Point #1 You need to know what is “good” Country Dancing Music
I’ve always found that Music from the top 40’s Country Music Charts always seems to be good songs to play at the Country Bar. You don’t really have a struggle with them and it’s probably the best pointer I can give to a DJ who needs one on the fly.
Now when I think about what the most popular country music in terms of how the music sounds, I would think groovy and smooth Country Songs are the most popular ones at the bars. One example could be “This is how we roll” by Florida Georgia Line. The feeling you get from this kind of song is that it’s slow, but you can easily groove and dance to it with a girl. It has the message “This is how we roll” telling the world that hey this is who we are and what kind of music we like.
Now some people might argue that old Country is the best but there are differences of opinion on what Old Country Music is. Some say the Jonny Cash era and others the Garth Brooks era and to be honest I prefer Garth Brooks not the Jonny Cash era. The reason is because most young folks and even modern-day folks don’t listen to the Old Country prior to the 90’s. The reason I believe this is because it’s too twangy with not enough feel to the music. The stories are in the old music but they kind of lack in general the real good feel good vibes you get from Music after the 90’s. This doesn’t mean there’s good music prior to the 90’s it just means there’s less good songs per capita in my opinion.
Another point that I’d like to point out is that if you are brand new to Country and just watched the movie “Footloose” then take the music from that movie with a grain of salt. I’ve seen a lot of Country Bar DJ’s play the footloose song and then right after it they play like a slew of movie songs like Grease Lightning, and Sweet Caroline etc. These songs I would have to say just drive away the coolness of a Country Dancing floor and turns it into a night club scene which even though you might have them dancing, there will be another crowd of people who will be waiting for better music. I can tell I seen a bar in Canada that played those songs every night close down and I’m certain the DJ music was a really strong reason why it closed. That kind music doesn’t attract the kind of clients a Country Dancing Bar wants.
Some of my favorite Country Swing Dancing music artists are:
Luke Bryan, Florida Georgia Line, Jason Aldean, Billy Currington, Eric Church, Luke Combs, Darius Rucker And Kenny Chesney
Point #2 Understand the different styles of Country Dancing
So, I bet you are wondering why you should know the different styles of Country Dancing. There are quite a few reasons, but I’ll give you just a few here:
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Every song has built into it a style of dance and if you end up not knowing what a Waltz song is and you keep end up playing Waltz song after Waltz song etc. people are going to get bored real fast! So, playing a song that has the same style of dance over and over is just like playing the same song over and over. I would recommend that you play up to 3 or 4 songs of the same style of dance and then change your style. I would actually say that 2 songs is preferred over 3 or 4 in a row.
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Partner dancing is a lot more work than EDM dancing. You wear out faster so if you play faster songs and end up doing 2 Polka songs in a row or any fast songs in a row, I would say that’s pushing it already because people will not have the energy to last all through the night dancing like that and it’s not very enjoyable actually. It might be for a song but too many songs of polka really takes a toll on your dancers and they leave sooner. Maybe once every 30 minutes is fine but try not to do songs that are fast back to back. They are in it for endurance not the sprint.
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The greater the variety of styles you play the more intriguing the dancing! There are about 8 different styles of Country Western Dancing you can do. When it comes to adding variety to your DJing you will find that dancers will find new creative ways of learning to dance on the floor and with each style brings to life a whole new look and scene on the dance floor. If you can imagine the crazy polka dance scene to the ballroom scene with Waltz and Two Step to the Swing scene then to the Latin Country scene you would probably start realize the beauty and uniqueness of the whole country dancing floor when you can truly see how those varieties increase not only the dancing quality of the bar but it also attracts clientele that see these unique bar scenes.
Now back to identifying the different styles of dances in Country Western Dancing. Well if you want to learn more about it click here:
*This is a tip for the experienced country music DJ that already knows these styles but hasn’t studied up on Country Swing Dancing.
Country Swing Dancing is the most popular style of dance done at the Country Dancing Bars. My appeal to you for this last tip is to play more Country Swing Dancing Songs. Songs that are not done to Two Step or Triple Two but are simple songs to do to the single step beat of Country Swing Dancing. Young people love Country Swing because it’s groovy and smooth and it’s cool. And what makes it cool is all the fun dance moves you can do in it. Like flips, Aerials, Lifts, Dips and drops, etc. So, try to add these kinds of songs.
Point #3 You don’t need to mix.
