Need New Sound? Get A DJ With Flexibility
It's easy to get a DJ to play the latest hits of your friend group, or even just a standard pop music session that anyone can dance to. If you're looking for something more innovative, either with sounds you've never heard or a style that your local DJs don't seem interested in, you'll need to scratch the surface for your music type and be ready to jam with your DJ beforehand. Here are a few sounds that don't quite break the surface in the US.
Chillcore And New Age Relaxation
Are you and your friends a more laid back crowd? Is your ideal get together a jazz bar, a slow house music club, or just sitting at home with some chill vibes ebbing and flowing in the background? You don't have to pack a jazz club full, but you do need to get a DJ in the mood.
A DJ may be working for you, but their just as much of a guest and patient receiving music therapy as you and your group--they just have more control over what comes next. Within a genre, there's always that one group of songs that seems to follow the right pattern, but doesn't quite fit the bill. For chillcore, it may be a song that has all of the right low tones, but too fast or way too slow.
Part of relaxation and cultivating that perfect atmosphere is more than playing favorite songs. Every piece needs to transition into the other, either by the sound, the theme, or something that resonates with the previous piece. Your party may be chill, but if there's a song that did a perfect job of exciting minds and hearts slowly and surely, starting over with another slow, but amazing song on its own, that abrupt change can be just as unsettling as a loud bang of speedmetal out of nowhere.
Handling Requests From Foreign Lands
You and your DJ need to understand proper transition, especially if your guests start making requests. A request is great, but if it doesn't fit in with the current mood, the only people being pleased are the exact people who love that song and would make the request. Don't take a lack of complaints as permission; annoyed people can get pretty quiet when they're trying to salvage a ruined mood.
This is especially important if you're bringing in music that isn't part of your local culture or your group's culture. The transition problem goes beyond genre, and becomes more important when foreign languages are involved. The best way to handle this is with instrumentals that start the foreign vibe with sound that needs no language, then transitions into a slow murmur of other languages.
Different subgenres are great for these transitions because of techno's inherent sampling nature. A few quotes here and there may be picked up by a few ears, but if it's a foreign language, it's nothing more than a few "ooohs" and "lalalas" thrown in for harmony. It isn't a problem in many cases until full sentence, statements, and lyrical works in foreign languages come in.
Before planning your next music event and getting a DJ to warm up on the spot, contact a DJ services expert in your area to trial a few tunes and get a feel for their style and set management.