DJing versus Lecturing

When I start a gig there's always a slight feeling of nervousness. The nervousness is a combination of not wanting to screw up a mix, not wanting anything to go wrong with the turntables (e.g. the needles could start skipping if people dance too close), and knowing that there will be a few punters coming along and making requests. Chances are, what the punters want is not something that can be played, and not something I'm going to have -- especially when I play US House; I only have a limited amount of Vinyl in my crate! After a few mixes the nervousness starts decreasing, and I start enjoying myself. For most private functions however, I'm nervous right throughout. This is because I'll be playing music I'm not too familiar with (70's funk?!?!).

When I start a lecture, there's also a slight feeling of nervousness. But this is generally only on the very first day of the lecture, when confronted with many new faces. After about a week of lecturing I get used to the audience. I would have met some of them personally, and so I'm more comfortable when delivering the lecture. But the nervousness visits on some days when find that I'm not expressing myself too well (which mainly happens if I have not prepared enough for a lecture) and when I realise that the students don't know what the hell it is that I'm trying to say!

So it looks like there are certain similarities. When DJing I face mostly a new audience each time, so there is always some nervousness at the beginning. If I'm playing at a new venue, or if I'm doing an important gig (e.g. NYE), the nervousness is a bit more intense. Also if the DJ booth doesn't have enough space to move around, then on top of the nervousness, I start sweating and getting a bit uncomfortable. But the good thing when DJing is that most people don't stare at you the whole time -- most of the time they enjoy themselves regardless of whether you're sweating and feeling claustrophobic. And even if you do mess up a mix or two, chances are, no one heard it, or no one cared, as long as the rest of the mixes are good. But one difficulty when DJing is that you need to get used to your audience at every gig, and try to guess and change your music accordingly.

During a lecture on the other hand, you can't afford to start sweating or stammering -- otherwise the students will pick you up and drop you on your head (intellectually of course). All eyes are on you the whole time, and for each mistake you do, you lose a bit of your credibility. Since all eyes are on you, having your zipper undone won't help you either. But since you get used to your audience after each lecture, you get to know what they want, and you can teach them accordingly.

I'm not really sure if my DJing has helped my lecturing or vise versa, but I have realised that I'm not as nervous infront of an audience as I used to be a couple of years ago. So getting some experience in DJing and lecturing definitely can't be doing me any harm!

P.S. I'm still much more nervous when giving a presentation or a speech. I wonder why my nervousness level should be so different to that of when I'm delivering a lecture? Probably has something to do with people being on the same level of understanding as me when giving a presentation, or because of the pressure of needing to make people laugh when delivering a speech!