Practical Skills
Practical Skills give you command of the decks. The complete Practical Skills path, from your first mix to your own professionally edited studio recording.
BEGIN YOUR APPLICATION
The first mix
You begin not with theory, but with joy. Your first session puts you behind the decks with the hard parts taken care of, so you can simply feel what it's like to mix on vinyl, make your first transitions, and discover exactly what you're working towards.
The foundations
Then the real work begins, and it starts with knowing your equipment inside out: every control, every connection, the cartridge and tonearm set to your taste, so you can set up and care for your own system anywhere you play. You'll learn to handle the needle with confidence and find your cue point quickly, buying yourself precious time in every mix. And you'll develop the ear that everything else depends on, the ability to know a track intimately, hear exactly where another record can enter, and sense the moment two records begin to drift apart. By the end, you'll be able to bring records together by touch and launch them cleanly, in the right place at the right moment.
Beatmatching
This is the heart of the craft, and you'll master it in stages. First, the small corrections every DJ relies on, because no one lands a record perfectly every time. Then the real-world skill of correcting speed and position together as you go. Then the confidence to bring in records far outside your set's tempo, because the right record belongs in the set whatever its tempo. And finally, the skill few DJs ever reach: a level of control so refined that even records with a life and rhythm of their own blend seamlessly.
Transitions and blending
With sync under control, you'll learn what to do with it. You'll begin with the clean, quick transition every DJ needs, then stretch your transitions longer as you come to know your records more deeply, and start shaping them to make room for new elements. Here is where an original and authentic DJ begins to emerge. From there, you'll learn the art of the long blend: two records held together live, sculpted and reshaped, elements traded and layered until they become something neither record could be alone.
Your final mix
The Practical path ends with a live mix recorded and reviewed with MJ, with detailed feedback on where you are and where to go next. You'll also leave with a professionally edited and mastered studio version of your mix, for your own listening and ready to share as a demo.
Every DJ starts with a first blend.
Practical Skills is available on its own, or as half of The Master Plan.
BEGIN YOUR APPLICATION