Advice

Use Drone To Shoot Live DJ Footage To Promote Your DJing

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DJI Inspire 2 quadcopter drone flying

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently on ways to promote myself and my DJing. One of the ideas I really liked is to make videos, but they always look amateurish and the same as all the others. Then it hit me. I need to get a drone with a high quality camera. That way I can shoot footage from really cool angles and it would make me stand out from all the other DJs with their boring videos.

DJI Inspire 2 quadcopter drone flying

I read a lot of reviews on a bunch of different websites that covered all of the best drones on the market. It is amazing how many of them there are. Some come with cameras and some don’t. The ones that don’t, you need to buy the camera additionally, so you need to pay attention to that. I wanted one with a high quality 4K video camera so that I could shoot high definition video of it flying above myself during a gig.

Naturally, I needed to get a DJ gig that was outside. Flying a drone inside is just too risky. Not only can you hurt people, you can also damage your drone. But outside you can fly high and swoop in and you can do a lot of really cool things. You get some great angles. I got one of my best friends who already knows how to fly drones and is very good at it to do the flying and recording.

Since this is for my professional career, I decided to spend a lot of money and get one of the best drones on the market. I got the DJI Inspire 2 quadcopter. It cost me several thousand dollars with a high quality camera, but it is totally worth it, now that I have seen the video results.

My friend started out in the distance and flew in and it looks so cool as you sweep closer to me as I’m DJing. Then he circled around and got me from all angles.

I did the editing myself and sliced together all the various angles and swoops and things that he shot. He took footage from a couple of different shows even, so there is some at night and some during the daytime and some during good weather and some during rain.

I made sure to tell him to take a lot of photos and videos of the crowd too. I especially wanted the times when I dropped the beat and they went crazy for me. That is the kind of footage that makes me look really cool.

A quadcopter in the air

The DJI inspired drone captured this in high quality 4K video and it looks incredible. You know those videos you often see on YouTube of drones flying over cities? Is that level of quality.

I’m not telling you that you also need to get yourself a quad copter drone. There a lot of other things you can do to stand out, but for me, my new quadcopter has worked very well. It has allowed me to get kind of cool video footage that other DJs don’t have and that has really made me stand apart. When I show people that footage of me playing gigs, they get excited to have me play for them. That footage has got me a lot of jobs DJing that I would have never gotten without it.

For that reason, I can safely say that the money I spent on my quadcopter drone has been completely worth it. Everything I spent, I have made back multiple times in new gigs. I have also used my drone to shoot footage for some other DJs and made money from that. So now I am no longer just a DJ, I am also a DJ videographer. It is amazing what buying that quad copter drone has actually done for my career. It has changed my entire career path, I guess.

Musical Life

Playing The Trumpet Seems To Help With Learning To Sing

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dj singing

As you know, if you read this blog at all, I decided that I wanted to learn how to sing around this time last year. I got myself some lessons and also bought several online courses. I’ve been working through them in my free time over the past year and feel like I’ve made a lot of progress. I do not yet feel good enough to sing live while I’m DJng (not even close), but I do feel like I’ve come a long ways.
dj singingWhen I started out last year, I couldn’t sing at all. In fact, I didn’t know much about it, by which I mean about the mechanics of singing. I didn’t understand how to position my body, how to position my tongue in my mouth and even something as simple as how to breathe. Doing all those correctly is vital to being a good singer, but I never knew that.

So I had to start from the beginning and learn all those fundamentals. I do think, however, that playing the trumpet in my youth helped me a lot here. The most obvious way it helped is, of course, in breathing. Anyone who has played the trumpet knows that it puts a lot of strain on your lungs. You really need to have good breath control and strong lungs in order to play the trumpet effectively. And I had those in my youth. These days, not so much. I smoke too much, I drink too much, and I rarely do any exercise.

That said, having that experience of playing the trumpet and needing to learn breath control in my youth helped me learn how to control my breathing for singing much more quickly, I believe. Obviously, it is different than it was for the trumpet, but just having that experience with controlling my breathing helped immensely. I was able to pick up the correct breathing much more quickly than other students, according to my teachers.

