Today I was out on air on rock 92 which was so much fun! This morning I had to get to the station early to hand out vouchers again with Hugs, and I got back to the station to listen in on the morning show at 1075kzl with Jared and Katie. At around 925 David, a guy from rock 92 who is on their morning show, two guys named Chris, walked into the 1075kzl studio and asked if I would like to play a game with them on the air. Of course I said yes! Man Kisser Matt, a DJ on 1075 asked me if I was nervous and I told him I’m not. I was so excited that they even wanted me on the air! He explained to me what the game was and it’s called the birthday game. Basically Chris gives the name of a celebrity who’s birthday is either on that day or the day after and everyone else has to guess the age of the star. For every number off of the age you guessed compared to the actual age is how many points you get. The person with the lowest points wins. So I got to play this game on air with the other DJs, the other Chris, David and Biggie. The celebrities that were named were Johnny Depp, some basketball player that I have never heard of, Michael J Fox, and Kenny G. The DJs were surprised that I knew any of them at all because I was so young. On the show I was called the Job Shadowing Teen and playing the game was really fun. I came in second which all of them were surprised at, they thought I would lose. After I got a free t shirt from rock 92 which is awesome, I love free stuff. Everyone in the office said I did a really good job on the radio being as I had never been on the radio before. They said they were surprised I did really well as were the DJs. Overall I had such a great time at both stations and I am so thankful to have to opportunities that I experienced. I had so much fun and did so many different things. I am happy that I did the work experience program because it was a really good learning experience.
Author: lucyd778
Day 7
Today was a very interesting day. In the morning I went with Hugs to hand out vouchers for 12 dollars off each ticket to Wet and Wild water park. We went to a shopping center at 730 in the morning in one of the 1075 cars and Hugs called into the radio and said that he was there handing out these free vouchers. I didn’t expect anyone to show up or if people did there would only be like 5 or fewer but a lot more people showed up than I expected. When we arrived there were five people who were already there and that was cool. Each person got more than one voucher which I thought was really cool bc then they could take family and friends and other people besides themselves. Other people started showing up, usually one or two at a time every couple minutes throughout the hour and in the last ten minutes at least 5 people showed up at once all asking for vouchers and we ended up giving all of them away. All of the people knew Hugs and all of them seemed to listen to the radio station and the morning show and they weren’t just there for the discounted tickets.
After the morning I listened in on the morning show and they did this really mean segment called War of the roses, which other DJs like Ryan Cecreast does and it’s pretty famous. Basically they have people call in who think there significant other is cheating on the and the DJs try and figure it out and help them uncover the truth. They usually end up calling the other person undercover or under fake names and try and get the truth out of them that way but it usually blows up pretty badly. This one ended really badly so I won’t into detail about that.
After I got to call people telling them they won a chance to come into the 1075KZL Studio for Friday morning live. Friday Morning Live is where the Morning Show with Katie and Jared have a bunch of fans come in and watch the show live and they provide breakfast for the fans. If they couldn’t make it this Friday they are allowed to come any Friday they can. I called all the people that were selected and told them about it and I was given a script to read off of in case I messed up. It was easier calling people than I thought it was going to be. Overall today was a good learning day I think for communication skills and professionalism and really being able to work with people.
Day 6
Today was Torture Tuesday at the radio station. This is one of the segments they do on the morning show with Jared, Katie, and Jason aka the hosts of the show. They basically torture the intern Hugs which is what they call him. He is supposed to do whatever it is they tell him to do for this segment. Today, Hugs had to jump into a pile of mousetraps on a trampoline. Now to me, this sounds stupidly painful but the reason they do it is for ratings and viewers. So I went with Hugs and Reggie, the guy who filmed it professionally to a house with a trampoline and we set up the mousetraps. Setting up the mousetraps was really scary because I didn’t want to hurt myself. So after they were all set up Hugs called into the radio station and said that he was ready to do it, and through the whole thing (jumping into the traps, etc) he was on the phone on the radio. I got to Facebook live to whole thing and now there is a video up on Facebook of him jumping into the mousetraps on a trampoline. When he started jumping, unfortunately a lot of the traps shut so it wasn’t as exciting or dangerous as it probably could have been. When he did jump into the pile, there was lots of screaming, but I don’t think a lot of it was real. It seemed to be a bit exaggerated. Like I said I was in charge of the Facebook live video and there were around 500 people watching at its highest view count. While live, people are allowed to comment and in the moment I saw lots of comments by people. Lots of people saying “do it already” and others saying “poor Hugs why?” And then there were also some mean ones but I’d rather not repeat those. After it was over I went back to the station and listened to the rest of the morning show. Overall, It was a very interesting experience and it did give me a nice idea of what other traveling segments on the show would be like.
Day 5
Today was my first day at the radio stations and I got to listen in on the morning show on 107.5 KZL. It was really interesting to see how the radio personalities work and the different segments just for the morning show. The show hosts are Katie and Jared and then Matt is the producer of the show but he is also on the radio. I was in the producer room with Matt which is separate from the studio with the show hosts but is directly behind it and has large glass windows so you can see into the studio. Matt, the producer generally takes calls and answers them before they are out on the radio to see if their story is good enough to actually be put on air with the DJs. They did their daily segments like their good news only segment and another one where any caller can ask any question about men that they want and have it answered by the DJs. The morning show lasts from 7-10 am and the radio station is in Greensboro about an hour from where I live. I watched/heard the whole show so I had to leave my house at 545 am which is really early. Overall it was interesting watching the DJs and seeing what they do rather than just hearing them.
