LIVE MUSIC
​Bands vs. DJ’s?
Live Musicians vs. Recordings?
Which is best for your wedding, party, or corporate event?
The Importance of Music for Weddings, Parties, & Corporate Events
You’ve reserved a hip or beautiful venue, selected the menu, ordered flowers or other decorations, perhaps picked out the perfect dress or tux, and hired a photographer. With all of your other ducks in a row, now it’s time to decide on the music for your event.
Parties and weddings rarely go without music. From mingling and dinner ambience to a bride & groom’s first dance, it’s hard to imagine a wedding, company party, or personal party without music, and you likely won’t go without it. But now you face one of the classic event planning questions: Which music is best – a live band or a DJ? Live music or a rented sound system and a playlist of recordings? Which can you afford?
But wait, let’s rewind for a moment.
The truth is, if you have left the music for last, you likely aren’t aware that many event & wedding experts agree: Music is perhaps the single most important factor in the success of any party.
Lori Seto of internet wedding powerhouse TheKnot.com goes so far as to say that music is “the heart and soul of a reception.” “Music can make or break a wedding celebration,” she says. And Nina Callaway, wedding advice columnist for About.com, explains that having the right music is “essential to setting the mood, and making sure people have fun.” Most importantly, as Seto describes, music is “the thing people most often remember.”
Think about it: Many years from now, which are you more likely to recall – the dinner menu, or the first song you danced to as husband and wife? And what will your guests most likely remember – the color of the decorations, or the moment when the music inspired them to get up and dance, perhaps rekindling the romance from their own wedding?
With this in mind, you may want to move music up the list of priorities, and budget accordingly, perhaps spending a little less on food and decorations, and allocating more funds where your return will be highest… the music!
The Real Difference Between Live Musicians and DJ’s: The Substance
Now that you know just how important music is to the success of your wedding, party, or corporate event, let’s begin our comparison of the fundamental choice in music options: Musicians & live music, versus DJ’s & recordings.​
The Magic of Live Music
Again, experts agree: “There truly is nothing like live music, which can energize the crowd, and get people more excited for dancing,” says Nina Callaway. Lori Seto echoes these sentiments: “There's nothing like a live wedding band to get a crowd stoked and create a sense of sophistication.”
So what makes live music so special?
If you have purchased concert tickets to a performance by an artist whose recordings you already own, then you may already understand the magic of live music. Why do we pay money to see and hear a live performance of music we can listen to at any time? Is it simply the visual element – the fact that you can see the artist performing instead of simply hearing the recording? That’s certainly a part of it, and it points to one major difference between musicians and DJ’s:
With musicians, you get to witness the magic of music being constructed and assembled before your very eyes. With DJ’s, you don’t really get to ‘see’ the music at all. There is definitely something more visually engaging about a talented vocalist pouring her heart and soul into a beautiful love song, backed by a group of sharply dressed musicians passionately performing their sparkling, beautifully-crafted instruments; as opposed to a guy in a pair of headphones pressing buttons on a mixer.
What’s more, this demonstrates one reason why your guests might be more likely to join you on the dance floor when you hire a live band: Some people are hesitant to ‘bust a move’ when they feel like all eyes are upon them, and it’s easy to feel like you’re the main attraction when you hit the dance floor with a DJ. But with the visual appeal of a live band, it feels natural for your guests to join in the fun, when there is already an eye-catching performance on stage.
Along the same lines, the visual and stylistic elements of a particular type of musician ensemble are often a great way to solidify the theme of any wedding, party, or corporate event. For example, a small jazz combo to a large swing orchestra could be the perfect touch for a retro theme; or a country band for a western theme, etc.
But there’s much more to it than the visual element. If that were the only difference, then it still wouldn’t fully explain why we purchase concert tickets – because you can always see the artist performing by simply watching a music video. No, it’s much more than just the visual element. What makes “live” music so special is that it’s, well… alive! Here is what that means:
First, whether its audio or video, a recording plays back the same way every time. Once you have experienced it, you know exactly what to expect when you play it back again – it’s always the same, over and over again. In contrast, in a live performance, living and breathing musicians are inspired by their surroundings and by the response of the audience, both energizing them and absorbing their energy to create something entirely unique to the moment!