Another less obvious way in which the trumpet helped me was the music theory that I learned when I was learning to play. If I had just started out singing, I would not have had any knowledge of music theory. None of the fundamentals. I know DJs hate when people tell them they are not real musicians, but in some ways it is true. We basically play music for people. For that reason, many DJs do not understand music theory at all. That is not to say all of them. Some DJs, especially the greats who produce their own music, have a great understanding of music theory. But most do not. And I didn’t really either.

All of my understanding came from my trumpet playing days. At that time, I took music lessons and learned the basics and fundamentals of music theory. That help me a lot when I was learning to sing, since I did not have to do it all over again. I do believe it has help me in my DJ career as well, although I don’t think it is completely necessary. It helps a lot and gives me a leg up on those many DJs who don’t know anything about it, but many of them do fine as well.

Anyway, I still have a long ways to go before my hopefully soon to be beautiful voice will be impressed on a re that you can buy in your local record store. But when that day comes, you can be sure that all of my friends will be getting a copy of that vinyl record and it will be on repeat on my turntable in my living room. Okay, so maybe that is a pipe dream. But I do hope to sing live during my DJ sets. That was the goal of learning to sing in the first place and I am still working toward that goal. And I will achieve it.

Musical Life

I Want To Learn To Sing

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singing microphone

I have decided that I want to learn how to sing. This has nothing to do with my career as DJ Tomboy. It’s just something I want to do for fun. I’ve always enjoyed going to karaoke, but I was never a great singer. I finally decided that enough is enough. I found some good articles to read and then decided that I’m going to get better at singing.

singing microphone

I learned that the first thing I need to do is improve my posture. My mom has criticized me my whole life for slouching too much. Turns out she was right. To get good at singing, you need to stand up straight. If you don’t, it impacts your breathing and the air flow through your lungs and over your vocal cords. If you can’t breathe properly, you can’t sing properly. This actually makes a lot of sense, but I never really thought about it until I read it. Now that I read it, I know for a fact this is true. You can try it yourself. Slouch and then try to sing. Now do the same thing while standing up straight. It’s just so much easier.

The next thing I need to work on is my breathing. I’m familiar with breathing into your belly, but it is not something I do naturally all the time. I need to get used to doing that, especially when I’m singing. This is the only way to get a good enough air flow to really sing well. Breathing into your chest just doesn’t cut it.

Another thing that can impact breathing is your head position. I found that I make the same mistake a lot of people make in that I look upward when I sing high notes and I look down when I sing low notes. This impacts your breathing. You want to look straight ahead all the time. You also want to keep your tongue forward in your mouth, so that it does not impact the airflow of your vocal cords either. Basically, that is what it always comes down to with singing. Proper airflow. You shouldn’t do anything to impact airflow.

Once I’ve got those things down, I can start working on my actual singing. There are a number of exercises that I found on my new favorite site. It is called Musicaroo and it just has so many great tips on learning how to sing.

On Musicaroo.com, I learned what my vocal range is and I also learned a lot of exercises I can do to increase my range. This is more something I will do later on down the road. For now I just want to get down the basics to sound better when I sing. Once I’ve done that, I will look at more advanced vocal techniques. The first step is to just sound good singing so that I can go to karaoke not make a fool of myself.

If I really get into the singing thing, I might actually consider hiring a vocal coach down the road. I would only do this if I decided to incorporate my singing into my DJing. This is not something I’ve really thought about much, but I figure if I’m going to spend this time to get good at singing, I might as well use it professionally, too. If that is the case, then I will definitely hire a famous coach to give me voice lessons. I’ll probably hire an online coach, since I’m lazy and I don’t want to have to travel.

I will keep you updated on my progress as a singer. But I’d also like to hear from you. Have any of you learn to sing? Have you made an attempt but failed? I really want to know as I’m curious. Please let me know in the comments below.

history

Would You Believe I Was Once A Trumpeter?

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female trumpet player

female trumpet playerIf you’ve read any articles at all on my site, you know that I’m a DJ. If you only look at the title of this website, you know that, assuming you’re not a complete idiot. I am DJ tomboy and I’ve been a DJ for a long time. I mentioned this before, but my mom was a DJ as well. I actually have several DJs in my family. But I also have a whole bunch of other musicians. In fact, I was supposed to be one of those other musicians.