I can tell you with certainty that the biggest problem with DJ’s in the Country Dancing World is that many feel the need to mix their songs. Country Music fans are conservative in general and they like their music simple and original. If you start mixing then they are not going to be happy in general although they won’t come up to you and tell you to stop because they are decent people but, they will be telling everyone else what they think of your DJing if you are mixing your songs. So don’t mix. Country dancers don’t really care for mixing because a lot of the times you are playing with the timing of the song and changing it and the dancers who are two stepping realize that the beat is changing and they can’t figure out where to land their feet because it’s changing too much. It’s actually quite frustrating if you are changing the speed of the song all the time. This is very common when you are transitioning songs as well don’t overlap or transition Country songs. Just let them start and end naturally and everything will be fine.
Point #4 Stick to Country Music
If you are in a DJing to bar full of a lot of people then play only country and don’t worry about changing it to something else. I’ve seen DJ’s flip to pop, rap, hip hop etc. thinking they either need to please the crowd or they’ll feel awkward or under pressure but nothing needs to change. Changing the music from Country to some other genre the DJ likes will kill the vibes and feel of a country bar and honestly it makes the bar or dance scene less authentic and I don’t know how many times I’ve been to a country bar where people come up to me and tell me “I don’t know why I came here” and I would say “what do you mean?” and she would say well it’s a country bar and I came to listen to country music and they ain’t playin’ it. If you are playing techno in a Country Bar that’s packed full of people, I really would be scratching my head asking the same thing. If you are catering to maybe 10 people and that’s all there is in the bar and all they want is some of their music I would say fine but if it’s like 30 or more people in the bar, then keep it real to what the Country Bar is. I think managers who are keen on what kind of music should be played in a country bar keep the good vibes going all the time and people keep wanting to come back for more.
Point #5 Don’t play the same songs over and over, week after week
One of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen DJ’s do is make a few playlists and then repeat them week after week. There’s no creativity and no time spent into working on their playlists ever after that and you see DJ’s after they have done up maybe 10 playlists start to take breaks and go for long smokes and just totally disappear out of the bar or dance scene. The lack of new music or should I say music you haven’t heard before in it’s been a while since you’ve heard it causes a lot of excitement in the brain if you really like the song. People really do appreciate newer songs that haven’t been played in the bar before and what I’m mainly talking about is looking for those songs that were not on the charts but were really good. And where you find those songs are usually in the same albums as the songs that were on the charts and all it takes for a DJ to get good at finding those unique songs is to listen to whole albums instead of looking at a playlist of billboard top hits.
Point #6 Have a large selection of country music
I don’t how many times I’ve heard a DJ tell me they don’t have the song Fake ID by Big & Rich? Now if you don’t know the song it’s ok but if you’ve gathered 1000’s of country songs it should be in your playlist. Now I’m not saying that this song is the best song, I think it’s a good song but not the best. The reason I mentioned this song is because that’s my test question to DJ’s on how big their list is, or whether they know country, or whether they have bias against certain types of country dance styles, etc. Basically, I can get a lot of information about a DJ based on asking about that song in particular. If you don’t know it then I’ll tell you that this song is in the popular movie “Footloose” made in 2011. There is a line dance scene that’s super complicated and most country music folk can’t do the line dance because it’s too hard. If you don’t know the song watch it here. And you can see how difficult the line dance is and for some dancers they get frustrated because it’s hard and they don’t want to hear the song because they get frustrated because they want to do that line dance but can’t. Some DJ’s are aware of the frustration and don’t play it, while the ones who aren’t aware of it usually are the kind of DJ that doesn’t know Country Music and or doesn’t have a large selection of good Country Music and leaving the person who doesn’t listen to Country in charge of the dance floor in my opinion is not going to be the kind of experience I think it could be.
Now I’ve heard many excuses as to why they don’t have a large selection of music is because they have to purchase their music and it’s expensive. I usually end up asking them where they purchase their songs and it’s usually purchased off of places like iTunes or some other MP3 Music site that charges a $1 per song. What I recommend is that you purchase your music from MP3Million.com because it’s the cheapest place you can purchase music on the internet legally. Songs on MP3Million.com are only $0.10 a piece and they have all the latest stuff up on there usually. And if you are looking to purchase playlists then I have a program I sell that can automatically purchase and download your playlists for you if you have them copied into an excel file.
Check out my automatic playlist purchaser and downloader for MP3Million.com here:
Point #7 Here’s where you can get your playlists fast
What I recommend is you use Spotify since it has every kind of playlist you can imagine for Country Dances. So, if you are looking for playlists then YouTube also has some and there are websites with playlists of different styles of dance etc. as well.
I hope you liked and enjoyed this article.
Thanks,
Corey
GoCountryDancing.com