Jeff Seagle: Hi everybody. Im Jeff Seagle. Good to see so many people here. As you know, Ive been asked to come along and give you some advice about how to break into the music industry. And before I start Id better make it clear that this talk is for people wanting to work with and for artists, not to actually be musicians, OK? Right, so Ive been in the music biz for quite a number of years now, and Ive worked with a lot of amazing people. So here are my tips, for what theyre worth. First of all, I know a lot of you are thinking about further degrees, but forget the MBA. This business is much more about experience than qualifications, so its better to start working as soon as you can. Easier said than done, you might say, but Im talking about any kind of relevant work experience. Dont panic you can start small! Go along to your local music venue or a small music company in your home town and see if theres anything you can do. It could just be selling tickets on the door youll get to meet people and one thing might lead to another. Obviously paid work is better than unpaid, but you have to start somewhere. You need to be in an environment where you are learning stuff and making contacts. Ah, a question already yes?
Girl A: What about being an intern? Are there many internships available nowadays?
Jeff Seagle: There definitely are some. Not a huge number as you know, its a very competitive industry, but the bigger companies certainly do take on people. And if you get your foot in the door at a big place youve really got to prove your worth. Show the higher-ups that you have some kind of unique skill or knowledge. Maybe something to do with social networking, or even knowledge of the music scene in the place you grew up. If you possibly can, let them see that you have something special to offer, and with any luck, theyll keep you on. Remember that companies often want interns because theyre young and have their finger on the pulse. Show them that you know whats going on, what people are listening to, how to find new acts, and so on. Find a cool app that they dont know about. OK, another question?
Boy: How important is networking?
Jeff Seagle: Meeting people and making connections is absolutely vital. If people see you as an ambitious 'networker', if they think youre just using them, thats not so good. Nobody wants to feel like a stepping stone in someone elses career. But people are often willing to give younger people the benefit of their experience and, of course, were all susceptible to a bit of flattery. So, my advice is to find people in the business you genuinely admire and ask them questions. If youre an intern, start with your boss, then move on to others in the building, after getting your bosss permission. Its also good to chat to anyone who shares your passion for music, people on the door in clubs, band members, fans or music executives. You never know what information might be useful or which contact may help you in the future. Oh, and one other point about networking, bear in mind that nowadays the personal and professional lines are sometimes blurred. That means that anything you post online for your friends to see can also be seen by potential professional contacts. Make sure that everything people can see about you reflects the image you want to project. Next question from over there?
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Girl B: Youve talked about the music industry, but Im not sure what kind of jobs are available exactly. Could you give some examples?
Jeff Seagle: Sure, and thats a good point. You need to work out what youre best at, and what you feel most passionate about, and let that guide your career path. It could be working in publicity, promoting artists; working in A&R (that stands for Artists and Repertoire), discovering new talent and matching artists up with musical collaborators; booking acts for TV shows; helping a new band become successful by working with their management team. And of course, now there are hundreds of jobs connected to the internet. You could be managing a website or blogging for a label. Or social media manager for a band running their social media channels. Things are changing so fast a lot of the music portals we use today have only been in existence a short time. Who knows whats coming next and what new jobs will be created?
Girl B: Thanks, thats really useful. I also wanted to ask how you deal with celebrities. Have you worked with many?
Jeff Seagle: Yep, quite a few. The main thing is not to be star-struck, just treat them as clients, its a business relationship. If you get tongue-tied and clam up, everyone will feel awkward. The other thing is that the unknown singer of today could be the star of tomorrow, so you need to treat everyone with respect. I remember, right...
Living online
Speaker 1. I think that even up until just a few years ago we could never have imagined how our behaviour would change with regards to using mobiles and tablets. I know that I would find it incredibly difficult to live without my mobile. Im constantly looking at my phone to see if Ive got any new messages or updates, and checking my apps to see whats new. I wouldnt say that I post my life online, not like some people I know, but I do like to keep up with what people are up to friends, family and even other people I know but maybe havent seen for years, like old school friends, and check out photos of what they look like now, ha haha (laughing)
Speaker 2. In a way, I think its quite funny that were always worrying about teenagers and young people becoming obsessed with online communication, but if you ask me we need to worry just as much about adults! At the office where I work, even when we have a break, nobody talks to each other unless they absolutely have to, which is a sorry state of affairs to say the least. Everyones too busy checking their social networks and sending messages to have time to communicate face-to-face! People spend their lunchtime glued to their screens or barely glance up from their phones. Even during meetings people cant resist subtly checking their phone, and what really irritates me is when you are trying to talk to someone and theyre more interested in looking at their phone than paying attention to what youre saying, even though you're right in front of them! Phubbing, I think its called!
