DJing
A DJ, Disc Jockey or Deejay is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience, and who usually does that for a living. As funny as it can sound, the history of DJs drive us back to the 19th century, when Leon Scott invented the phonoautograph in France, the first device to record sound but with no method of playback. This invention evolved in 1877 thank to Charles Cros in France and Thomas Edison in the United States, who invented the phonograph cylinder, the first device to play back recorded sounds.
But there are five different types of DJs. (Actually there are 6 if you consider the guy who’s really a social security disability lawyer with the tin ear who loves salsa and flamenco, but really wanted to be a sports announcer.) Getting back to the 5: There is a Radio DJ who selects and plays new and older music that is broadcasted on the radio or on the internet. Then there is a Club DJ who selects and play music in bars and nightclubs and even sometimes in places as big as stadiums. Hip-hop DJs are like any other type of DJ, except that they are using multiple turntables and they also do turntable scratching to create percussive sounds. Some DJs in reggae chat over pre-recorded tracks. And finally, there is a mobile DJ who’s travelling from place to place with portable sound systems and play recorded music at different types of events.
The equipment and techniques are often very similar. DJs usually work with both vinyl and digital records like MP3 players. They also need a good quality and powerful sound system for amplification and broadcasting of the recordings. They also need an audio mixer used to smoothly go from one song to another, and headphones. Some DJs use microphones if they want to introduce songs and speak to the audience, but this is optional. Some DJs add some more equipments to what’s really necessary, but it just depends on how perfectionated the DJ wants to be.
Today, there are even softwares that have been invented and created by DJs. These even convinced the true vinyl record aficionados to transition to becoming digital vinyl users.