TED talk reaction

That was quite frankly one of the most fun presentations I have ever had. Between the entire TED talk setup, presenting with one of my best friends, and DJing for a class, I was having a blast. In most other presentations we aren't given the opportunity to do whatever we want for 7 weeks, and with the TED assignment, we were able to simply do whatever we were passionate about. There aren't many projects out there like this so kudos to McDaniels and Perlman for coming up with this fantastic project.

That was my kiss-up section of the blog... No but in all seriousness this project was amazing. I have always wanted to DJ and being given time to simply explore this passion was awesome. I think that our (Hassan and I) passion for music was evidently shown in our TED talk as we were dancing, and "getting hype" in front of the whole class. At first I was a bit nervous about dancing, and DJing in front of the class as I was afraid of blank stares, but once I got in front of everyone, it didn't matter because I was enjoying my passion and sharing it with others. As my presentation mentioned, sharing our passion is one of the best feelings when others enjoy it as well. In all honesty, I didn't even look at the crowd as I was too busy DJing and dancing. However, when I did glance up, I saw all the bros putting their hands in the air. It felt awesome to have a support group like that just validating what Hassan and I were doing.

Soooooo now for my self evaluation:

DJing(Product)

Pros: What I thought Hassan and I did extremely well was not worrying about what others thought of our DJing. As mentioned before, this was a concern, but once we were in the moment we were able to display our skills, and have a good time. Obviously the audion isn't a Highschool party, however when we treated it like one, it actually felt the same. I also think we did well showing people what a real DJ set was like with the loud music and DJs going crazy. In addition by dressing up like the stereotypical DJ I think we made a connection with the audience.

Cons: In terms of actually showcasing my personal DJing ability I kinda messed up during our mix. First off, I touched the effect button at the wrong time, so the song backspinned at an awkward time. Then, my hand accidentally touched the deck, so the song stopped at another random point. I'm not sure if the audience noticed, however that part didn't really show my DJing skills that well. Being that Hassan and I covered so much of DJing in 7 weeks, I also felt that we weren't able to show it all in the 2 minutes we allocated for DJing.

Overall: For the time given, and besides those 2 mistakes, I think we did a really good job DJing. We connected with the audience, and replicated a party.

Presentation skills

Pros: I think that our presentation had a really good visual supplement with the Prezi that took forever to make, but paid off in the end. I thought it was creative and supplemental, but we also didn't depend on it.

Cons: In terms of our actual presentation skills I think that I personally could've done more practicing as I stuttered quite a bit. Most of the better TED talks were ones where the speaker didn't use notecards and instead connected with the audience. I felt that I was a little too reliant on my notecards and didn't connect as much as I could've with the speech. As many said during the presentations, practice makes perfect, and I didn't practice enough. Another con was that I felt like I was straining my voice to talk over Hassan's scratching. I knew I had to elevate my voice, however I think that I was somewhat screaming at the audience, which is never good. Lastly, the clicker gave me a bit of trouble as I had to balance my notecards as well as the clicker while trying to present. I was trying to connect with the audience, but I also had to be wary of the prezi movement. At points I fell behind with the clicker and then had to click multiple times to catch up. This caused me to press the Jackie Chan picture before I wanted it to, and that was going to be an impactful transition.

Overall: I think more rehearsal should've been done with the clicker and notecards, as it kind of took away from the presentation. Otherwise our prezi was pretty solid, and I really felt good about using it compared to powerpoint. 

Content

Pro: I think that we clearly inspired through our passion as we displayed our passion with stories, and our actual performance. I think that the stories we gave were much better than giving a generalized statement as this is unrelateable to the audience and didn't really show the real us. I also think that our butterfly metaphor was really cool as it was funny, and showed how DJing had changed us. 

Ehh: I'm not sure if this was a pro/con because Hassan and I didn't really want to get caught up in our process as we had more stuff to talk about. Simply going through the process would've been a terrible presentation, however we never mentioned our goals, or process of learning how to DJ. Instead we used stories about staying up late and practicing, but never really explained how we took to learning how to DJ.

Overall: I think our content was pretty on point. After talking to Mr. Mcdaniels about not really focusing on our process, I am reassured that our application and message was much more important than the actual process. However not talking about it at all may be a point of downfall.

Message

   Pro: I think that our message was unique to the generic, "try and you will succeed" message, and I think that is what made ours stand out a bit. I think that sharing your passion was a theme that not many people talked about and it shed light on a new message. I also think that we did a good job leading up to the message besides just saying it. Instead we talked about sharing our passion with Hassan's sister, and people from Perkiomen Valley. This made the message fit with our presentation and not just be something thrown in at the end.