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Speaker 3. I was listening to this discussion on the radio the other day talking about online communication and they were talking about FOMO or, what was it, Fear of Missing Out, which apparently is a kind of modern-day psychological syndrome which were affected by because of our obsession with online communication. Basically, they were saying that the reason why people feel that they have to be connected 24/7 and communicate everything theyre doing and keep up with everything that other people we know are doing is down to this fear of missing out. Were worried that everyone is having more fun than us or doing something more exciting than us. They also said that because were spending more time communicating in the online world, were losing the ability to enjoy the present.
Speaker 4. My generation is so different to my parents. I mean, theyre always telling me that they grew up in a world without mobiles and social networking and they managed fine. Hard to imagine how they arranged to meet their friends without a phone but they say they did! Uh... I had so many arguments with them while I was growing up, until they let me have my first smartphone. But they didnt let me have Snapchat or Instagram or anything like that! Its not the end of the world, theyd say! They just didnt understand that thats the way people my age communicate with each other. Nobody actually talks on the phone any more. They have no idea how much I missed out on at school being the only one who didnt have Snapchat. Also, at school we had loads of talks and stuff on how to stay safe online and most of us knew that anything you post online was going to be there forever.
Speaker 5. For me, one of the best things about online communication is that you can stay in touch with everyone at the same time, all the time. You know exactly whats going on, when and where, so you never miss out on anything. I love the fact that you can update all your friends on whats going on in your life and they can respond immediately with a like or a comment, so you feel like youre together with people even though you might be completely alone sitting on a bus or at home. I share loads of photos, but I only post up my best edited shots. I hate it when people I know post photos of me not looking my best.
Man, or beast?
Presenter: Good afternoon and welcome to 'Book Corner'. Our first review today is of an unusual book by Charles Foster which is a combination of nature writing, biology, philosophy, personal memoir its not very definable, but its already being described as a modern classic. Jon, tell us about the book youve been reading.
Jon: Youre quite right, its not very easy to define. The title is Being a Beast and the book is about the authors attempts to be a beast, that is, to live as an animal, or rather as several animals: a badger, an otter, a fox, a red deer and a bird. He says he wanted to really know what life was like for these animals and so he did the conventional research, the reading and so on. Then he actually tried to live in the same way as them, as far as possible. For example, when hes being a badger, he goes to live in a hole in the ground and crawls around a wood, learning to identify different trees by their smell. He even experiments with eating earthworms. Eighty-five per cent of a badgers diet is made up of earthworms did you know that?
Presenter: Ugh! I didnt know that. He took one of his children with him, didnt he?
Jon: Yes, his eight-year-old son, Tom. Foster says that children make better animals than adults in many ways they use their senses to understand the world more, and they think in a much less abstract way than adults. Another reason why he took his son is that badgers are social creatures and would never live alone. He says that Tom adapted quickly to being a badger, learning to smell mice, hear tiny forest sounds and get around on four feet.
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Presenter: How did Foster tackle being the other animals?
Jon: In the same kind of way. As an otter, he spent a lot of time in the rivers and lakes and the sea, as an otter would alone this time, since otters are solitary. The otters big problem is that it has to spend all its time hunting for food in order to survive, and that feeling of desperation was hard to recreate, but he did catch live fish in his mouth. To try to live as a red deer, Foster went to the north of Scotland. He nearly died from exposure to the cold out on the mountains, and he asked a local to set his dogs on him so that he could experience being hunted.
Presenter: What happened?
