IN SYNC

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how things in life can feel out of sync at times and what to do when that happens.

When I learned to DJ, and what I mean by DJ is the art of blending or transitioning from one song or track into another track, I learned on vinyl. This is no flex by any means. I wouldn’t never dare consider myself a turntablist or vinyl aficionado. It was what was available at the time. Most DJs and clubs were using CDs and CDJ equipment but, like turntables, that equipment was expensive to invest in. Even a home setup today can cost thousands of euros. (Sidebar here: I’m well aware that it is quite easy nowadays for anyone to learn to DJ through the cheapest of DJ software and equipment. The issue here is that eventually if you want to graduate from bedroom DJ to small club DJ and hopefully one day bigger club or Festival DJ, you will need to be at least comfortable and knowledgeable in playing on equipment that is industry standard and, yes, quite expensive.)

I have certainly put in the hours to know how to mix, but vinyl still scares me. It the tactility of the thing. It is something in your hands that needs to be placed on a spinning plate, the needle placed just so so as not to scratch it. You must be gentle but also firm. It is you, the DJ that must manipulate, cajole, placate the object into doing what you want it to do, mainly to match beats to attain that perfect blend between tracks.

It’s kind of silly, but I’ve been thinking about this in life. It’s a bit cringe, I know to say, life is like DJing and bla, bla, bla. But as the new year starts to pick up steam I’ve been thinking a lot about energy and flow and rhythms. How sometimes in a day things can get derailed or a shift in mood can be felt just be one incident or interaction. For decades now the shift from vinyl DJing to CDs and now UBS or laptops has given rise to discourses around the ever present sync button. With one touch of a finger, a DJ has the ability to sync their tracks seamlessly. This feature, along with looping (the ability to take certain musical phrases and have it repeat endlessly) have created new possibilities for the art from of DJing, allowing DJs to create singular remixes on the fly in the moment. In the end, I personally don’t care much if people use the sync button or not. I am of the group of people who believe that if people are having a good time and getting their life, a DJ can be playing back to back tracks from an iPod for all I care. The proof of a good party is on the dance floor, not if someone is using a sync button or not.

But I do love a good nudge. There’s something really interesting about the moment when you’re DJing and you can hear the tracks are not aligned. I used to throw parties with a DJ who often played on vinyl and when she’d blunder a mix she’d say it was like a pair of shoes in the dryer. For the DJ, when that happens in a mix the question is always, is the track I’m bringing in too fast or too slow? Should I bend the beat to slow it down, or do I nudge it forward to catch and match the other tune? To this day when I’m at a rave I am still listening for transitions, the blend, the mix and I have to say, I like it at times when a mix is not blended perfectly. It reminds me that the DJ is working or is trying to work something out. It shows me their humanity.

And so in life I’ve just been thinking about this idea of how things can feel out of sync at times and what to do when that happens. I suppose we just trust the process and keep pushing on. But I still wonder if there are moments where we have more agency than we think, where we can mould certain instances to shape a more seamless transition. When a bad mix happens in DJing the trick is to acknowledge it quickly and to do your best to correct it. It’s such a sweet feeling when you strike the right balance and the blend comes back and for a fleeting moment, the two tracks fold into each other, becoming one, becoming something new. I can see the moving parts in my life, the spinning plates I am furiously keeping the air, the moments of chaos. As I move into this year I wonder which aspects need a nudge in order for a new flow or rhythm to emerge. Or perhaps I need to pullback and not get ahead of life’s beat.(Un)fortunately there is no sync button in life. What about you? Are there areas in your own life where you think it could use a little nudge?