Day 4
Today I did a little more research on Dr. Malone and his works and writing. Before today I did brief research on him and discovered that he wrote an entire book on country music titled Country Music, USA and it was published in 1968, but has since had more editions come out. While I couldn’t get my hands on a copy or an online copy, I read several reviews of the book from journals on JSTOR. One review that I found gave a very nice overview of the book and was unbiased. The journal article was titled on JSTOR as Review: Country Music U.S.A A Fifty-Year History by Bill C. Malone. And it was reviewed by Gilbert Chase. His review was very clear and concise but used several quotes from the book itself. It went over what the book was about. The book is not just about country music but the history behind it, how country music came to be a thing in the USA. It talked about how the attitudes of the rural southerners filtered into the music. The book admits that country music does stem from folk music but has evolved saying that is changed per the region it was in. For example Oklahoma and Texas became more Western swing rather than folky mountain music and so on. It also described how Dr. Bill C. Malone feels about country music and he feels that it is still primarily in the south and that he south contributed to the creation of a lasting regional music. The book not only analyzed specific careers of country stars, like the first one, Jimmy Rogers aka the father of modern country music, but also went over the different styles of country music, historically such as: Western swing, honky tonk, country-pop, the “Nashville sound,” saga song, bluegrass, urban folk song, etc. the review also stated that Dr. Malone feels that country music will never be fully appreciated by American culture to those who don’t listen to it because Americans are busy giving higher praise to other genres and tend not to pay attention to it. Overall the reviews were good but I thought this was the best one out of the ones I read. Dr. Malone still hasn’t called me back from yesterday, so I will most likely give him one more day to call back until I call again.
Day 3
- Today I called Professor Malone who is a country music historian and is mainly involved in country music. I called him to confirm the date in which I would be interviewing him twice, and unfortunately he didn’t pick up, but I got his answering machine which was more entertaining than one might think. His voicemail is actually a jingle, and seeing as I had never heard it before, it was very amusing. It was very long for a voicemail and rhymed and included Professor Bill Malone’s name and had something to do with him being sorry he missed my call. I think it went something like “you have reached the malones we’re sorry we have missed your call/ please leave a message at the beep and we’ll get back to you all.” I assume it was him singing in the track. He was accompanied by a woman, who I assume to be his wife, who was doing harmonies to it which I found extremely amusing, that someone would go to the trouble to write this and add harmonies to it for something as simple as the voicemail on their answering machine. The tune altogether reminded me of a show I saw in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom called Country Bear Jamboree which is a bunch of animatronic bears singing old country/bluegrass like tunes. His tune on his answering machine had the exact same sound. Long story short I left a message and he hasn’t gotten back to me but hopefully he will by tomorrow.
Day 2
Today the plans for Nashville were discussed. I am going to go to Nashville to talk to an alumni from Cary Academy who is a producer and went to Belmont. Jake Mansfield has agreed to be a mentor for me while I am there. He has lots of connection in Nashville so I am excited to work with him. I cannot work with him during the dates of DT so I will be traveling to Nashville with my mom after school is over for a couple days. I should be going to Nashville on the 19th of June and staying for a couple day. The reason he cannot work with me during the dates of DT is because he is busy touring. We haven’t discussed what he will be teaching my while I am there but those discussions should be held in the future. I am excited to have to opportunity to go to Nashville and I am lucky to have the opportunity altogether. I am looking forward to the rest of the week as well as next week and traveling to Nashville.
Day 1
Today I had a phone interview with Mr. Greg Hawks about songwriting. Mr. Greg Hawks is a music teacher and provides kids with lessons on how to play instruments as well as helped kids write songs. He plays a total of 5 instruments: Drums, bass, guitar, banjo, and mandolin, guitar being the main instrument he plays. He taught himself to play all these instruments in the 80s and 90s, when he discovered he wanted to be a professional musician. He has since had lots of bands and played lots of different styles of music. Now, He loves to play country music, especially classic country and bluegrass. I asked him lots of questions about his songwriting career. He started songwriting in the 90s when originality was a really big thing in music. He has since never stopped. He doesn’t write often, but when he does he writes for long periods a time. So he might write 4 times a year but each time lasts from around a couple weeks to 3 months he says. I asked him his process with songwriting and he says he is usually influenced by mainly, a feeling he’ll get when listening to other music. He’ll also draw inspiration from his own life or social and political issues. He will usually start with the lyrics and only the lyrics. Only on rare occasions does he start with music. He says it takes him a couple days to a week to even write something remotely good.
When I asked him advice on songwriting, he had lots to say, but first he asked me a couple questions. He asked me if this is what I plan to do with my future and I said yes and he asked me when I initially started songwriting and I said 12/13 and he asked me who was my inspiration and I said Taylor Swift. He asked me if I wanted to be a country artist and I said yes and he also asked me how many songs I’ve written and I said around 100. After his questions he said that I should definitely keep doing everything I am doing, and write every day even if it’s not the best writing or I’m not “feeling it” bc practice makes you better. I also told him about what I have done in Nashville (recorded, written songs) and he said to definitely make and solidify connections in Nashville bc it’s a city built on connections. He said to keep trying and keep going and for college, he said to definitely check out Belmont and apply for the songwriting program. He also said that if I don’t get into the program to still go to Belmont bc it’s in the city and it’s still possible to be a songwriter even if I am not in the program. I also told him that I do perform places around the area and he said to keep doing that to get your name out there and build up a fan base here. Overall, he gave me lots and lots of good advice and it was cool to hear from a songwriter and get advice from an experience songwriter. I think this was a great way to start off the work experience program for me, and I hope that I continue to enjoy it.