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How To Have Better Practice Sessions

David Jones
Jan 3, 2015
2 min read

DJing used to mean carefully picking out your vinyl, packing them in your bag, and spinning them on a pair of Technics turntables. Getting “behind the decks” meant you could only do one thing when faced with a mixer and the wheels of steel: DJ.

Contrast this to digital DJing today: "Thanks" to your souped-up laptop, you can switch between your DJ software and checking work e-mail from your boss (“Awesome set tonight! Did you turn in today’s deliverables?”). You’ve also got your mobile phone, which "conveniently" keeps you in touch with friends and anonymous people you’ve added on the internet constantly vying for your attention (“Great mix! Here’s a photo of my cat”).

Suddenly, the once solitary and even contemplative act of DJing, the classical notion of the selector tucked in some nondescript corner of the party room, has shifted to someone wildly connected 24/7. Even outside the club, when we’re practising on our laptops and controllers, we’re presented with myriad options for spending our practice time: Do I check out the latest tunes on my favourite DJ blogs? Should I upload my latest bootleg edit while scheduling posts for my Facebook page? Or do I just play another round of Destiny with my friends online?

Though this amount of convenience, connectedness, and social presence brought about by digital gear gives DJs an unprecedented level of power as regards DJing, marketing, and music production, it also brings with it an even greater level of distraction.

Since our digital devices can do so many different things, it’s all too easy to fall into the trap of doing as much of these things as we can. The only way to fight back is to consciously turn them off!

What triggers our behaviors?

I recently came across an article on memory by Jack Cheng, a writer, designer, and founder of Steepster. According to him, memory is all about association.

“The desk, the computer on top of it, the chair you sit in, and the space they comprise are all repositories for memory. But these things don’t just store our memories; they store our behaviours too. The sum of these stored behaviours is an object’s habit field, and merely being around it compels our bodies and minds to act in certain ways.”

When you see a pair of headphones, your brain associates it with certain thoughts, events, and actions you’ve done and seen in the past. The more you use a pair of headphones for DJing, the more you associate it as having a DJ “habit field”, as opposed to using it for, say, clandestine Barbra Streisand listening sessions.