DJ Richie Hawtin may have just created something revolutionary for the ever-evolving relationship between Twitter and musicians. According to the Miami New Times Blog:
“Richie Hawtin has announced his development of a new Twitter application which allows real-time broadcasting of track IDs during a DJ set. As minimal techno’s mad scientist of sorts, Hawtin has already spent much of his career pioneering new DJ technologies, including important innovations in MIDI and Final Scratch.”
And from his label’s (Minus) press release:
“The Twitter DJ application utilizes feeds from an updated version of Traktor’s standard broadcasting technology to send 30 second updates during Hawtin’s set of what’s currently playing to a designated Twitter account, allowing anyone following the Twitter group to obtain a unique insight into how a DJ builds the atmosphere and dynamics of a set, track by track, and in real time.”
This is pretty incredible stuff. It doesn’t surprise me that it’s possible given the technology that is currently being utilized in sites like blip.fm for Twitter. However, to have it integrated into his DJ-ing software to where it’s automated and he doesn’t even have to do anything additional in his set to publish the feed is awesome and very creative.
To check out DJ Richie Hawtin’s tweeted shows on Twitter visit his page @rhawtin.
This idea could be expanded to allow playlist requests from Twitter followers during the set right from the dance floor. Bands could similarly incorporate this idea, however theirs would have to be a bit more manual (no DJ software to take care of it) – but it’d be easy enough to have an assistant posting the set list live. Tweeting a live set list would be quite a bit simpler than tweeting audio files of your live performance as Moonalice did, but still be worthwhile to a community of fans I would think – who hasn’t gone to a concert and attempted to jot down the set list from memory immediately after returning home?
Another way bands could incorporate Twitter would be to have their fans suggest songs for that night’s set list on the day of the show. Anything that encourages the growth of a band’s community and makes them feel like they have a voice is golden, and that’s what’s so powerful about using Twitter effectively – it makes it so easy to gather input from your fans and respond directly to their wishes. Musicians obviously can’t ALWAYS do what their fans want (we’d get awfully sick of “Free Bird”) but I think even the illusion of direct communication is enough.
