Tommy Kramer Tip #39 – “Staging” Music

Let’s talk about “staging” music—music that you might want to put under a break to enhance it.

First, ask yourself if you really need music for this break. It’s odd, when you think about it. If I meet you for lunch, I don’t just automatically plop a boom box down on the table and play music under our conversation. Often, jocks just reach for some piece of music with the mistaken notion that it “keeps the momentum” better. It can help momentum, but the wrong choice of music will NOT help the break, and having a music bed can make you lazy, since you’re not as sensitive to whether the break is moving along crisply or not.

Generic music = generic break. Grabbing some random uptempo cut from the Production library is silly, since it may not fit what you’re talking about. Now if you’re talking about baseball, it makes sense to “stage” it with music from “The Natural” or “Field of Dreams”, or an instrumental version of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.” But if it’s just some Production music piece chugging along in the background, it may not be actually adding anything.

Here’s the right way to think of it. Use music that’s either…
(1) SUBJECT-specific (Star Wars music to talk about a discovery in space, the Olympics theme to talk about the games, music from a Western movie to talk about a local rodeo, etc.)

or…

(2) MOOD-specific. Movies are full of music designed to “cradle” the emotion of a scene. (I’m not talking about songs included on a movie soundtrack. I mean the “incidental” music that helps create tension, or sets the stage for the action that will follow. And there are many scenes without music, because music would take away from what’s happening onscreen.)

If you use music wisely, your show will sound even more polished and produced. If you use it as a “crutch” habit, your show will sound more “paint by numbers” and stagey and artificial. I think the best advice would be that if you can find music that’s just right, use it. But if you can’t, then don’t use music that break.

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Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2014 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #38 – Hamburger, No Onions

Sometimes it’s a battle of wills to get a Talent to do–or not do–something. I once had a session with a morning man who didn’t realize his tendency to do bawdy sexual content. His argument was, “I don’t see why you’re harping on this. It’s not like I’m Howard Stern.” But what he didn’t get is that his station’s Listener would perceive any sexual content as being over the line. This guy thought that “a little” racy was okay.

So I asked him to think about like this:
I go to a restaurant and order a hamburger with no onions. If I bite into it and taste even a small chunk of old stinky onion on it, it doesn’t matter to me that it’s just “a little” onion. It’s something that I didn’t want, and specifically asked you NOT to put on it. It didn’t take any extra effort—indeed, it didn’t take any effort at all—to do it right. So the next time one of my friends wants to eat there, I’ll probably tell him he shouldn’t, because “they never get my order right.”

Obviously, if this is how your restaurant is perceived, you’re not going to be in business very long.

Every station, in every format, has some form of “onion.” Some element that its Listeners don’t want. Maybe I come to your Classic Rock station to hear the music, but don’t want to hear you abruptly chop off the end of a song. Or I come to your soft A/C station not wanting to hear songs with suggestive lyrics. Or (the other side of the coin) maybe I come to your raunchy, outlandish Talk station not wanting to hear “safe” wimpy subject matter. Whatever the “onion” is, if I (the Listener) don’t want it, don’t give it to me.

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Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #37 – Words that “push the Listener away”

“Out there,” (as in “the streets are wet out there”) “over there,” “up there,” “in here,” “there in x,” “out in,” “over in,” “up in,” “there in,” “out by,” “over by,” “up by,” “there by.”
People hear these words all the time—but they shouldn’t.

Those words “push the Listener away” by telling her that she’s somewhere else.
Listen. I’m not “there.” I’m right here, in my car or in my office. And you’re right here with me. So if you constantly use wording that tells me that you’re not, you’re arbitrarily throwing away radio’s most precious aspect—the one-on-one connection to the listener. I can’t understand why anyone would want to do that.
Better word choices are the way to pull people toward you, instead. Example: Say “in Richardson” (instead of “out there in Richardson”). This is easy to correct. Catch it now before it gets too deeply embedded.

Radio isn’t “Where’s Waldo?” because you—Waldo—need to be where I am.

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Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.

Tommy Kramer Tip #36 – Before NOW doesn’t matter

You hear so many jocks these days say things like “Off mic, we were talking about x….” or “Before we got on the air, we were talking about x….”

As a listener, I don’t care what you did off-mic, off the air, or even just one minute ago before I tuned in. (I didn’t hear it.) Time only flows in ONE direction for the Listener—from right now—this moment, forward.

This same mentality applies to resets. Instead of those “backward references” like “a few minutes ago, we were talking about x…” just set the subject up now, as if for the first time, and then go ahead with whatever else you have to say.

This is how you welcome in new listeners, and by definition, you have better forward momentum.

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Tommy Kramer
Radio Talent Coach
214-632-3090 (iPhone)
e-mail: coachtommykramer@gmail.com
Member, Texas Radio Hall of Fame
© 2013 by Tommy Kramer. All rights reserved.