This final performance was majorly rushed, I only started practicing two days before the gig, so to say that I believe it went exceptionally well is a bit of an understatement. However, it wasn’t perfect, not at all. There were strengths and weaknesses to my performance, some more important than others.
The first thing to note is that I didn’t speak enough about myself and the EP. As big headed as it sounds, I was there to promote myself as an artist, and my EP, and I didn’t even mention the EP, or where the audience could follow me on social media, etcetera. This negated a lot of the point in me even doing the performance in the first place. At least I got to be a part of a great event for a great cause.
In terms of the performance itself, my stage presence was much better than my previous performances with an audience of this size. However, I could’ve done much better and I know this. I will have to work on this for future performances. Stage presence is key when it comes to getting an audience involved and engaged in a performance. The better my stage presence in the future, the more likely I am to gain fans.
I believe that my use of FX (Low/high pass filters, reverb, delay, flanger, etc.) was good and added to the dynamics of the set, which was important because the set I had planned was only seven minutes and I needed to make the most of it. For example my use of filter and delay in the last 2 songs. There was a few instances where this wasn’t the case however. Like right at the beginning of the performance building up to the first drop, I think I used slightly too much high pass filter. I had the same problem in my outro because it makes the mix sound harsh and it can be a bit painful to listen to. During the third mix, I could’ve used reverb and delay to smooth out the mix as it was a very quick mix and it didn’t sound smooth, not like the other mixes.
In terms of the timing, I only mad a mistake once in the whole set. During the second mix, I played the track ever so slightly late, however, I thought I’d played it early, so I used the jog wheel to nudge the track forward a beat, knocking it further out of sync, by the time id noticed it was too late, so I had to pull off the track that I was bringing in completely for a bar and bring it in a bar late. This saved the mix slightly, it was still out of time, but at least the incoming drop didn’t play over the end of the track I was taking off.
Apart from the issues I have pointed out, I believe that the performance was great, I felt comfortable, or at least as comfortably as I could feel with a hundred people watching me. The majority of transitions were smooth, I had a good use of FX, I kept the volume levels relatively stable. This is more than I expected to be able to do with a college days worth of practicing time.
I am going to continue to practice DJing and I’m going to join an online radio and perform live every week until I feel comfortable that I can DJ in front of another live audience and I’m going to start releasing demos to clubs and going to open deck nights to get my name out there.