Getting into the radio industry can be a daunting feeling when you're given the task of producing a music radio show, either if it's for a station you are a part of or a project as part of college or university. In this blog post I'm going to go over the basics of how to create a show, from selecting the music to writing prompts for links and getting your own voice idents to introduce you as a presenter. I won't be focussing on the technical side of setting up playout software or creating a studio for yourself, but that will come in a later blog post, although for free playout software I recommend PlayItLive.
Of course, to begin with is the creation of a music playlist that you can use for the show. As part of this you need to decide what your show is themed upon. Typically I create a show of 80's music until the present day - so I'd use music that's from that time bracket. You could create a dance music show, a jazz music show or something else of your liking.
You'll want to make sure that its in a place easily accessible for when you're broadcasting so you can access it quickly. As you can see on the left I have a collection I've gathered in alphabetical order so that I can easily search for something I want to play next. Depending on the software you use, you might be able to use a search function or categorise it by genre or decade.
When playing music for a show you'll also need to make sure that the music flows well and doesn't clash. One way to do this is to listen to the music before broadcast and choose songs that have a style close to each other, such as a dance song with another dance song or a pop song with another pop song etc. You also don't want to flood the playlist with too much of the same music too, as this will bore your listeners - There's variety in every genre out there. It's a delicate balance.
Also known as a running order, a playing order is the timeline of music, jingles, talk-beds and links that you want played out throughout your show.
As you can see to the left I have all the essential elements for a music show queued up in chronological order. They're also colour co-ordinated which isn't always needed, but can help if you like visual queues. When creating the order you'll want to have 2-3 songs in between talking segments, with station idents so the listeners know what they're listening to. Traditionally in radio songs are usually 3-5 minutes long, as not to drag out anything that could loose the listeners attention, but this can depend on the show you are creating.
Additionally you might want to add talk beds in between areas with lots of speech or features in order to give yourself time to speak uninterrupted.
Usually when creating a running order for my shows, I like to write little prompts to inform me when saying links in between songs. These can be as brief or extensive as you like, but make sure not to read them verbatim otherwise you might not sound as natural as you think.
I find that doing research on the music you play goes well when it comes to things like this as just announcing what played, and what is next can become tiresome for both listeners and presenters alike. You don't want your show always sounding the same.
Try to dig deep when it comes to facts about the music, if this interests you, and show some passion as it can really lift the feeling of a show. Wikipedia can come in helpful for finding initial facts for music (although not every song is on there), so scroll through the news, look at interviews and even lyric websites like Genius can give you some insight into the artists mind when it was created.
Finally... Voice Idents. When creating a show of any type that you're presenting it makes sense to have an identifier that lets the listeners know you are on air without always saying it yourself.
To the right is a simple ident that I created whilst in college for my final project that I still use now for my work on National College Radio. To create this I had my friend Cameron record the short line 'You're listening to Rhys Beard' with a handheld audio recorder, then I added some compression in Adobe Audition in order to make it sound warmer and cut out some of the background noise. In addition to this I also had him record a version that just says 'Rhys Beard' that can be used when seen fit.
Altogether, if you have followed these tips you should now be able to put together a basic music show for your portfolio or hobby radio station. Make sure to experiment too in order to create a unique sound that fits your style. Creating music radio shows that shares my passion for music with a wider audience is something I've enjoyed since I began, and I'm so happy to be able to share these tips and tricks to other people that also have this same enthusiasm. I'd also recommend researching online into local community radio stations near you, and see if there are any training programmes you could join. You never know, it could be your future career!
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