limitations and things you could work on to be a better DJ.

You also bring that dysfunction into your process and you will not even realize, because of

your inflated self-image, how rigid your mind is. Now, I want to be very clear, this is not



about courage, this is not about confidence, this is about inflated self-image, EGO. Inflated

because there is no basis, no foundation, no structure, no substance for having that view of

yourself. What I’m trying to do is provide you with the structure and the support that will

allow you to discover your substance!

DUALITIES

There are conflicts that you encounter sometimes during your creative process. These are

dualities. “One of the most important things you must do is refuse to take sides with

dualities like process and product, simplicity and complexity, discipline and flexibility, and so

on, dualities that are integral parts of the creative process.” (Maisel, 2005, 2005 56) “There’s a

push/pull when playing out for an audience, between what you want to do and what’s expected of you.”

Again, that conundrum! While the temptation is to choose one over the other, you need to

embrace the fact that there are dualities with what you do. The important thing is to

recognize when you are arguing with yourself over these dualities. How you handle those

dualities is what frees you to do your work. “We make our own grief by choosing to align

with one side or another of these dualities. We say, “I must do commercial work!” or “I

must do personal work!” and miss the possibility of doing integrative work that satisfies

both masters. We say, “It’s only good if it’s simple!” or, “It’s only worthy if it’s complex!”

and ignore the obvious truth that a single brushstroke carries the complexity of a human life

and a complex idea can wow us with its elegant simplicity.” (Maisel, 2005 62) There are a

few major dualities that DJs talked to me about. How much do you manipulate the music,

self vs. the audience, and ART vs. COMMERCE. Depending on your DJ philosophy,



chopping up a track or layering effects so that only the essence of the original can be

detected may be what you’re comfortable with – but if you are conflicted about that, because

maybe you feel pressure that’s what you must do, you must decide how you feel you can

comfortably execute and still maintain your sense of self, and your philosophy, in the

process. We’ve already talked about self vs. the audience a bit in Knowledge and Use of

Self. ART vs. COMMERCE is another huge issue. DJ’ing is such a new art and all you

want to do is share the joy and the passion that comes with it to the world, and yet, there are

a lot of challenges you face in getting the outside world to recognize you. So you have to

deal with requests, or a dance floor that only responds to a genre you are not prepared or

specialized in, or venue owners that refuse to have a genre set one note through the door.

So do you give in to ART purely, or do you give into COMMERCE purely – that’s the push/

pull and that is a duality you must acknowledge. We’re bumping up a little bit on DJ culture

and the world’s perception of you on this one, which is a conversation for another day – but

I thought it was important to bring it up to describe what dualities mean in terms of your

creative process.

FANTASIZING

Successful DJs aren’t successful because it is easy for them or because they were born

geniuses. They didn’t just step up to the decks and a mix just magically flowed out of them.

Anytime you hear or read about a DJ that recorded a mix in one take, a lot happened beforethat. They don’t create multi-layered soundscapes on the fly all the time. They worked at



it, they embraced their creative process. Thinking anything else is fantasizing and keeping

you from doing the work you need to do. The creative process is not going to change even

though you wish it were different and easier. You must do the work. “You can choose to

say, “I can do this even though it hurts.” That honors the process. Or you can dishonor the

process by fantasizing that it must be different for luckier mortals.” (Maisel, 2005,128) You

will have good days and bad days, good gigs and bad gigs; it’s all about learning and putting

more into your preparation, incubation, illumination, experimentation and SELF. A DJ said

to me: “there is no substitute for experience” , and fantasizing that there is a get-creative-quick-

scheme is a distraction and doesn’t help you get where you want to be any faster.

Train wrecks to creativity are hard to acknowledge because they are so personal, and

negative, and who wants to be negative about their creative process. However, the more

knowledge you have about the elements of the creative process and what can derail you, the

easier it will be to institute a healthy way of going about your DJ’ing.

CONCLUSION

Is a closer understanding of your creative process key to being an artist?

Can it be an understanding of creative process is the difference between those who are

successful DJs and those who are not? The point is, if you don’t get anything out of your

creative process, you won’t get anything out of DJ’ing.