When we were growing up in my family, my mom was a DJ, but my dad was a composer. Due to their musical background, both my sister and I had a huge interest in music ourselves. Our parents also pushed us to learn at least one instrument. They also wanted me to become a singer, but that never happened, though it might soon. And these days, I even consider myself a bit of a videographer, thanks to my new quadcopter! I’m also a bit of an amateur cannabis gardener….I grow a small amount of weed indoors at home with grow lights, but let’s keep that a secret, yeah? Shhhhh…

There was always heavy competition between my sister and I, so when she chose the violin as her instrument of choice, I knew I had to choose something else. The truth is, I kind of wanted to play the violin too, but I refused to do the same thing my sister was doing.

In the end I chose the trumpet. I don’t know why exactly, but I suppose it’s because see very few female trumpeters. The majority of trumpet players are male. And I’ve always had that tomboy side that just wanted to go against societal norms.

Given all that, it only makes sense that I chose to play the trumpet. I was even pretty good at it. I enjoyed it a lot, even though it is one of the most difficult instruments to play.

A lot of people might not think that. Most people think the violin is much harder, but the truth, is the trumpet is harder to play than the violin. First of all, with the violin all you need to do is move your hand back and forth a little bit. I know there is more to it than that, but that’s the basics.

When playing the trumpet, your lungs come into play. You need to blow into that thing like crazy and you need to keep doing it for one song after another. It is unbelievably taxing. It takes so much energy and that’s for people who have been playing the trumpet for a while. When you first start, you can only play for like 30 seconds before you get tired and you can’t go anymore. Of course, that experience made it easier for me to learn to breathe correctly for singing down the road.

I was in my school marching band and as a trumpet player, I used to get a huge workout that way. You exercise when you’re walking and you also exercise your lungs with the blowing. The same goes for most blow instruments though. And I guess the people carrying the really heavy instruments get even more of a workout. Tuba players, for example, are always going to be in great shape.

After my high school days in the marching band, I joined another band in college and I continued to play the trumpet. But, by this time, I was also pretty heavy into DJing. I used to use a lot of my own trumpet music in my tracks that I produced myself. But I kind of stopped that after a while. It just seem like I was overdoing it and reaching back into that same bag of tricks all the time.

For that reason, you don’t hear the trumpet much in my music anymore. And I haven’t actually played the trumpet in many years. In fact, if I tried to pick one up now, I would be one of those people getting tired very quickly.

As I am writing this, I’m kind of thinking it’s a shame that I lost touch with my trumpeting days. I’m also actually thinking that I might start playing the trumpet again. Not full-time or anything, but just occasionally to keep in practice.

I might also compose a few simple trumpet riffs that I can add into my electronic music tracks. I did like a lot of the ones I produced earlier with my trumpet sounds and I think I have more maturity now and I would do a much better job of incorporating the trumpet into my electronic music tracks.

I just have to make sure not to overdo it. I don’t want it to become like my signature anything. I was always worried about that before and I still am.

I’m also now thinking that my sister does still play the violin, although it’s a hobby and not a profession. I could use some of her violin music in my tracks as well. I actually think I’m going to have her write a little guest post on my site about the violin one of these days. What do you think about that? Let me know in the comments below.

Advice

The Best Turntable Record Player For An Amateur DJ

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turntable record player DJ setup

People are always asking me what equipment I use or what equipment they should use. While I do think this is a fair question, there are some problems with it.

 

For one, the equipment doesn’t make the DJ. A good DJ can do a great job with just a simple pair of turntables and a basic mixer. He or she doesn’t really need much in the way of equipment to get a crowd going. On the flip side, no matter how expensive your equipment, it will not make you a better DJ. Terrible DJs suck, no matter how high quality their turntable record players or their mixers are.

 

But if you’re just starting out, I can understand that you would want some recommendations. Of course, the equipment I use is probably not going to be the equipment you want to use. And the same goes for any other DJ. What works for one, will not work for the other.

 

But I will try to help as best I can. The first thing you need to ask yourself is what type of equipment you want to use. If you want to use old school record players, then the best turntable for a beginner is probably one made by Audio Technica. Many people will say Technics, but they are much more expensive.

