The Dutiful DJ

“Great DJing is like great sex. Think about it. The goal is for you and [the audience] to become so attuned; when you’re rockin’ out a party the energy is so contagious for everyone and it’s one of the best feelings in the world. If you get it right, you and the crowd share this wild symbiotic connection that is just euphoric.” So wrote Harvard heavyweight of the disc jockey (DJ) world George Zisiadis ’11, a.k.a. DJ Straus, via email from Grenada. Standing alone, this comment may seem overblown.

And though Zisiadis is known for his eager self-promotion, his message still rings true. Student DJs across campus emphasize the intense, empathic relationship that develops between themselves and an elated (or simply drunk) audience. Ultimately, DJs find this relationship the driving motivation behind their practice: the opportunity to make a crowd happy. Indeed, student DJs, given the amount they spend on gear, the time they spend searching for new music, and the time they spend preparing for gigs, make a mere pittiance by comparison. Moreover, they rarely find opportunities to play music beyond a repetitive and narrow set of Top 40 hits. What’s left qualifies the art of the college-aged turntablist as an ecstatic and sweaty form of community service.

SCRATCHING THE SURFACE

The art of the student DJ can range from the highly technical and complex to the facile, even the mundane. I visited Mark A. VanMiddlesworth ’10, a Crimson Arts Editor, in his dimly-lit off-campus lair on Trowbridge Street. Ballet flats, cans of beer and a bottle of Jim Bean Kentucky bourbon were strewn across the floors and tables; four guitars hung from the walls; and VanMiddlesworth and his girlfriend were disputing the location of the DJ’s rabbit Puck, which was last seen under his significant other’s desk. VanMiddlesworth was showing me his impressive collection of DJ gear, some of which he built himself.

In addition to two computers, a Kaoss Pad MIDI controller, two sets of headphones, and an assortment of other electronic odds and ends, VanMiddlesworth has built himself a portable controller. He says that the small, black box, which features nothing more than four joysticks, two pads and a touchscreen, will allow him to employ a whole range of DJing effects wirelessly. Theoretically, then, he will be able to DJ from the midst of a party’s crowd.

When asked about his beginnings as a DJ, Van Middlesworth said, “...it started out as a technical thing; I tolerated the music as a result.” In terms of the DJing techniques he uses, VanMiddlesworth said, “I like beatmatching, creating my own beats by taking loops from one song and vocals from another, layering them over each other... You can use the looping and extracting chunks of a file to make smoother transitions between songs.”

Beatmatching, one of the fundamental pillars of DJing, is the process of matching the beats per minute of a given track to that of the song that is currently playing to eliminate dissonance in the transition from one track to another. VanMiddlesworth and nearly all other DJs also ensure that their transitions include cross-fading, which is the practice of preventing gaps between tracks by gradually fazing out of one song and simultaneously introducing another.

Above and beyond these basics, VanMiddlesworth employs more difficult forms of DJing: looping, for example, is the practice of taking a short sample from a song and continuously repeating it. This craft enables DJs to build up slowly to a long-awaited chorus or, in VanMiddlesworth’s case, create an entirely new beat or transition altogether. A dedicated DJ will also work hard in advance of a gig to place a series of good cue points for all of his songs—that is, find and mark a set of perfect moments to launch into a track. Finally, VanMiddlesworth also has an extensive collection of exclusively instrumental and vocal tracks.

He has learned to lay these tracks, one over the other, seamlessly during his performances. Demonstrating, he began with the instrumental of Le Tigre’s funky “Dyke March 2001,” put on the vocals to rap quartet Spank Rock’s tellingly-titled “Coke & Wet,” moved to the vocals from Trina and Lil’ Wayne single, “Don’t Trip,” and finally changed from the Le Tigre instrumentals to a Neptunes beat. Through all of this, an unsuspecting audience would have failed to notice the numerous musical shifts.

Harvard DJs, however, can easily get away with doing the bare minimum. “The trick is that people already like the music,” said Kane Hsieh ’12. “Don’t touch the music. As long as you transition well, keep the beat smooth and play the right songs, people will love it.” In the same vein, Hsieh insists that being a DJ in a college setting does not require the complicated set of skills that artists like VanMiddlesworth treasure. “Anyone that puts in the amount of effort required by a few p-sets could learn to keep the music going. They wouldn’t be able to do the stuff that VanMiddlesworth or Straus can, but just to keep people happy at a party all you need is a few hours of software.” Though Hsieh hesitates to call himself a DJ, he also says that he has no desire to learn the art form’s more complicated techniques and plans to continue DJing parties whenever the opportunity arises.

MOB MUSICALITY

Beyond his lack of interest in technical flourishes, Hsieh also differs from many DJs in his lack of interest in broad musical knowledge. “I feel like the Top 40 is the Top 40 because it’s fun to listen to. I don’t consider myself a musical connoisseur,” he said. For most DJs, however, negotiating the divide between the Top 40 songs that most partiers want to hear and the music that they themselves most enjoy presents a challenging and ultimately defining conundrum.

Talented DJs like VanMiddlesworth and Zisiadis consider the obligation to pander a good reason to avoid Harvard’s conventional party scene. “I DJed at a bunch of places around campus at the end of sophomore year and just realized that to do that you have to stay on top of what music people are listening to. I wasn’t very good at that and didn’t want to spend so much time listening to T-Pain,” said VanMiddlesworth. Now, though, “I basically have retreated to the [Harvard] Advocate and my bedroom and the Internet,” he said.

