When you are cueing, you are doing you are doing two things. First, you are listening to the music that you are going to be playing next in your headphones while the dance floor is listening to the current music. Then, while you are listening to the record in your headphones, you are finding and preparing a spot on the record where you are going to transition in.

• Cueing involves listening to two records at once. At first this will seem challenging and frustrating, but after a while it gets easier. This is just something that comes with practice and after a while you will find that you can easily separate the information coming from each ear. To practice this, simply use your mixer to play one record through your headphones and the other ones through your speakers. Put your headphones on your head so only one ear is covered. Adjust the volume level of you headphones so the volume sounds equal to the volume coming from the speakers. Then just concentrate on each record and try to separate them. This skill is essential when DJing because this is what you will be doing most of the time.
• When cueing, you will also be handling the record and the turntables a lot so it is important to get used to it. To practice, just put a record on the turntable and play around. Things you may want to try are using the start/stop button and the pitch control. Also get your hand on the record and do things like stopping it, turning it backwards or dragging it back and forth over a beat while the platter spins underneath it. Try and get a feel of how much push you need to give the record to get it turning at full speed as quickly as possible.