 

I’d go with the Audio Technica AT-LP120 (review here). This is a great entry-level turntable that has all the functions you’ll ever need, and then some. The AT-LP60 is also a great choice and is much cheaper. The reason I recommend the more expensive one is that it gives you room to grow as a DJ.

 

If you want to spin CD decks, I’d say don’t do it. There is no point in using CD decks in this day and age. There really isn’t much point to turntables either, but I do think it’s important to learn how to use them. Therefore I still have a recommendation there. But for CDs, forget it. Just go to the next paragraph and continue reading. Forget about CDs….

 

For most DJs I would recommend getting a controller and using a laptop. That is what all the big DJs do these days. Controllers have jog wheels on them that you can use in the same way you would use a turntable on a record player. This way, you don’t lose that tactile function, but these controllers just do so much more than a record player. In today’s modern age of digital music, these are the way to go.

 

The main decision you have to make here is between a Serato system or Native Instruments system. Personally, I prefer Native Instruments, but that is just my personal preference. Do your research and see which one is best for you.

 

Mainly this will depend on your style of music, but there are also differences in how these software programs perform. You want to give both of them a try and see which one feels more intuitive to you. Then get a controller that works with that system.

 

That’s why it’s hard to make a recommendation here. Depending on the software you use, you want a different controller. With Native Instruments Traktor Scratch system, you should use a Pioneer controller. For Serato, I would use one by Newmark or also Pioneer.

 

Now, I know that this post probably did not answer your questions, but that’s because they are hard to answer without more information. That’s really my point here. Any equipment you buy, try it out first and see how it feels to you. That’s what matters. The tools I like using likely won’t work for you, so find the ones that feel best to you. Most stores let you try out their equipment and if that’s not possible, you can always rent some and give them a whirl before buying.

 

Good luck!

history

How The Vinyl Record Player Led To The Art Of DJing

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Do you know how DJing started? Why did people start spinning and scratching records on a turntable? Well, it obviously started with the old-style record players. These are turntable machines that you place a vinyl record on and they have a needle that reads the grooves on the record and turns them into an audio output.

antique turntable record player
An old-school record player

This was at one time a miraculous technology, but obviously it’s pretty outdated these days. Of course, that is not to say nobody buys record players anymore. They are still quite popular with a lot of people. In fact, many people believe that vinyl delivers the most pure sound possible.

But anyway, back to the point of this post. At some point radio stations appeared and people eventually wanted to listen to music. At first they would just listen to people talking and then radio stations started airing dramas, but eventually they started playing music. That music came on vinyl. In order to switch from one song to another, somebody had to switch out the vinyl record on the turntable record player.

Radio stations started hiring people specifically for this job. These people selected songs they thought the audience would like and put them on the record player to play them. Basically they spent their working hours taking the previous record off the turntable and putting the new one on it. Vinyl records come in the form of discs so these people became known as disc jockeys. They were jockeying discs.

Eventually disc jockey became DJ and today still, DJs play various records on a vinyl turntable. At least that’s what the purists say. Most DJs today actually use a digital set up and they don’t even touch vinyl anymore. I’ve never had a problem with that and have always been one to embrace new technology. That said, I do feel that DJs should still master the skill of spinning records. And when I say that, I’m not talking about just putting a new record on the player.

No, eventually the job became much more complicated. Instead of simply switching out one record for the other, they got two turntables and let one song play over the other. The final part of the old song would still be playing when the beginning part of the new song was started. To the audience the whole thing was supposed to seem like one continuous song. It took a lot of skill to match the beats of the two songs and to mix them together seamlessly. This is what real DJing became.

So there you have it, DJs started with vinyl record players and they continue spinning today with turntable style record players. At least some DJs do. Like I said. many use digital technology and many of them have never even touched a vinyl record. That is a shame.

I do wish more DJs would learn on vinyl and then switch to digital. The DJs that do that simply have a better understanding of the music and of their craft. And also being able to scratch or to skip or to jump or to do any of the other advanced techniques on vinyl is just much more impressive than doing it with a digital controller, don’t you think?

Uncategorized

Times Have Changed Big Time For Us DJs

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DJing today is so much different from DJing back when I first started. And I say this as someone who just bought a DJI Inspire 2 drone to shoot footage of myself….who would have ever seen this kind of thing coming back in the day?