Remember the old lady at the beginning of this paper. It was she that motivated me to write

this. When I understood how important DJ’ing was to me (enough that I was an old lady

still doing it) I wanted to look at how the current conversation about DJ’ing was evolving.

That’s where I noticed a major gap. What I kept seeing was this trajectory of thought and

conversation excluding or misrepresenting what makes you artists. The reason why I wrote

this is I believe DJs are in crisis. You are allowing the culture and the industry make the

decisions for you about what the art is all about for you. This may have initiated a lot of

thoughts about culture and the industry but that’s the next step. This paper is the first in a

series of works I will publish of honest conversations about DJ’ing and all the issues around

it ( culture, industry and the outside world for example ). I kept it strictly about this topic

because I believe the creative process is really where it all begins for DJs. Understanding it and reflecting on the ideas presented here is a fundamental step in embracing the art,

providing you with the inspiration for own your artistry and giving you permission to call

yourself an artist.

There are a few things I want you to think about as we close on this discussion. The first

thing is that it’s important to respect your creative process – forget about the outside world

and focus on legitimizing yourself in your inner world. The second thing, now that you

acknowledge you are an artist, is understanding that your creative process is fundamental

to being a good DJ and recognizing what the entire creative process actually is for you

(reminder: technique is not the creative process). Finally, be mindful of the challenges



that are distracting you and keeping you from being creative. “What makes the difference

between an outstandingly creative person and a less creative one is not any special power,

but greater knowledge and the motivation to acquire and use it.” (Boden, 2010, pg 35)

In Aristotle’s quote he said art is not representing the outward appearance of things, in

your case, the audience, the gear, culture and industry around you, but representing inward

significance, your inward significance. I am going to try a little experiment with you as I

leave you with a final thought. I have replaced the word “writer” with “DJ” and “writing”

with “DJ'ing”.

“Style is then what will happen for (DJs) if we (spin) enough for long enough while

remaining open to the unexpected and unpredicted. Style will happen because we do

make choices, and those choices will cohere as a recognizable style partly because they

express a personality and it’s set of values, partly because, as we keep (DJ’ing) and keepreceiving feedback we gain the experience that makes our choices more of a whole, and most

importantly because it will be the very life of our work. Each (DJs) style will still take to itself

its own rule of thumb, while hopefully each style will remain open to the happy accidents

that must be what gives creative work its aliveness.” (Brophy, 2009, 121)

Now go be creative!

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I want to thank some of the DJs who contributed their time and thoughts for this paper.

Bruce Tantum



Connie Yin, DJ Connie DJ/Producer

Gordon Clay/Nappy G

Anthony Granata

Julia Ponce/Sambarella

Cat House

Cristopher Rodriguez

Fiona Walsh

Tim Michaels/DJ TMIC

Roseanne Malfucci/Deejay Fucci

Mustapha Louafi/DJ MUS

Feffen

Deejaysoul

Will Taylor

Bruce Marshall “The Music Sommelier”

Jay Ciceron/DJayCee

David D’Amato/Mechatransducer

DJ Sceptic

Cecily Pinkerton

DJ Geoxie Leche dba Milk

REFERENCES

Barron, Frank (1969). Creative Person and Creative Process. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston,



Inc.

Boden, Margaret (2004). The creative mind myths and mechanisms. 2nd Edition. London:

New York.

Brophy, Kevin (2009). Patterns of Creativity: Investigations into the sources and methods of

creativity. Amsterdam, New York.

collage. 2011. In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.

Retrieved April 17, 2011, from http ://w w w.merriam-webster.com/diction ary/collage

Dacey, John S., and Lennon, Kathleen H.,(1998). Understanding Creativity: the interplay of

biological, psychological and social factors. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lamott, Anne (1994). Bird by Bird. New York: Pantheon Books.

Maisel, Eric (2005) Coaching the Artist Within. New World Library.

Tharp, Twyla (2003). The Creative Habit : Learn It and Use It for Life : a Practical Guide.

New York: Simon & Schuster.

APPENDIX

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/collage

















This Appendix reflects DJ comments from the survey and interviews data consolidated andanalyzed as relating to the DJ creative process.

behind the decks: establishing the dj's creative understanding

Documents