Always listening to, thinking about and talking about music? CKUA might be looking for you.
Interested in the idea of sharing your love for music on the radio? Have an idea for a radio series? Whether you have a niche interest in any genre, or you’d like to play an eclectic selection of music, here’s what to do.
How to submit a Host/DJ demo
Not sure you’ve got what it takes? That’s ok! Let’s find out together.
Things we’re looking for:
- Musical knowledge
- Passion for telling the story of music
- Creativity
- Enthusiasm
Things that we’re less concerned about:
- Your degree of experience
- Your location
Here’s what we’ll need from you
- A brief bio
- A short explanation of why you’d like to bring your love of music to CKUA
- A link to your demo program* (see pointers below)
*If you’re just sharing a series idea, you can skip this part, but tell us what you envision in as much detail as possible.
Once you’ve got all those pieces together, visit ckua.com/ckuademo to send us your submission.
Although we won’t be able to reply to every submission, we will listen to everything we get. If we think we might have a role for you, we’ll be in touch!
How to make a great demo
We’re most interested in your music mix and in your presentation, rather than your technical skill. If you don’t have a microphone, don’t worry: the mic on your laptop will do.
There are dozens (hundreds?) of ways to record a demo radio program. If you don’t have access to a studio, here’s one example of how to create one using the free audio editing program Audacity.
Assembling a complete radio show in Audacity
We’re not currently able to help you produce your demo, but we’ll continue to add resources here as we find them.
Ideally, we’d like to hear a 30- to 60-minute demo including your voice and music.
We’d like to hear how you assemble a set of tunes : How well do the pieces go together? Do the transitions underscore interesting similarities or artfully highlight contrasts? How do you employ changes of tone, timbre, tempo or style?
We’d also like to hear how you provide context for the music. What do we learn from your presentation? How do you make us feel engaged with what we were hearing? How do you communicate your interest in the music that you’re playing?
Although you’re free to explore any format you think works, in most cases, we’d like to hear three-song sets with talk breaks of no more than two minutes.
Please have fun, and don’t be shy. We all started somewhere!
We’re looking forward to hearing from you!