  Ehh: Was it the best message ever? No. We kind of went along the same route of "Passion does ____" Although it was slightly unique it wasn't THAT unique. We didn't demand for anything, or provide anything new to ponder. It was just a nice message.

I    Overall: I think we could've been a little bit more unique, but our message was overall, impactful and made sense.

  NOW for the grading:

    

-      Visual component/Delivery: 5/6 (Stuttering, Prezi issues)

-       Product: 6/6  (Engaging and Awesome)

     Message: 5.5/6 (Not that Unique)

     Passion: 6/6 (Was Clearly Evident)

     Content: 5.5/6 (Excluded Process)

OVERALL: 28/30 = 93.3%

-           

TED Talk

So right now, I am pretty nervous for the TED talk for a multitude of reasons, time being the main one. Since Hassan and I are obviously 2 people, we have twice the amount of stuff to say, with the same amount of time. Therefore it is going to be difficult to tell personal stories that relate to just one of us as "ain't nobody got time for that". Instead, we are going to have to talk more about us together, and our experiences together in order to conserve time. Also time becomes a problem for us because in order to show our product of DJing we need to take up at least 2 minutes of the talk to physically DJing. Since DJing is more of a progression between slow and fast songs, it is difficult to simply change so rapidly. DJing is all about timing, and letting songs play their course with a build, a drop and a mid section. By simply playing parts of the song to save time, the audience will not have the same effect. Also, being that we have accomplished so much during the 7 weeks, it is going to be very difficult to show all that we have learned in a 2 minute span. There is a lot of musical jargon, and terms that are not familiar to the common student, and we are going to need to take the time out to explain these things to them. Again, TIME is KILLER.

In order to resolve this problem, Hassan and I are going to have to layer speech over the music so that way we can explain what we are doing in real time. This is going to take a lot of practice to get the timing right, but I think this can conserve time, and make it easier to understand what we are doing.

Another huge problem is that the audion isn't a party, and we DJ for parties. Our worst fear is that we play music and people just sit there and give us blank stares. We learned how to DJ a party, so we can't simply change our passion for the audiences taste. Hassan and I flirted with the idea of getting people up on stage and dancing, but we decided that that would possibly be more awkward as the "dancing" students wouldn't know what to do. However in order to avoid the awkwardness, Hassan and I are trying to play songs that people are familiar with, so they atleast bob their heads instead of giving us a stare.

Hopefully if we accomplish these tasks, we can make it less awkward for students as again, it isn't a party. Being put in such a tough predicament is frustrating, but I hope that we produce a product that will make everyone think about music, and DJing

Remixing

Sooooo it's spring break! Which for this project means a lot of time that I can spend DJing with Hassan as we have a lot more free time. When I say more free time I mean the later we can stay up video-chatting on Google+. Without any school to worry about the next morning Hassan and I have been video-chatting until 1 or 2 AM almost everyday this break to work on DJing. Now the question is how productive are 2 teenage boys at 2 AM? Well, if I'm being honest, not really, however when we do focus for 20 minute bursts we really get a lot done. On the first night we hit our eureka moment when we finally understood how to use cue points to our advantage. Instead of simply using cue points as a quick way to move through songs, we decided to use them to remix a song. By simply fooling around with the tempo, pitch and cue points we ended up with a really 'sick' way to remix the song, Ball So Hard by Hucci.

After about an hour of, "EWWWWWWW, THAT'S SO SICK," we finally came up with a finished product, recorded it, and now the remix is in my I-Tunes library as "Ball So Hard Remix By DJ Yush & DJ M!nor. Simply writing our names down as the artists to a remix made me so proud us as we finally were able to understand DJing so much so that we could create a remix.

Being that it is spring break, there have been parties where Hassan and my friend Jacob have been hired to DJ. Since I am considered their "DJ in training" I tag along, and have actually seen a lot of action on the turntables lately. On Saturday, Hassan and I were given the opportunity to DJ together as Jacob wanted to take a break, and we actually kept the party going. It felt really good to actually DJ at a party as Hassan and I were in really good rhythm together. Being able to finally display my skills at a party was gratifying as all my hard-work seemed to pay off. The crowd was into it, and it was really just a lot of fun to share my talent with a bunch of people I usually wouldn't talk to. Afterwards, a lot of the kids came up to us and gave us compliments for a job well done, and then we even got hired for another gig this Friday. This party should be really good for Hassan and I to practice our DJing once more, and learn how to understand/pump up a crowd. I have researched about how to understand a crowd and it is really and artform. There are so many different factors that go into it, but the main thing is to be flexible. According to a source from howtofastdj.com, it is imperative to pay attention to everything the crowd says, and does. Using the information the crowd gives you through speech, body language, and requests is essential to understanding a crowd properly. According to the site, a DJ knows when a crowd is into the music when:

*People bopping their heads or tapping their feet to the music.
*Dancers swaying in chairs or next to tables.*Crowds of girls slowly making their way to the dance floor.*People getting closer to the designated dance floor.

