Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Study The Film







Practice does not make perfect, practice makes permanent. That's why it is so important to make sure that you are practicing and performing the right way. Without reviewing and critiquing recordings of your performances can mean that you are unknowingly cementing the wrong habits into your work. This means you are in essence working hard to be the best at making those same small mistakes over and over again.

It has also been said by many high performance professionals that a few hours of film study can provide more benefits to learning and improving from mistakes than a year of just practice.

Making improvements are my favorite benefit to providing keepsake videos for my clients. I have found them to be very helpful for me to be able to review my performances in order to improve song selection as well as my on-mic announcing.

As a result, announcements have gotten cleaner and my timing is better making for ever more relaxed and smooth running receptions.


Reviewing recordings of my performances have been a big part of my life for a long time. I always reviewed every interview I ever did while hosting the live music and interview show Live@Lunch on KRFC Ft Collins. In the 6 years of being a host from 2009 - 2015 I was a part of well over 100 one hour shows, many of which can still be heard at noon Monday - Friday on 88.9 FM in Ft Collins or at www.krfcfm.org 

Reviewing each of these shows allowed me to analyze how I as the host was pacing and framing the interview portions. Was I talking too much? Or allowing the musicians to talk for too long? Was I including the station id's and announcements correctly? Those small mistakes began to fade away and I was able to develop the right habits to where I was doing the right thing without needing to think about it. That's mastery, and that is what experience combined with critical review can create.

I see so many similarities between my experiences on community radio and MC/DJing weddings. Sometimes when working a wedding, I have that old familiar feeling of working the airwaves feeling like I nailed an announcement or an intro and feeling so happy about all that time I was able to volunteer and come to really understand how beneficial it is to "study the film."



Thursday, November 17, 2016

Is A DJ Right For Your Event?




www.NorthernColoradoDJ.com

Every now and then I will get a call from a prospective client where a DJ may not be the best entertainment option. These are usually wedding receptions where there will be no alcohol served, take place early in the day and with a low guest count (40 or less).

Chances are that there will be lots of natural light at these events due to them taking place during the day which means lighting effects will not be noticed. With such a low number of guests in attendance this means that generally the energy level will be lower and more laid back with much less focus on the dancing. In this case the volume level tends to be on the low side which lends itself to the situation much better than louder music.


Having an MC/DJ adds a certain level of direction and formality to any event which would otherwise be lacking. I believe this direction and formality is what most people are really looking for when they hire entertainment. Hiring an experienced Wedding MC/DJ in a case like this is even more important than usual. Hiring a club or hobbyist DJ would be a big mistake and an unnecessary expense leading to possible disappointment on several levels.

So, even if a pure DJ is not a great option for your event, an MC/DJ Wedding professional can be a huge asset. An MC/DJ should be anticipating what needs to be done, helping to facilitate those things and then announcing them so nobody misses a single thing.



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