It's an old expression, but Mr. T. said it best: “You can't know where you're going if you don't know where you're from.”
In the early nineties, my high school had one of the best journalism programs in the state. Our yearbook was top notch, and our newspaper was one of the few that, without fail, published once every six weeks. It was done almost entirely in-house, right down to the printing press.
Enter me, a long-haired Z-Rock fan with a bootleg copy of Pump Up the Volume — the Christian Slater pirate radio flick and everyone's excuse for loving the Pixies — practically on a loop in my VCR at home. I was mostly a cassette kid, but radio was still a big deal back then, and much more regional than it is now. There was also the weekly reminder that the rich kids of Beverly Hills, 90210 had a student radio station. It was pre-internet, but there was a feeling that if young people could seize the means of production — in our case, a pair of loudspeakers and a vintage home stereo — we would no doubt go on to conquer the world… or at least the school cafeteria. I was already known around school as the wacky morning announcements guy (I did a great Bobcat Goldthwait), so who better to get the signatures to make a broadcast journalism course a reality? Within a few months, we had the course, the radio station, even video equipment. Think if it as a media studies course, long before such things were standard fare in American high schools. Texas high schools, anyway.
We learned by doing. We made playlists, cut live promos, recorded and edited ads, and most importantly, played music. All genres got their due at one point or another, although most djs stuck to hip-hop or hard rock, which had gained a measure of prominence over pop at the time. I even played soundtrack cuts. If you think it's nerdy to dj Italo disco horror themes on Twitch, imagine choking down square pizza and canned peaches to the “The Imperial March.”
While many djs count their college radio years as their baseline formative experience, getting to do this in high school was even more powerful. It's easy to discount those early experiments, but they're essential to the growth of any artist. You gotta start somewhere. Besides, college radio was lonely. High school radio was communal, like djing in a club or at a party. There was always this feeling that someone was going to come in and pull the plug. At the same time, we were allowed to dj terribly, which is the best way to get good. We'd flub lines, play lame shit, act like idiots. It was a laboratory for lunatics, and it was the best.
Due to financial limitations and FCC regulations, we couldn't broadcast over the air. I was great at making bad mixtapes, but we knew the big deal was to go live. The solution lay in the very architecture of the high school itself. The journalism department was a second story, multi-room complex, with early model Macs, a dark room, the works. It also overlooked the cafeteria. While we operated from the back office, our PA system was set up above several rows of student dining tables. There was a picnic area outside, which students could access if the music was too loud or just awful.
And they frequently did. Because, to emphasize, your musical taste -- especially your weird high school shit — will not be everyone's cup of gelatinous dessert product. I know mine wasn't, and definitely isn't.
Most of us are consumers of culture in one form or another. There are fewer producers, and within that cohort, even fewer good producers. The best lie far beyond, their magic touch seemingly simple, but just out of reach. The worst is whatever you were doing five, ten, or twenty years ago. I assure you, my stuff was worse.
It takes time to expand both taste and skill, but any path serves as idea fodder for musicians and producers. There's a lot of good technique used in bad taste. Listen closely, and you can figure out the technique, then adapt it to suit your own project's needs. Do it well enough, using out-of-fashion sounds with modern techniques, and you may well create a new sound, such as g-funk. Ask an old metalhead what they thought of Michael Macdonald back in the day, then ask an old hip-hop head what they thought of Warren G. and Nate Dogg.
The best thing about djing -- live, recorded, or otherwise -- is it gives you an excuse to be a musicologist. You learn by listening and doing at once, trying to get the best possible transition into the next track, while paying extremely close attention to how everything sounds. Live djing specifically gives you a window into public tastes. If you can't read your audience, they'll ignore you. I once had a bar just destroying the dance floor with new hip-hop tracks. The minute I switched to an older song, the dance floor cleared.
Producers who dj should use it as an opportunity to learn about genres they would not have explored otherwise. I've been making electronic dance music since I could record a Casio with a tape recorder, but my recordings tended to be like electronic doom metal: slow, stiff, but with the occasional hook. It wasn't until I began to look into EDM's various subgenres, what makes a techno kick different from a house kick, that kind of thing. I usually go with what simply sounds good to my ears, but it's useful to occasionally take a deep dive into a genre.
I'm currently making an EP that combines elements of techno, electro, and house. I did it mostly as an excuse to see if I could use a variety of analog and digital techniques, and really examine how to get the best possible sound. When the end result is suitable to be played on a big sound system, when you can enjoy it with your square pizza or a cold beer or an evening jog, I'll be happy with it.
I might even dj with it.