Mixing music, making DJs
Love of music and ‘DJ-ing’ are inextricably linked and that is what the DJ Academy, Sri Lanka’s first-ever school exclusively catering to the education of Disc Jockeys (DJs) and entertainment industry training pursues passionately.
As the DJ Academy celebrates its fourth anniversary tomorrow (September 3), its Founder and Chief Executive Officer Tareeq Musafer stresses, “Be a DJ for the love of music. It has to wow you. Never do it for the image.”
The school offers individual lessons
The academy offers quality training programmes in disc jockeying, electronic media and event management.
Setting up the academy in 2008, following a writing venture on a DJ handbook titled ‘Learn to be a DJ’, Tareeq realized that the art of disc jockeying was not something to be learnt off a book alone and the idea for an academy for DJs was conceptualized.
Demand has been very high, with about 350 local and international students having been part of the academy up to now. The school offers individual lessons, making Tareeq and his team very busy people.
Tareeq is just the man for the job. With 20 years of DJ-ing behind him, it’s a way of living he fell into back in the mid-80’s. When he went to Melbourne in ’89, it became a little more serious. “I learnt a lot over there,” he remembers. “The learning curve was huge. I came back to Sri Lanka in ’98 with a fair amount of knowledge and then set up a record studio and events company. This trade is something I’ve always been involved in.”
It was a natural next step to set up the DJ Academy. They started out small, with a ground floor room at their premises in Polhengoda. The course content initially dealt with the very basics — setting up gear, sound balancing etc. Students would then move on to the technicalities of mixing tunes, understanding genres and showmanship or as Tareeq smiles, “Rocking a party!”
They’ve definitely expanded and diversified over the years. Courses offered are both diverse and flexible, with many an option available for the versatile student (visit their website on www.thedjacademy.net for more details). Plans to decentralize will see the academy open a branch in Maharagama in January next year, in addition to conducting workshops and other programmes outside Colombo.
 Chathuranga Jayamina instructs a student. Pix by Mangala Weerasekera |
 Tareeq: DJing should wow you |
“Some people want to be mobile DJs, doing birthday parties, weddings and that kind of stuff. So the courses for them aren’t too technical. It’s more about choosing the right tunes, understanding the audience, keeping the volumes at the right levels etc. We also customised courses for those who want to do large events,” says Tareeq. “Over here, people are not as exposed as someone foreign would be, especially when it comes to house music. So I make a point of showing them the birth of house music to get an understanding of how it comes around today. That means that when they play it, it comes from the soul as opposed to just feeling its musicality.”
Tareeq is not that picky about who enrols. “If you’re wowed by this process and if you have the curiosity, you will make very good use of what we offer.”
‘Wowed’ his pupils certainly seem to be, and they’re taking it onto their audiences. In 2009, six DJs from the academy played at the Hikkaduwa Beach Fest, one of the biggest events in the country. Last year, they hosted the Franco-German EDM (Electronic Dance Music) Project in collaboration with the Goethe Institut and Alliance Francaise. Four DJs from France and Germany were brought down to train aspiring young locals and they concluded with a symposium.
That particular event has spawned many such programmes, says Tareeq. “Something good will come out of this. We’re building the foundations. The DJ industry in Sri Lanka has grown immensely from what I remember. In the last six years I have seen exponential growth in numbers at events and those who DJ, as well as the number of kids who find it to be an art form.”
We’re yet to carve out a name for ourselves internationally, says Tareeq, adding that young people need to realize that becoming a DJ is a gradual process and a learning curve. “You have to run through the mill and play gigs, make mistakes and keep getting better. It takes time. After all it’s a creative thing.”
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