That said, when I first started was so much different from back when the first DJs broke onto the scene. That happens with everything, though, right? It’s called progress. Is it good or is it bad? Who’s to say? That said, everyone does say. And I’ll give some opinions on that too. But first, let’s just look at some things that have changed in the world of DJing.

When I first started, the only option was to get yourself a mixer and two turntables. In order to use these, you had to learn to beat match manually. There was no other option. And unless you knew another DJ who could mentor you, you had to figure out the skills on your own. There was no internet search you could do and wiki articles you could read. There were no YouTube videos to watch and cheap online courses to take.

turntable and a mixer
Remember these?

A while after I got started, CD decks hit the scene. They were prohibitively expensive (and, let’s face it, they’re still ridiculously expensive today), but they made a much more wide selection of music available to DJs. Many tracks were no longer being pressed onto vinyl, so CDs were the only option. Modern CD decks also offered many features that plain turntables simply didn’t have. A lot of these features made life as a DJ much easier. One good example of this is the beat counter, which really helps when beat matching for those who never learned how to count beats (you really should learn how to count beats).

If you’ve ever used CD decks, they can be quite fun. I enjoy them, but I do prefer vinyl turntables. That said, I use neither these days. I have switched to a computer and controller. My controller does have little mini decks on it, to give me the feeling of still spinning. I don’t think I will ever go completely digital, by which I mean use only a computer. I know a lot of new DJs do that and then let the software do their beat matching and their mixing and pretty much everything for them, but I will never be able to do that. I need the tactile feeling provided by a controller. I use the software only to help out in certain areas, not to do my work for me.

And that has been the next great step, hasn’t it? Modern DJ software allows you to DJ, even if you have no actual skills. Just like robots build so many of our things and human manpower is no longer necessary, DJs really aren’t necessary anymore either. You really just need some guy who knows how to use iTunes.

And it’s gone even a step further. Have you ever wanted to produce? In the past, this was not an easy thing to do. You needed very expensive software or you needed access to a recording studio. You needed various instruments to play sounds, or a keyboard that would mimic them. Now there is cheap software out there. There’s even free software, but it’s not any good. Some of the cheap software is good, however. It will allow you to produce tracks like you had your own recording studio. You can make decent tracks without any kind of skill whatsoever. That said, if you want your tracks to actually be good, you will need to have some knowledge of musical theory. And many DJs are also learning to sing these days.

So, how do  feel about this progress in technology? Well, I’m sure you can tell from the way I wrote this that I don’t like that it allows any idiot to be a DJ. It’s pretty annoying when a club will hire some guy with his Macintosh and iTunes and pay that guy almost nothing. The set won’t be great. He’ll just play some tracks he likes and none of them will fit together coherently, but the club owners are happy because the drunks are happy. So I do feel that this technology is diluting DJing as an art form.

That said, progress is inevitable and much of the technology has actually helped us a lot. That software mentioned above has helped me produce my own tracks. I have the skills and the musical knowledge necessary for this, but I was never able to do it because I couldn’t afford a recording studio or the expensive software. Now I can do it and in this way technology has changed my life for the better. So I feel it is a good thing, if you use technology to assist you and build on your already existing skills. If you use technology to make up for your skills, i.e. it is doing everything for you, then I don’t think it’s very good.

For more on the changing world of DJ technology, check out these Digital Tips.

Introduction

Where I First Started DJing

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Where did you first DJ? That’s something I always like to ask my fellow turntable musicians. And yes, we are musicians. Don’t even get me started on that. We might not create the music from scratch, but we do make music. If we were to simply play one track after another then perhaps I would not consider us musicians, but that’s not what we do. We run tracks into each other and play them on top of each other in a creative way. We change what is there. We make it better.

DJing a birthday party
A birthday party with a DJ spinning tunes

Anyway, back to the question I like to ask. The reason I like to ask it is because you get so many different answers. I love hearing where people started. First of all, it tells you something about the kind of person they are. If you know where they started and you know where they are now, which you obviously do, then you know a lot about who they are. You can imagine how they got from one point to the other. You can imagine what it must’ve taken to make that journey from their beginning to their present.

