[Hack&Lube]

I am a musician, I play multiple instruments, I play live instruments in a band.

I have friends who are into EDM, do mixing, DJing at local clubs, etc.

I can see there is a level of difficulty, skill, and a high knowledge requirement in both. I tried to follow what my friend was doing one night as I watched him DJ in a club and it was either way over my head or so simple that he wasn't actually doing anything but hitting buttons to queue up the next tracks.

To me, DJing could be the more difficult skill as you need to be judging the mood of the audience to produce a decent mix that fits the current atmosphere to keep the energy going and to transition the right mixes and tracks at the right time to fit the moment.

I don't like DJing and EDM myself simply because I don't enjoy the current styles, culture, sounds, etc. that are out there and popular right now. There are definitely a lot of people doing electronic music that I do love but they are more underground and retro. Because stadium music tends to be populist, I don't think I would like electronic music in hockey unless it has more time-tested heritage.

You can definitely find electronic music as part of major sports. The Chicago Bulls' theme is Sirius from the Alan Parson's Project but this is as far from modern EDM as you can get as it's 70's progressive synth rock.

While there is a certain degree of improvisation, you are always playing with canned tracks and you can't just fly off and play your own thing whenever you want to as long as you are in the same key. Why can't there be a medium that combines EDM, mixed backing tracks, and live instrumental virtuosity? The whole time my friend was DJing I was craving for a keyboard to throw in my own keyboard riffs or a bass so I could make up some basslines to whatever he was mixing on the spot.