Music business student gets serious about radio

Carolyn MacAdams is a senior and a music business student who earned the opportunity to intern for SiriusXM Radio in New York over the past summer.

"Carolyn is an outstanding example of how our music business majors integrate the knowledge they gain as students to real world applications in various sectors of the industry,” said Tim Channell, associate professor of music business, “At RU we strive to help students plan their future careers from their first semester all the way through to their internship experience and to be able to take advantage of opportunities afforded to them as Carolyn did with SiriusXM."

MacAdams applied for the SiriusXM internship along with other internships. After some back and forth phone calls with the SiriusXM HR department, she was given a music programming position.

The position entailed scheduling, editing, mixing music, editing voice tracks, and writing down the countdowns for the shows “‘90s on 9” and “Pop2K.”

“Everyday there was always something different to do,” MacAdams said. She also worked in the recording studio, helped set up recording sessions, collaborated with the head-recording engineer, and was part of the intern radio show.

“I edited the intern radio show, and I was a guest on it once,” MacAdams said.

Lastly, she made a promotion for a rock channel called “Rock Bar” using ProTools, a software program, in which she conveniently learned how to use her sophomore year.

Throughout her internship experience, several various bands, artists, producers, and other talents came through SiriusXM on a daily basis to do recordings in the recording studio. One day, however, MacAdams was excited to find that female saxophonist, Mindi Abair, was in the recording studio.

“I also play saxophone and there aren’t very many female saxophonists making a living being a solo artist,” said MacAdams. Mindi Abair is a jazz saxophonist who has played for Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, American Idol, “The Late Night Show with David Letterman” and others.

“She’s one of the most successful saxophonists in the music industry today,” said MacAdams, “I’ve looked up to her since I started playing when I was 12 years old.”

After promising her Sirius mentor Ron Ross, the morning show host on “The Pulse,” she would behave professionally (she said she would not freak out too much), MacAdams met Abair. The two talked about music, saxophones, mouthpieces, and Abair offered to give her practice tips and sheet music from her songs.

“Needless to say, it made the rest of my day, and I told everyone about it,” MacAdams said.

MacAdams did face some challenges with learning all the different software that Sirius XM Radio uses to program and edit their channels, but she eventually got the hang of it. Most of all, MacAdams gained from her internship the knowledge of how closely related and intertwined music business and broadcasting are.

“Most of it is music production and editing, which is also a part of the music industry,” said MacAdams.