On top of that, hearing the DJ’s beginning is usually a source of amusement, too. Very few people started somewhere that doesn’t elicit a chuckle. Even if the gig wasn’t horrible, as so many of them are, it was usually at a horrible location. But, as I mentioned, most gigs in the beginning are not very good, and that makes for humorous stories.

And with that I have something to confess. I, DJ Tom, also have a first gig. It’s not really embarrassing, at least not to me, but it is kind of funny. As a teenager, I played the birthday party of a local kid. I was a trumpeter in my high school marching band and I spun the typical children’s tunes, mixing these cheesy songs into each other and adding some trumpet riffs I cam up with. I wasn’t very good, so my mixes were terrible, but the audience was under 10, so who cares. I do feel my mixes were pretty creative, but my spinning skills were just not there yet. Neither were my scratching skills, but I did a lot of scratching because I wanted to show off. In the end, the clown the parents had hired to entertain the kids was far more popular than I.

DJ on turntables
DJ spinning records on the turntables

After that first gig, I actually played several more birthday parties. I did not make much money from that, but I gained valuable experience. My spinning was not good, so I needed these types of gigs. They were great. It didn’t matter if I screwed up, so I got free practice time in front of an audience, young as that audience may have been.

From there on, I moved on to weddings. Obviously, I could no longer screw up the way I did before, but by now my skills were such that I didn’t. Of course, I still made the occasional mistakes with my beat matching, but that’s not such a big deal at a wedding either. The tunes I was asked to spin were always pretty straightforward and the audience was very unsophisticated, so they really didn’t even notice it if I did screw up.

I had a good collection of popular wedding tunes and I brought them with me to every gig. If anyone had special requests, they usually just gave me the track, so it made finding music easy. It was a great way to practice, without having to put in much work. I did not have to work on new mixes all the time, making it easy to earn some money while still having a real job on the side.

Obviously, though, this is not the dream. No DJ wants to play weddings his whole life. And we definitely do not want to play children’s birthday parties. Eventually we want to get into clubs. So while I was playing the weddings, I started producing my own tracks on the side. Doing this is what finally got me my big break. A promoter noticed one of my tracks on Beatport and he hired me to play a club night he was promoting. I killed it that that night and got asked back and the rest is history. From then on the gigs just came flowing in and I quit my job soon after. I was a full-time DJ. Now I have high tech and high definition drone footage of myself DJing! Can you believe that? The 20 year old me would have never believed it, I can tell you that!

If you actually need a birthday party DJ, try these guys.

Introduction

How I Got The DJ Tomboy Name

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I’ve wanted to be a DJ ever since I can remember. That’s not surprising really, given that my mom was a DJ, but not everyone wants to follow in their parents’ footsteps. Neither did I, when it came to my dad. I had no interest in becoming like him, but I’ve always wanted to become a DJ like my mom.

DJ Tekno Tom
Another DJ named Tom, Tekno Tom

I loved how strong and in-control she looked up there behind the decks and how she controlled a large crowd of people. I loved that power and I showed a talent for DJing and music in general, from a young age. I knew I would do something with music and I knew I wanted that something to be DJing. Other girls like to play with their mom’s makeup and try on her clothes. I played with my mom’s record collection and tried my hands at her turntables.

 

Growing up I always hung out with boys. I never really had any close girlfriends. I have plenty of girlfriends now, bu that’s because I sleep with them. I didn’t know back then, though, that I was a lesbian. I just knew that I felt more comfortable hanging out with boys than with girls. Girls wanted to play with dolls and play house. Boys played sports, which I liked and my guy friends were all into music, which I loved.

 

They loved coming to my house and playing with my mom’s decks. Even back then, I was by far the best DJ among my group of friends I was not a good singer, but did want to learn. As for DJing, some of the guys were alright, but none of them could beatmatch as naturally as I could. None of them could scratch records the way I could either. When it came to music selection and playing a mix that kept a crowd going, well we never got to practice that at the time, but I’m really good at that now. And since only one of those guy friends from back then became a DJ himself, and I’m much better than he is, it’s a pretty safe bet I would have been better at choosing the right tracks to really pump up a crowd than all my friends, too.