Though Zisiadis still continues to do a lot of gigs when he is on campus, he too has moved away from house socials and towards Harvard’s periphery. “I think in general parties are forced to cater to the lowest common denominator—meaning that DJs are playing typical music that’s on anyone’s iPod. People get used to this, and expect this, and it creates a vicious cycle pretty fast,” he wrote. “I’ve definitely refused many gigs ’cause it simply wasn’t a good fit... neither I nor them would’ve been happy.” Zisiadis, who says that he loves playing new and obscure remixes when he DJs, also says that his favorite venue is the Queen’s Head Pub, at which he has performed for Senior Bars.

Effectively, DJs like VanMiddlesworth and Zisiadis are specialty acts; the more an artist knows about DJing techniques and music, the less inclined they are to do the basic stuff that the vast majority of a crowd wants to hear. “You have to be at a place where people are expecting a DJ to do DJ things,” said VanMiddlesworth.

Nonetheless, most DJs, even those with an impressive technical background, still love playing Harvard’s campus dances and formals. “I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now, and I’ve learned the hard way that you don’t want to be too rigid about any of your principles as a DJ,” remarks Dan J. Thorn ’11, who DJed Hell at Currier’s Heaven and Hell Halloween party last semester. “If you’re rigid and get angry and [don’t] play ‘Party in the U.S.A.’ [by Miley Cyrus] or [don’t] play some song twice, then it’ll just make you more stressed out and you’ll have a worse time—your set will be worse overall.” For Thorn, songs like “Party in the U.S.A.” are not intrinsically problematic; according to him, “the mainstream party culture at Harvard is focused around a really small canon of Top 40 music but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing... I don’t feel disappointed not playing the music I’d rather listen to on my own. That’s not what those parties would ever be about.”

Ultimately, DJing is about striking a balance between the narrow register of pop jingles and an endless catalogue of the music DJs love—what for VanMiddlesworth includes “European techno minimalist house,” but for other DJs comprises a range electronica and hip-hop. John R. Regan ’11, who was the heavenly coefficient to Thorn’s Hell at the aforementioned party, has found a way to reconcile his approach with the demands of his audience. “I’m a remix DJ,” said Regan. “Even if I do play Top 40, it’s not the original.” Still, Regan said his goal is to a find the “happy medium.” In terms of his priorities, he added, “I perform just so people can have a good time.”

COMMUNITAS ET VERITAS

On this point, all DJs seem to agree; they perform “just” so people have fun at parties. “The money is not the reason I DJ. It’s to have a good time and to put what I’ve practiced to good use and to make people happy. The money they pay me, I couldn’t care less about,” says Regan. “If people leave and say, ‘Wow, that was a great event,’ that’s all I care about. That’s it.” Zisiadis agreed, summing up his time as a DJ with the thought that, “as far as I see it, DJing is about creating a hugely positive experience for people. It’s about enabling them to have as a good a time as possible at parties.”

As with any form of community service, making the community happy is not necessarily easy. To explain the social maneuvering involved in DJing a good party, Thorn said, “[Y]ou have to be really conscious of how many people are dancing, who is coming in, and who is leaving. You have to make sure you don’t play too many of the popular songs until there are a good amount of people [on] the dance floor... You really have to learn how to gauge your audience.” This micromanagement amounts to an extended empathy; from noting who goes and who stays, Thorn adjusts his music according to what he believes they will like. While DJing, his entire focus is centered on maximizing his crowd’s happiness.

Zisiadis presents a more narrative view. “You take people through a journey the whole night, building up the music into peaks, bringing it back down, teasing the audience, and then bringing it back up into a marvelous climax.” Though Zisiadis may lack Thorn’s reserved sensitivity, it is clear that they are saying the same thing in two different languages. For both artists, the DJing act is one devoted to crowd pleasure.

In fact, argues experienced DJ and Harvard graduate student in ethnomusicology Sarah E. Hankins, “The ideal of a good DJ is that you are in a position of service to a crowd, to the taste of the crowd.” Hankins herself puts this idea into practice. “I DJ for the queer community and I never charge for those things because that’s my community,” she said. “[Those are] the people I want to show a good time, bring together, and unite... [I want to] strengthen the idea of a queer community as opposed to a bunch of people entering a club to drink, hook up, whatever." However, unlike other forms of service, DJing puts you in an empowered, controlling relationship with those you are trying to help. "You’re sort of a shaman in a secular ritual to bring people to a place of ecstasy.” This moment, she elaborated, embodies the term “communitas,” or an “über-community feeling: [the] feeling of in a moment being boundaryless, being connected to everyone around you. The DJ is trying to maintain that feeling, picking the right song at the right time to keep the crowd dancing at this moment of ecstatic communitas.”

SEEING THE (STROBE) LIGHT

If DJing is a service-based, rapture-seeking religion, it is also a proselytizing one. After speaking with Hsieh, he whipped out a flash drive, uploaded his latest playlist and $100 of DJ software, and handed it to me. “The more people that can play at parties the better,” he said. “I’m totally for people learning how to use the software themselves.” VanMiddlesworth himself started giving advice about how to get started, and nearly every DJ reported that they learned their art under the tutelage of an older, wiser, charitable DJing friend. For the sake of their art, and for the sake of good parties everywhere, student DJs take it upon themselves to continue spreading the good word in every way they can.

—Staff writer Alexander E. Traub can be reached at atraub@college.harvard.edu.