I was 13 years old when I met Sergey, my future teacher and music partner. Every day after school, we trained for 3–4 hours a day. Having no money for professional equipment, Sergey and I bought two old Radio Engineering turntables, changed their rotation system because it was no big deal, making it more advanced, and on this equipment, despite the dissatisfaction of the neighbors, training in DJing came.
In the 90s, being a DJ was very expensive. 5 minutes of your music – is one track on vinyl, the price of which reached $ 13 per vinyl. Within an hour I played over 30 tracks. And every month I had to update my collection of music in order to always be with the newest material. For me, it was a lot of money. I did not grow up in a rich family and I earned all the money on the vinyl records by myself. I worked as a laborer on a construction site, put up posters in St. Petersburg, handed out flyers, helped make parties for a minimal fee, just so that I had the money for the vinyl records. My beginning was not easy, there were many different cases. Once even there was a showdown with bandits when I went into debt to buy a large batch of vinyl records for the summer season.
But all of this did not scare me because I loved music, I had a goal, I wanted to perform, become a musician, and mean something in this culture.
At the beginning of my musical history, sometimes there was a misunderstanding on the part of the girls who started dating me and, seeing me as a popular musician, counted on an easy and comfortable life with me. But it was not as simple as it seemed from the outside. The girls wanted more comfort, advised to tie with a musical hobby, recommended to look for a high- paying job, and not show off. I always stayed true to myself and the music. There were times when I even refused large fees if this could damage the concept and understanding of me as an artist. I had creative friends who for the sake of money changed their image and adapted to the audience, which immediately ceased to appreciate them, as they intuitively understood that everything was for the sake of earning.
In music, there is the concept of «True Artist». He works for himself, for pleasure, because he sincerely loves his job. Creativity ends when your favorite craft becomes an unpleasant routine of creating a product that you don’t like yourself, but it brings money. I had a lot of friends from the musical environment, who turned on the path of empty earning and as a result quickly ended their careers, as they burned out personally. At the beginning of my career, I was lucky, and I managed to meet people in time who advised me to get out of such situations correctly.
When you love music and devote your whole life to it, it becomes a matter of your life and eventually brings returns.
In the music business, you should never stop. No matter how much you want to linger on the completed project and taste all the fruits of its success, you must immediately go forward. At times, it may seem difficult to complete one successful business and move on to a new unknown. I never gave up on what I was doing. And I was never afraid to move on. With experience, you understand that a new beginning will give more strength, ideas, creativity, and as a result of success. Flexibility and anticipation of the result are important qualities for successful creativity. Imagine a beginner surfer who sees the first wave and begins to rake it. At that time, when an experienced knows that you need to see the most powerful wave, wait for it and begin to rake until you feel it. Because it is so strong and powerful that you simply will not have time to get on it if you do not prepare in advance.
In the musical sphere, two types of people can be observed: those who create something new and those who repeat after others. First of all, you must choose yourself which artist you will be. You must understand that by copying someone else’s product you will never become a legendary musician, but you can probably make a lot of money. To create something new, you first need to study all the classical bases, electronic, non-format moves in music. With this foundation, you begin to expand your professional consciousness: to replenish your knowledge and supplement it with information from different fields, read books, be interested in what is happening in art and the world in general, get inspired, join in working with the best, travel and keep open perception, that is always looking for what can impress in the surroundings. And then at some point, a unique idea will come to you.
You should also draw your attention to a relevant topic in a creative environment: a quality product can only be created with a pure mind and a clear mind. There is a myth that alcohol, drugs, synthetic stimulants, or other psychoactive substances supposedly help to become more creative. Many of my friends made this mistake, and some of them now rest in peace, someone forgot about music and completely left the creative sphere. Besides the obvious fact that stimulants can permanently cripple your life and health, there is a scientific fact that they negatively affect your aural abilities. That is, under the influence of doping, you cannot hear certain frequencies.
I'm not interested in reading notations to you. I just want you to understand what consequences you may face and whether you need it.
If even now you want to make music and devote your whole life to it, despite all the difficulties of this sphere, then we continue and move on to the next chapter.
Selection of genre and sound
«You can outlive anything if you pick the right song.»
On the one hand, it is quite a simple topic of choosing the style in which your project will work. On the other hand, it is important to understand that there are classical music genres and popular hybrid «HYPE Music» genres that work one or more seasons and decide on this choice.
To start with, let's clarify that there are classical genres in dance music and what is HYPE.
The classic genres include techno, house, drum n bass, Disco, hardcore, trance, dubstep, hip hop, rock, Ebm, and others. These are the main basic styles of music in the generally accepted understanding of the genre, they have been living for decades, has their huge fan base and ideology.
Directions including hybrid subgenres.
In modern music space, DJs like to mix and combine rather strange things, creating something new and unusual, but it is not guaranteed that such genres will live for a long time. For example, a lot of sub-styles emerged from classical House music: tech house, big room house, uk house, bass house, dream house, deep house, and many others. This applies to all other classic styles that I have listed above.
How and why does this work? Often, this is the role of geopolitics – from which country a musician is and what features of sound he adds to a particular genre of music. That's how we get modern hybrid sounds of classic genres. Some of them take root for a long time and such songs are very successful, and some are played for a year and then they are forgotten. The younger the musical genre, the more likely it is to quickly go up, but at the same time, it can be easily forgotten.
You need to choose a specific genre before you start to engage in it. Especially if you want act not only as a DJ but to write your music and publish it on music labels.
If you choose classical techno sound or any other classical style, you guarantee yourself many years of relevance. In this type music it is often more difficult to break through, you will have to spend more time developing yourself as an artist. But if you go through these stages correctly, you will have a guarantee that you can practice this music almost forever, since this genre is well-established.
With trendy HYPE ways, you are more likely to quickly become popular. But the big mistake of those who begin to make such music in pursuit of success is not paying any attention to long-term prospects. Copying music makes you a hostage for being late for the so-called fashion train. Now I will explain what this means: the music that you hear now on the radio and which is popular now, is approved for publication by music labels for 10 months and earlier. Thus, the creation of HYPE music at the peak moment of its popularity gives you at least six months behind the global trends that are planned for next season. Typically, such genres appear in the capitals of dance music in the USA, England, Germany, Holland, etc.
For example, while living in Russia, I always went to various music festivals around the world, where I was looking for something new. Thanks to