When an audience dances or erupts in cheers, the musicians internalize and channel that burst of energy into their performing, making it all the more passionate, emotional, and impactful when that performance is then sent back and hits the audience, once again boosting the audience’s excitement, and essentially creating a magical energy feedback loop! Even the artist who recorded the famous radio version won’t perform their song exactly the same way twice; and it is this uniqueness and utter spontaneity that make live music so fresh and exciting!
In this sense, when you hire a DJ or plug in a playlist, you are only providing your guests with recordings they have likely already heard, and which they could listen to any time – an experience they have largely already had and can repeat whenever they desire. In contrast, when you hire live musicians, you and your guests are treated to a magical private concert – a truly unforgettable, one-of-a-kind performance that will never repeat itself in exactly the same way again!
Considering all of this, it’s easy to see why there’s nothing like live music to ensure the success of a party or wedding reception. The visual appeal, the uniqueness to the moment, the spontaneity, and the live energy, all combine to produce something that can only be described as… magic!​​
The Benefits of a DJ
There are a few indisputable advantages DJ’s and recordings have over musicians and live music. First, because it requires hard work for bands & musicians to learn new music, while for DJ’s it couldn’t be much easier to access additional recordings, this means DJ’s can offer a far larger, nearly endless quantity of music choices. This also means a DJ can likely find or download any song when you or your guest want to make a request last-minute or during an event.
A DJ can also perhaps fit into a smaller space than a live band or a music act with more than a solo musician. It is also easier for DJ’s to keep music flowing constantly (fading out one recording while fading in another), whereas musicians may need to retune or adjust their instruments in between songs, and eventually take a short break from the often taxing work of performing.
Finally, the fact that recordings play back the same every time means there is no chance for human “mistakes” in the music (in quotes because the line between a mistake and an acceptable variation or even an improvement is rather subjective). Perhaps we could restate this last point by saying there is more certainty about what one will get when you hire a DJ.
On the other side of these points, we’ve already covered the magical benefits of spontaneity and unexpectedness in music, so beginning with repertoire quantity, it is important to remember that parties and weddings only last so long. For example, the average 2 to 4 hour wedding reception has time only for about 50 songs at the very most; so even if a DJ or your playlist offers a library of 100,000 songs, you won’t have time for about 99,950 of them! This means, so as long as a band performs a repertoire you like, the quantity of music is not so much an issue - and some bands and musicians have surprisingly large repertoires!
When it comes to song requests, in cases where you or a guest ask for something last-minute or during an event and not already in a live performance repertoire, there are in fact bands and musicians who are such talented and experienced professionals they often can and will happily attempt to perform familiar but hitherto unperformed requests, and pull them off so successfully the audience would never guess it was a first time!
In most cases, however, bands and musicians are happy to learn and prepare requests for music not already in their repertoire, so long as they are provided sufficient advanced notice to learn and prepare the music. Because it requires additional time and hard work, you should expect a relatively small additional fee for requests not already in a repertoire; however many musicians will include learning and preparing one or two special requests at no extra charge (such as a song request for the bride and groom’s first dance at a wedding).
In a case where you have a huge number of requests for music not already in a given performance repertoire, this is essentially like requesting a different set of musicians with a different repertoire (so you might want to consider hiring a different band or musicians!). For this reason, DJ’s or recording playlists might be the right option if you feel like you need to specify every song and the order you want to hear them throughout the evening.
Remember, however, that experienced musicians and DJ’s have acquired a talent for reading the crowd and the mood of the event in order to determine which music is best for the moment, so you may want to consider leaving some or most control of the music selection in the hands of the experts, in order to achieve optimal flow and audience response for your event.
Finally, when it comes to music flow, there are in fact bands and musicians who make it a priority to minimize time in between songs. For example, ArtSound Players performs longer, multi-song medleys, for a non-stop dance party vibe! Hiring a band or musicians usually also means a sound-system will be present, such that recordings can be played when musicians take a short break.
