Journalism of Courage
Around three years back,the students learning DJing at Abhishek Mantri’s DJ Academy were majorly interested in learning hip-hop,which was the ‘in’ thing then. Today,out of 20 trainee DJs at Mantri’s,17 are exclusively learning Electronic Dance Music (EDM). The popularity of the genre in the music circuit,according to Mantri,is the result of international EDM DJs touring Indian cities in the recent past such as David Guetta,Paul Thomas,Aly and Fila,The Growling Mad Scientists,Shape Shifters and others. Infact,DJ Mag classifies EDM or as one of the most popular genres of club music and a must have for DJ’s in these modern times.
“Electronic Dance Music has singularly been responsible for the evolution of the party scene on the dance floor as well as behind the console. It’s really big on the party scene as it catches on well with listeners. It’s a very addictive too,which is why 90 per cent of the students who come to learn DJing get hooked on to this genre, says Mantri.
The genre,says Mantri,is way more complicated than it sounds. EDM is for the audiences with caried tastes,and they will listen to your music only if you hit all the right beats.”
Around a year back,21-year-old DJ Digvijay Singh Thakur came to Pune from his hometown Raipur,primarily for learning EDM DJing. The freedom that the genre allows made him took the decision of specialising in it. I can fuse all genres of music with EDM,be it Bollywood hits or retro all-time-favourites. Lately a lot of international EDM DJs have toured across the country,particularly Pune,to spread their music,this has caused such a craze for EDM,” he says. While renowned DJ Guetta visited Pune in March this year,Swedish House Mafia will be performing in Mumbai and Delhi in November.
Pune DJ Tapas Dey says that EDM is a crowd-puller and works for the partying scene because of it’s high energy level. EDM tracks range between 125 and 135 beats per minute (bpm),and to get the audience to dance,a DJ needs to play tracks which have atleast 125-130 bpm. The audience only remembers the DJ if they have had a nice time at the club,. says Dey,who has just finished his training from Spin Doctor’s Academy,headed by DJ Vaggy,where he learnt the advantages of the EDM genre. It is a difficult genre,the mixing of tracks needs to be carefully done to avoid a break in the flow. If the DJ goes a little loose on the mixing,his performance can fall flat, he adds.