 

Naturally, we all come up with wonderful DJ names for each other (we didn’t have a generator like this one). Mine was DJ-rina. It was stupid, but one of my friends came up with it, because I was a girl, obviously, and it just stuck. It stuck for years, as did everyone’s stupid DJ name. The one guy friend who also became a DJ by profession actually kept his dumb DJ name. You may now know him as DJ Trombone. I know. He should have changed it like I did. You might even be able to tell that my eventual name was, in part, derived from his name.

 

At the time, obviously, none of knew I was a Tomboy, since none of us was really familiar with that word. A few years later, though, I overheard my dad referring to me as a Tomboy to one of his friends. When I asked him what that word meant and he explained it, I agreed with it 100%. I wasn’t upset being called a Tomboy at all. I know some girls are, but I never minded. I guess that’s obvious, since I took it as my DJ name.

It didn’t escape me that Tomboy sounds a bit like trombone. I knew the second I heard my dad’s explanation that this would be my new, and final, DJ name. It stuck and I’ve loved it ever since. A good DJ name is a wonderful thing.

 

Looking back, it’s kind of ironic that my DJ name came from my dad, the one person in our family with no talent for music whatsoever. If you’d asked me, or if you or anyone had to guess, I know we’d all figure my DJ name would come from my mom if it came from anyone but myself. But no, it came from my dad. Well, it came from me, but he provided the spark that led to my inspiration. And I suppose DJ Trombone did his part with his stupid name as well.

 

If you’re a DJ who’s having some trouble coming up with a good name, try these 7 tips.

Introduction

My Mom Is Why I Wanted to Become a DJ

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Since this is my site, I figure I should tell you where I come from. People are always asking me where I was born, where I grew up, what my childhood was like, why I wanted to become a DJ and how I went about learning to DJ and basically what path in life got me to the point where I am today. I’ll actually go more into the Djing portion in a later post, but for now, suffice it to say that I learned how to become a DJ from my good friend DJ Mac. You may or may not have heard of him, but today he teaches millions how to DJ through his website.

As for me, I was actually born in South America. Specifically, I was born in Bolivia. My father was a research biologist and we moved around a lot growing up. Actually don’t remember Bolivia at all, since I only lived there for a short period of time, just over a year actually. Nevertheless, it is the place of my birth. After Bolivia, we moved several times to various countries in South America, but only stayed in each for a month or two. Obviously, I don’t remember any of this.

When I was almost 3, we finally moved to the US. Once I started school, my mom decided to pursue her passion in life once again. She had put it on hold for me once she learned she was pregnant and even before that, she had put it on hold for my dad. But now that she was back in the US and that she had the days free with me in school, she decided to get back into music.

She is probably the main reason I became interested in music myself and the reason I wanted to become a DJ. She always had a sick DJ setup made up of all the best DJ equipment. My man DJ Mac has a lot of info on buying DJ equipment on his site, too, so check that out.

 

My mom is also where I get my musical talent. It certainly does not come from my father who is completely tone deaf. My mom actually played several instruments and worked mostly as a producer, creating tracks for others. She did do some DJing as well, though. When she did, she mostly spun her own tracks, like I try to do myself today. Of course, this was not always possible. Many of the gigs she worked had very strict requirements for what kind of music they wanted her to play and she never had a problem doing this. Her main concern was that everyone in the crowd was having a great time.

Female DJ Monica Kruse
Monica Kruse, a famous female DJ, spinning beats. She is another reason I wanted to become a dJ.

 

As I was growing up I got more and more interested in what my mom was doing and she loved that I took this interest. She loved showing me the ropes and teaching me how to spin records and also teaching me how to create new tracks. She also made sure to impart her philosophy. She wanted me to play music for myself and for the love of it, but also for the crowd. She wanted to make sure that no matter what I did, where I played and for whom I played, I always kept the crowd’s interest in mind first and foremost.

Just like she had always done, she wanted me to make sure that everyone was having a great time. I loved this selfless attitude, but in reality it is not entirely selfless. If everyone is having a great time at your shows, the word will get out, your crowds get bigger, your career will take off and you will make more money.

Today I am a relatively successful DJ and the fact that I am one is down to my mother. The lessons she taught me growing up as well as the DJ skills she taught me have made me into the person I am today. I am very grateful to her and will continue repaying her through my music. The pride I see in her eyes when she comes to one of my shows means more to me than any other rewards my career has provided.

If you’re interested in female DJs, here is a list of the ten best.