DJs have hundreds and thousands of songs in their libraries nowadays. What's more, thanks to CDJs and digital DJing technology, they can bring them all to the club. While it's great to have such a broad choice of songs, it makes it almost impossible to remember them all. | The notation marksPlease note: The notation has a new version, but I still haven't had the time to update this page. Please be patient or kick me. - (dash)Read: beats. Listen.Beats only, no harmonic sounds. Safe to mix into anything. Many tracks begin and end with these dj-friendly sequences, but definitely not all of them. ~ (tilde)Read: melody. Listen.No beats, only melody or nonrhythmic sounds. Might be difficult to beat-match. = (equal sign)Read: drone. Listen.Beats and melodic/harmonic sounds (but not too melodic). Most techno tracks, for example, will consist mainly of this. When mixing harmonically, it's pretty safe to let two drones of the same key play at the same time. Often it sounds great even if you mix a drone with a (harmonically matching) melody or riff. # (hash)Read: riff. Listen.Denotes a sequence with tonal/harmonic shifts. Beats might or might not be present. Core of most melodic house and trance songs. Hard to mix, especially into another melody. (0:00) (timecode in parenthesis)Read: the time in parenthesis.Specifies the time at which the next event happens. It needn't be super accurate in most cases: dance music changes in bars so a DJ can guess the precise moment on their own. Note that the timecode may be let out, but in most cases, it's very handy for planning ahead. It makes sense to record the remaining time (time to end of track) because most CDJs show that by default. ! (exclamation mark)Read: detuned. Listen.Detuned sounds or melody. Beware! Don't try to mix with anything else but beats unless you're sure what you're doing. This is a prefix. Put before other marks so it looks like this: "!~" (detuned melody). < (lower than)Read: faded in.Music and/or beats that are fading in, mostly at the beginning of the track. Pain to beat-match or mix. This is a prefix. Put before "=" or "~" or other marks. This: "<~" means that the track fades in with a melody, without beats. > (greater than)Read: faded out.Music and/or beats that are fading out, mostly at the end of the track. Pain to beat-match or mix. Avoid by a transition before this happens. This is a postfix. Put after any mark to signify fadeout. This: "->" means that the track fades out with beats only. / (slash)Read: build up. Listen.Major build up. It's good to transition to a new track before it's first major build-up. \ (backslash)Read: break down. Listen.Major and/or final break down. It helps to know when this happens so you can mix in the next track's melody right after the current track's breakdown. |
ContactQuestion? Comments? Suggestions? Want to contribute? Contact me at www.philipage.com. (You can also download the resulting mixes there.)
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DJ notation and what it does |