Moving Forward - Posted on 2015-02-16 by Liz Faux

It was a cold Sunday night when I headed back to the MMR studio on January 25. I was there to record my second mock DJ show and I did so with enthusiam. After I finished the recording and editing of that assignment my mentor, Rabbi, asked me to let him know my schedule for the week so that I could come in to shadow him during the day some time. My fellow co-workers from the deli I currently make my living off fell ill with the flu, so I was unable to come to the staion during the week. Instead I intended to shadow him the following Sunday, February 1. Myself and another intern stood in the studio and learned about the board and the program used to play the music. The system allows for the songs and commercials to run automatically or be controlled manually. Rabbi set it to manual sometimes in order for me press to the button that would make the next song come on. Since the block my mentor runs is Sunday night, 7pm-12am there is never anyone else in the studio when I'm there. I've been very curious about how everything runs during the day and I was finally able to find out on Thursday, February 12 when I went to shadow Rabbi from 11am-3pm. Due to impending weather I decided to stay safely at my home instead of going into the studio the previous Sunday. To make up for that Rabbi invited me to shadow him during a new music meeting. When I showed up at 11am I was informed that the meeting was cancelled, but I was interested in what happens on a day to day basis. Sitting in Rabbi's office for most of the day, I watched him edit a blog post of what happpened in music on that date in the past, and of famous birthdays for the day. I then watched him manually enter a song longer than 6 minutes to every hour between February 15, 12am - February 16, 9pm. This was for a Valentine's themed long song weekend. At one point during the day a DJ named Casey dropped by the office and spoke to myself and another intern who happened to be there at the moment. Casey was telling us about his experience as an intern and how he got to become a radio DJ. He was talking about all the work he did before he had the opportunity to go on air and it started to make me feel quite underprepared. I honestly feel as though I've been going through this experience a little blindly, each week hoping I would start learning something more. I don't doubt my mentors abilities in music production and the other aspects of radio that he mainly focuses on, but I don't want to do what he does. I want to be a DJ and I was hoping to have been taught by a DJ. I let my mentor know that this is how I feel and, with his knowledge, reached out to Casey asking for advice and the opportunity to possibly shadow him. I don't know if doing this was out of line, but I also don't really know if anyone's reading this. It may be my own fault that I'm as ill informed as I am, but now I'm asking for help. I need to start my career, but I don't think I'm prepared to start putting together a resume after I record my final demo. I'd like to work with a DJ before making my final recording.