disc jockey (DJ)

Person who plays recorded music on radio or television or at a nightclub or other live venue. Disc jockey programs became the economic base of many radio stations in the U.S. after World War II. The format generally involves one person, the disc jockey, introducing and playing phonograph records and chatting informally, usually extemporaneously, in the intervals. Because popular DJs are in a position to influence public tastes, record companies have sometimes attempted to bribe them with money and gifts, known as “payola.”

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In DJing, phrasing, also called stage matching, refers to alignment of phrases of two tracks in a mix. This allows the transition between the tracks to be done without breaking the musical structure.

Phrasing is an aspect of beatmixing, not a separate technique. Because most electronic dance music tracks have 4/4 time signature and a simple structure of 16-bar phrases, to align the phrases of two tracks it is often enough to start the track to be mixed in at a phrase boundary in the track currently playing. Careful phrasing can make the mix seamless, by making the breaks in two tracks coincide, or aligning the break in one track with the start of the beat in the other.

See also

• Beatmatching
• Beatmixing
• Segue

References

• Stage Matching from the Advanced Vinyl Handling DJing tutorial