Some Things To Keep In Mind When Thinking About The Music
	Everyone has their personal favorites when it comes to listening or dancing to music. What appeals to one person, may be the worst song ever to another.  The task becomes finding the right mix of music that perfectly suits the occasion.  Your MusicMasters DJ has the experience and expertise necessary to create a musical atmosphere that will be exactly what you're looking for and enjoyed by all.

♦ Having a wide variety of music is usually key to your guests overall enjoyment but of course, there would be exceptions to this such as a themed party (disco, 80's, etc.).

♦ An average of 15-16 songs can be programmed in any given, uninterrupted hour. If played back to back, this interprets into about 60-75 songs for a typical 4-5 hour event.

♦ Don't feel compelled to choose every song to be played.  This could be kind of overwhelming and it's really hard to pre-judge ahead of time what music formula is going to go over best with your guests.  You'll certainly want to allow your DJ to program the music wisely based on your requests, guidelines, guests requests, responses and overall vibe of the room.  In other words, you'll definitely want to allow your DJ to "read the crowd."

♦ When creating your list, categorize your songs into the "Must Play", "Play If Possible" or "Do Not Play" categories.  Your must play category should be limited to just a handful of songs and the rest categorized into the play if possible or do not play categories.  This is especially important when it comes to dance time.  The concern here is that if the DJ is restricted to an extensive "Must Play" list, they'll end up "working" the list and not "working" the crowd.  If this is what you really want then we'll certainly oblige and do our best to program your must play songs in a logical order but it'll become a "wait and see" approach to your guests total enjoyment.

♦ When creating your list, keep not only your favorites in mind, but think what your guests of all ages will enjoy too.  There's a world of great music out there.  The secret will be to come up with those songs that will translate well into what you're trying to accomplish.  Your MusicMasters DJ is a pro at doing this and will be able to adjust his/her programming approach to suit your wishes and the dynamics and responses of your guests.

♦ You can find a special "guest request" password on your welcome page when you log on. At your choosing, you can forward this link to any or all so they too can log on and give their song suggestions.  You'll be able to monitor the requests coming in and categorize or delete them.  This is really a neat way to find out what your guests might enjoy.  Of course, no one will have access to your planning forms or personal information...only the music database.

♦ While we do want you to give it your personal touch, this really shouldn't be an opportunity to showcase unknown or overly eclectic music onto your guests.  People respond very favorably to music they recognize and like so you'll want to stick somewhat to mainstream selections (some of you are gasping right now) so that we can appeal to as many people as possible.  Some songs are great to listen to in the car or at home - not all cross over well into a party atmosphere. 

♦ We're very up to date on music.  As a matter of fact we're really ahead of the game because we subscribe to several music services that provide us (along with thousands of radio stations across the country) current music on a weekly basis.  Most times, we receive music prior to public release so there's a good chance we'll have it before you even know about it.

♦ Our online music database consists of our most requested songs and proven crowd pleasers. It is NOT a complete inventory of everything we have.  You don't have to see it in our music database to add it to your request list.  Simply type in your request and categorize "Must Play", "Play If Possible" or "Do Not Play."

♦ To narrow your search to particular decades or musical styles, click on "View Music Styles" on the top right corner of the music database and choose the desired genre.

♦ If you have a song in your personal collection (MP3 or CD) that perhaps is not readily available to the public and you really want it played, we'll be happy to accommodate.

♦ We literally have thousands of song titles included in the database that didn't make it to our specific 2000's Rock and 2000's Dance categories.  The idea was to fill those specific categories with songs that charted or had gained mainstream popularity.  You'll find a lot of the newest music titles including country, r&b, rock, Christian, dance, and more in the "Unprocessed" listings.

♦ Our music database system was designed to tie into iTunes music store search capability.  You must have the free iTunes software installed on your computer in order to listen to samples of songs from our music database.  You may find that we have songs in our database that iTunes doesn't have.  If you get a "no results found" result from iTunes, try typing other similar keywords in the iTunes search box.

♦ You can also search and preview songs on Napster or Amazon.com.

♦ Cocktail hour is designed to allow your guests to interact with one another, socializing, catching up with family and friends and generally being into each other.  The music during this time should be more for creating an atmosphere and not distracting from our goal that guests be into themselves.  One suggestion is instrumental upbeat jazz which energizes the room but doesn't overwhelm it.

♦ Dinner music should remain mildly upbeat so that we can maintain a nice energy level in the room.  Classical or "elevator" type music in certain situations is fine but for the most part, can really bring the energy in the room way down.  The idea is to keep everyone energized so that when it comes time for dancing, they're ready to go! 

♦ Typically, when it does come time for dancing, initially, we'll gear the music a little more towards the older folks although there's a lot of great music that has wide multi-generational appeal.  As the evening progresses, so too will the music but always within your guidelines and always in good taste.