These are essentially signs saying that you are doing a good job. On Friday, I can hopefully recognize and listen to the crowds wants and needs to get these results. 

Here is a picture from last Saturday:

Also be ready for possibly a live remix to Ball So Hard by HUCCI during our TED Talk! It would help to listen to this song prior to see the difference between the mix and remix so please listen to the song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUu0KIvTe44

VLOG

MY VLOG

Just a note about my resources: It has been really difficult to find resources in writing as it is very difficult to  explain DJing in writing. Instead I have been watching a lot of videos, and listening to mashups, mixes, etc. Watching others DJ allows me to see what I have to do in order to be like them. Thus videos are the main source of my resources

Scratch Addiction

Ever since I got my own DJ equipment, I constantly have the urge to go and mess around with them. They are so addicting! From the day I got the turntables, I just come home from school, get my grub on(because DJing is no fun on an empty stomach) and then go to my room and DJ. On Thursday, I had a precalc test the next day, and I really needed to study for it, but still I came home, and DJed for an hour. Although DJing is a huge distraction for me, it actually allows me to cool off, and relax after a long day at school. This project seems to be making its way into my daily routine, and I don't even think of it as work, but rather a hobby, and something fun. When my sister came home from college and saw me DJing she said, "So I guess this is your new Xbox," and in a sense she was right, as before I used to play Xbox to relax, but now I DJ. My addiction has become so rampant as I often find myself scratching on pieces of paper in class.

So with all this practice and addiction, the question is: Have I gotten any better? Although it is difficult to track my progress when it comes to scratching, I do feel that I have improved. After watching several scratching videos, I recognized that most DJs use something called "samples" to scratch. Samples are essentially short 5-10 second sound bytes that a DJ can loop(play over again). Before learning this I was just scratching just on regular songs. The difference between scratching on a sample and a regular track is that regular songs have a lot of unnecessary bass and noise that doesn't translate to good, clean scratches. In samples, which are meant for scratching, all the unnecessary noise is taken out, so there are clean scratches.

As scratching is one of the main components to DJing, I had to do a little research as to how to scratch besides just moving my hand forward and back. Turns out there are several types of scratches, like patterns of sorts. According to this wiki, there are several kinds of scratches. I have used this website to learn how to do different scratches as it clearly maps when to go forward, back, loud, and cut off the record. This page really helped me learn different scratches as now I have learned the baby scratch, the scribble scratch, and am now working on cut and stab scratches. The latter are much more difficult as they require the control of the crossfader(the thing in the middle that changes from one deck to another). Since this means that both my hands have to actively be moving, it is really difficult. Hopefully after some more practice I will master these scratches.

Overall, I have spent a lot of time working on my scratching abilities, and after I master some more basic scratches, I hope to move on to effects, and then go back to mastering transitioning. Hassan and I have our work cut out for us as we are still unsure about the TED talk, but we will be meeting several times over spring break to map this project out, and hopefully have a crazy performance for our presentation.

NEW EQUIPMENT

I decided to order some DJ equipment, new speakers and a subwoofer!!! Finally, they came yesterday!

Today Hassan and I FINALLY met up after I was simply craving to DJ. We started out by watching several tutorials about how to scratch, and then we came up with this...

LINK TO SCRATCHING VIDEO (<--- CLICK)

My overall impression of our scratching is that we kinda over-scratch. Instead of dropping in the occasional scratch we just kinda did it all the time. Less is more when it comes to scratching so I think we definitely need to dial it back. Other than that I think we understood the basics of the scratching, and produced a somewhat decent product. As with everything in DJing, you have to practice. So I think with a little bit of practice, we can say that we understand scratching.

Hassan and I also talked today about the fact that our original idea of a 1-2 minute mix didn't really make sense as it wasn't going to show how we actually progressed. Since all the music we were playing was already remixed by another DJ, all we were really doing was transitioning from one song to another. So instead of simply making a 1-2 minute mix, Hassan and I have decided that for our TED talk we are going to talk about an aspect of DJing and then show it rather than having a big mix where our techniques wouldn't really be highlighted.

Overall, it was a really fun day as Dj Minor and I were going HAM on the turntables and were scratching up a storm(maybe too much scratching). While one of us was scratching the other would start free-styling, obviously Minor Problem killed it while I was kinda just saying whatever came to mind. I think at some point I rhymed lemon with hemming... I guess I wasn't cut out to be a rapper.

Anyways, here is the name of the song we mixed too!

Changes by Stewrat
http://stewrat.bandcamp.com/track/changes-2