Party Theming 101, Music part 5

There's been a bit of a hiatus here; we were hosting an actual party and have been digging our house out the last several days. So, picking up where I left off with music:

... What to do? Well, you could just dump all of the music in there in any old order, and when party time comes put the list on Shuffle and let it roll. Convenience and a relatively short time investment are the bonuses here, but there are cons as well.

First of all, some of you have doubtless noticed that sometimes Shuffle does not seem all that random, and you get too much of one kind of song or artist playing in close proximity to each other. This varies by device type, of course, but is something you should be aware of. The Shuffle feature entails the music device sorting through a potentially huge amount of memory, and sometimes it simply doesn’t do this as effectively as one might hope. 

Secondly, even if the device’s choices are varied enough, it may occasionally play songs that while great individually sound awkward when played side-by-side – perhaps the rhythms or the musical keys the songs are in are radically different, the songs conflict stylistically, or some less tangible disconnect is present. Essentially, a human judgment issue as to what songs sounds good together.  While its possible to have a music set that is so homogenous that using Shuffle doesn’t really doesn’t make a difference, if you think this might be the case you should run a test-play of all of your music when only you are home first – to make sure that the music is not all so similar that the cumulative effect of the playlist, no matter how good the individual songs are, isn’t a snoozer!

Parties have a certain ebb and flow; for the music to be effective it is useful if it to some extent mirrors the activity level. For instance, for that Secret Agent party theme, the easy-listening Bond theme, You Only Live Twice, might be great as the party is getting started or winding down in the wee hours of the morning. However, no matter how nice a set of pipes Nancy Sinatra has, if this same song Shuffles in after party liftoff has been achieved and your guests are rocking out to the likes of BBC, Die Another Day, and Atom Bomb, there will most likely be a miniature riot on the dance floor.  If you actually want to change the sound and pace of your music at different times of the evening, Shuffle will be your enemy unless you break the different song sets into separate playlists – which is a completely viable solution, but will require you to fiddle with the music a little.

So, if you want to DJ all of your music before the party so you don’t have to mess with song order or the starting and stopping of music sets or CDs during the party, next time we'll cover how to set yourself up.