Many tracks, especially within the genres of house and trance, have a habit of arranging a track for a DJ. The producer purposely places a section at the start, beginning with a simple kick drum and building up adding a new sound at the end of every 4, 8 or 16 bars finally adding the bass at some point. Then whilst getting towards the end of the track, the parts are faded out, most of the time as a mirrored version of the intro. This was started as a way to make life easier for the DJ by allowing long and smooth transitions between tracks when the are mixed together. I have some thoughts about this that I want to share.

Does the DJ arrangement work today for the listener? Shouldn't producers be arranging their music with the listener in mind rather than the DJ? Why would a listener want to hear a minute or more of just a beat that they have heard again and again? and then probably the most important question... Is this type of arrangement putting listeners off and having a detrimental effect on the experience of the listener and ultimately our music?

I know that if I have a track with a DJ arrangement in my MP3 player I tend to whizz through the first minute or so to get to actual music. Sometimes when I'm having a quick listen to discover new tracks on the internet and I start listening to a track, I have to say that sometimes I don't give the track a chance and go to the next thing. If I'm doing this and know about the build ups for DJs, how many other listeners are skipping over your music because they got bored around the minute mark.

If we look at the dance music bands that seem to sell well and go into a more mainstream position we can see that many of them don't have these long build ups and fade outs. Listeners who are not DJs tend to buy pre-mixed CDs rather than individual tracks for this very reason. Maybe to get ahead within a certain genre maybe producers should be thinking about the listener and not just doing it because "that is how a trance track is made"

The Solution:
1. Maybe the answer is to try and keep both happy by coming to an area within the middle with a short build up that's both interesting for the listener and also easy for the DJ. Limiting build ups to maybe 16 bars and putting random sounds to spice that section up a bit.
2. Produce a version for the DJ and a version for the listener. The DJ version could be the one that goes to the more dance music orientated download sites or the one sent out to DJ as promos. The listener's version could be the one that gets uploaded to internet sites and for purchase of downloads on standard MP3 sites or on services like Spotify.

I know this post is a little more about my thoughts and could even be seen as a bit of a rant, but have a think about it, maybe music arrangements should be made for the person that is listening rather than DJ and maybe your music is being looked over by certain listeners because of those long intros.

This is a post that I would love to hear comments on as it reads a bit like the start of a debate.