Recently, I found myself in a heated debate about Harmonic Mixing. A seemingly innocuous question had been posted by a contact on Facebook, namely asking how much people valued harmonic mixing on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (very much so). There was an overwhelming consensus of 4's and 5's on the thread until I waded in--like the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons--with my hot take.
Before we get under the skin of the criticism, first you need an explanation of what harmonic mixing is. For the purpose of simplicity, we are strictly talking about mixing digitally using key-locked music. Naturally pitch sliders on CDJs and turntables change the key of music, which adds an extra layer of complication in terms of calculating key.
Harmonic mixing is a technique that is mainly pushed by music tagging specialists Mixed In Key. Obviously, with their bread and butter being the process of key detection in music, they are incredibly invested in this technique. It isn't some randomly created principle though, and its roots are in traditional music theory.
The central principle behind harmonic mixing revolves around something called the Camelot Wheel. Pictured above, it maps out both major and minor keys on concentric rings. The rule of thumb is that you can either remain in key, move one step to the left or right, or shift from the major key to minor key within the same "hour" and vice versa. So far, so logical.
With Mixed In Key in effect--or your purchased digital music already benefiting from existing analysis in its metadata--you gradually carve up your collection, ready to make arrangement decisions based on the Camelot Wheel.
One of the claims behind harmonic mixing is that it enables creativity, allowing you the ability to deliver emotive changes in tone through established musical techniques. This claim is what I dispute.
When you selecting a track to play, based on harmonic mixing, you are immediately disregarding a huge percentage of your music collection based on key. DJing has always embraced an element of flair, it is why we celebrate certain DJs for the selection and technical abilities they bring to the table. These artists have the ability to, in the beat of a bar, take two tracks that you would not imagine being able to go together and totally whisk the rug away from beneath your feet.
According to the principles of harmonic mixing, these moments should not exist. Harmonic mixing is actually restricting creativity in terms of track selection.
Going further down the rabbit hole, Mixed In Key now offer Energy Level analysis, grading the tracks from low to high energy on a scale of 1 to 10. Their claim being that you can use this to further refine your track selection to distribute a gradual build of energy throughout your set. In their example, they cite Skrillex, Martin Garrix and Calvin Harris as examples, entities far from being known as critically lauded DJs. They go on to applaud consistent 7 or 8 energy level sets and thumbs up a level of 6 as "perfectly danceable".
One detrimental aspect here is that it starts to introduce a mindset that your set must be blasting the roof off at every moment. Ross From Friends recently summarised this better than anyone:
Then there is the creativity impact. After taking the cleaver to your collection based on key, you are now encouraged to hack away further in fear that your energy level will destroy your set, or not meet some sort of unwritten guideline of goodness. All of which seems to completely disregard flair and emotion in track selection.
Instead, let us look at one of the foremost figures in terms of selection, Ricardo Villalobos. Fabric London did a fond retorspective of choice moments from his sessions in their Room One. It makes you think, where would Global Communication '14:31' fit in the energy rankings? How would John Williams 'Imperial March' from the Star Wars saga or Aphex Twin 'Heliospan' from his seminal 'Selected Ambient Works 85-92' album rank in terms of selection criteria?
By adhering rigidly to rules, these moments would be lost and we would be in a world where algorithm and DJ are interchangeable. I imagine that somehow Call Super's superb melt down from post-peak techno into ambient and out through twinkling electro--on his stellar Fabric mix --was never crafted. Or that Objekt's three movements of inspired genius on Kern Vol. 3 was actually a rote techno workout. It is what the letters s, m and h were invented for.
Don't take this as a complete disregard or disdain for harmonic mixing. These moments occur in DJ-ing all the time as happy little accidents. Although we should keep them as precisely that rather than begin to erect walls and silos around our music collection.
For curiosity's sake, I went through Beatport and found the keys for all the tracks in this mix I recently shared to dSound. Out of the 18 tracks used, 13 did not adhere to the rules of harmonic mixing as dictated by the Camelot Wheel. If I were a harmonic zealot, this mix would not exist.
Nothing can replace intuition and a good ear. Fundamentally, it takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, and a lot of mistakes before you can discover your own truth in terms of track selection. Embrace feeling and embrace emotion rather than losing all the humanity by chasing an illusory goal of technical perfection. It is a much harder skill to learn than having a set of progressions prescribed to you, however the rewards for both DJ and crowd and much more worthwhile.
