I wanted to write this fun article for those of you who are just starting out as a DJ, or who may be friends with a DJ and need to learn the lingo.

DJ

What exactly does DJ mean? DJ is short for Disc Jockey. He’s someone who plays records (vinyl records). There are different types of DJs, including club DJs, mobile DJs (private parties / weddings, etc.), and radio DJs. Different DJs may use different techniques, but generally it is someone who selects, plays and mixes music for a crowd.

Beat Matching / Mixing / Spinning / DJing

This refers to the main part of DJing: making the two songs have the same speed. This is so that when you play the two songs together, they will be perfect. There are no stops or mixes of beats. Speaking of hodgepodge …

Derailed train

This is when a DJ doesn’t get the beat right. When the two songs fade into each other, the beats don’t match and it sounds awful. They are also called shoes in the dryer because of the sound.

Rinse

When a DJ clears it up, it means he did an amazing job. Everyone was dancing, their mixes were flawless, everything was amazing! “Man, that DJ RINSED it off last night!” It actually originates from the Old English language, where they used to use the phrase “A good time to rinse!” Rinse is used most often in electronic music circles, including Techno, House, and Drum and Bass.

BPM

This refers to the beats per minute or how fast the song is. Like heart rate, it is calculated by counting the number of beats per minute. This is very useful in determining if you can mix two songs together, as they must have similar speeds to do so. For example, you cannot mix an 80 BPM song (Lenny Kravitz’s “American Woman”) with a 150 BPM song (brown eyed girl by Van Morrison).

Scratch

We are not talking about itchy back. This is a technical DJ that is used a lot in Hip Hop. It is the sound that is produced when a record moves back and forth and those sounds are cut into various patterns. It takes quite a different skill than combining rhythms. They look a lot like mathematical patterns set to the beat of music.

Double

Doubles refers to when a DJ has two identical records / songs and uses them at the same time. A DJ using doubles is often referred to as “Rocking Doubles”. Your rock doubles most of the time when you’re …

Beat juggling

When a DJ has double a record and chooses a certain part of the record to repeat or layer on top of the other. It is used to create interesting patterns of the same rhythm or phrase. This requires a very fast hand and a great degree of skill.

Turntablist

These are DJs who specialize in scratching and / or juggling beats.

Battles

When DJs fight it is like a kind of exhibition where each DJ has a certain amount of time to show the audience what their skills are. Turntablist battles are very popular.

Crush

This is a type of music that was popularized by DJ Z-Trip. It is an overlay of one song on another. Most of the time it is the voice of one song over the beat of another. It is often a mix of genres like a rock beat with hip hop vocals or vice versa.

Now that you know DJ lingo, you can better understand DJs and what they are talking about! I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I did writing it!

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