Pricing: A Comparison of the Value of Musicians and DJ’s
Except for the lucky few, the price tag is always a concern – if not the main concern. And while most of us have some idea of what food or flowers sell for, few have much occasion to find out what a live band or a DJ costs. So let’s talk music pricing.
In theory at least, a live band with ten musicians to compensate ought to cost much more than a single-person DJ operation.
The surprising reality, however, is that many DJ’s are charging rates not much less than what you could expect to pay for an average-sized band!
With this in mind, let’s conclude with a look at what you get for your money with bands vs. DJ’s.
DJ Value
There’s no doubt about it, when price is the priority, the most economical music solution is to simply borrow or rent a sound system and plug in your playlist. You can even assign your cousin Timmy to hover over the volume & pause buttons to help run the show. Three letters explain why this method is most ecumenical: D. I. Y. When you “Do It Yourself,” (or have your cousin do it for you by acting as a volunteer DJ) you save the money you would have spent on a commercial DJ. But so then, if you or your little brother can approximate what a DJ can do, what are you paying for when you hire a commercial DJ? Are you really getting just an expensive version of “cousin Timmy”? What exactly does a commercial DJ offer that you couldn’t do for yourself?
Perhaps it’s the music selection? As mentioned above, it’s possible a DJ might have thousands of songs you don’t already have on your phone (though many of us have the same endless access via our music streaming subscriptions). However, again, unless your party is going to last a solid week, you won’t have time to play more than about 50 songs total, and chances are you already have that many of your favorites in your own collection, or you can obtain them just as easily as the DJ can.
So if it’s not the DJ’s music selection you’re paying for, then perhaps it’s the disco ball, the flashing lights, and the obligatory jokes when DJ’s serve as Master of Ceremonies? Truth is you can rent the ball and lights from the same place that supplies the rental sound system (many musicians can also provide professional lighting), and chances are you’ve got an uncle who can supply the tacky humor!
But of course, don’t’ get the wrong idea – there are plenty of tremendously talented and tasteful DJ’s out there. Perhaps much of their talent lies in the ability to be a great “M.C.” (the Master of Ceremonies, or “Emcee”). Real charm and a crowd-pleasing sense of humor require true talent (talent that many pro musicians also possess), whereas it likely requires a little less true talent to master the ‘play,’ ‘pause,’ and ‘fade’ controls on a pro-audio mixer. From this perspective, what a DJ ought to cost perhaps shouldn’t be a whole lot more than the cost of a sound system rental.
The Value of Professional Musicians
In contrast, professional musicians clearly offer something you can’t do yourself. While you or a DJ can press ‘play’ on a recording of your favorite song, only a professional musician can stand before a crowd and deliver a flawless, inspiring, live performance of that same song.
So what is the value of this kind of talent? Here is one way to look at it: Most people can’t provide their own legal representation, and so even a lawyer with only three years of law school training can charge well into the $100’s per hour. Most professional musicians, in contrast, started their training in their youth, devoting a whole lifetime of persistent practice, expensive private lessons, and formal schooling to the perfecting of their craft, before even considering professional performance. Many pro musicians have also earned bachelors, masters, and PhD’s in music performance or composition.
Additionally, many musicians must invest in the same type of sound amplification systems DJ’s use, and are also often invested to the tune of many thousands of dollars in their musical instruments. As mentioned previously, while downloading or streaming new music requires next to no effort, learning new music often requires purchasing or otherwise obtaining sheet music, and plenty of time and effort rehearsing the performance, both on one’s own and together with any other musicians in the band or ensemble.
When you consider the value of professional musicians reflects all of this, it brings us back to the surprising reality of music pricing: The truth is, whether it’s because musicians must compete with DJ’s, because all of that hard work to perfect their craft gives musicians a desire to share their talent with less concern for compensation, or because many DJ’s are simply overpriced, the reality is that you can often hire a great live band for close to the same price as many of the commercial DJ’s!
Contact us if you have any other questions about live music verses recordings, and which is best for your event!