Jon: The dogs realised that he wasnt a red deer! That episode left Foster feeling that he had failed to get close to understanding the animal, but he had much more success as a fox. In London, he tried to forage for waste food, as an urban fox would. Theres one very funny part where hes trying to sleep on the ground like a fox, and a police officer tries to move him on. He tries to explain that hes trying to be a fox...
Presenter: and gets arrested, I suppose!
Jon: Almost! In London he had the kind of animal encounter that hed been hoping for: a fox looked him in the eye and he felt some kind of relationship was being established, animal to animal. He felt he had got close to understanding foxes he had great respect for their ability to survive and thrive in the city. The end of the book is about swifts, those amazing birds which travel thousands of miles between continents every year.
Presenter: It must be hard for a human to live like a swift.
Jon: Absolutely! Foster cant fly! The nearest he can get to the birds is by standing in a tree and trying to catch insects. But this section has a lot of fascinating facts about swifts, and about other animals. In fact, the whole book is very witty and engaging. It asks lots of important questions about what it means to be human and animal, and provides quite a few possible answers. I really recommend this to anyone with any interest in animals, or in humans, in fact. Although it contains some scientific detail, its a very good read, by the way. Very entertaining.
Presenter: Well, Ill certainly look out for that book, Jon. Thanks. Now, our next book is about something completely different
Sleeping for exam success
Teacher: Good afternoon. So, were fast approaching exam season and I can already see a lot of tired faces here in front of me. Well, today we are lucky enough to have Professor Manson from the University of Denton talk to us about how sleep can help us pass those all-important exams. So, without any further ado, Id like you to give a big round of applause and stay wide awake for Professor Denton.
Professor: Good afternoon. Looking around this room now takes me back to when I was your age and life seemed to be a never-ending chain of exams and assignments. At that time, organisation was not my forte and too often I found myself up all hours of the night before an exam cramming every last piece of information I could in an attempt to remember something. Does that sound familiar to any of you? Can I just see a show of hands how many of you this term has had no more than 3 or 4 hours' sleep before an exam? OK, so thats a clear majority and it has to be said that last-minute revision can do wonders for the short-term memory, but what is, in fact, even more beneficial is a good nights sleep.
So, Id like to explain to you now, especially you all-night crammers, the link between sleep and memory and how a good nights kip can improve your exam results. Now, could everyone take a minute to work out, on average, how many hours' sleep they get every night. Can I see a show of hands for more than 10 hours? OK, none of you, how about between 8 and 10 hours? A handful of you. OK, so what about between 6 and 8 hours? Right, thats a popular option. And any of you fewer than 6 hours? Mmm OK, so youre the guys we most need to worry about.
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According to the National Sleep Foundation in Washington, newborn babies need anything between 14 and 17 hours' sleep and this amount gradually decreases the older we get until as adults we need around 7 or 8 hours sleep, but youll be interested to know that the 14 to 17 age group should be aiming for 8 to 10 hours' sleep a night. So, you can already see that most of us are not getting enough sleep, and this is something we need to think about.
Sleep is essential. The human body simply cant survive without it. End of story. While were asleep, the body checks that all our vital functions such as growth, circulatory systems and our immune system are in good working order. And while were snoring away, our brains are very active restructuring information weve collected during the day and consolidating memories.
So, let me explain memory consolidation. Memory consolidation is what happens when information is moved from our short-term memory to our long-term memory with the help of a major part of the brain called the hippocampus. This is it folks this is the BIG moment when all of those facts and figures that you have crammed into your short-term memory are processed and consolidated in your long-term memory.
However, as youre probably aware, we dont always remember everything. One reason we remember certain things better than others relates to the environment or conditions we were in when we originally made the memories. What experts have discovered is, the more emotions that are activated when we make a memory, the more likely we are to consolidate that memory. So, for example, the more interesting or fun you find a biology lesson, the more chance there is of you remembering information from it OK, teachers? And not only that we actually need to review information again and again after certain periods of time to help the consolidation process, which is why well-planned exam revision timetables are far more effective in the long term than short-term cramming the night before.
And one reason why it's important to get enough hours of sleep is that this process of consolidation happens during certain stages of sleep. So, youre probably aware that there are different stages of sleep. The initial stages of sleep are a much lighter type of sleep and it's not until we reach the later stages of deep sleep, what we call 'slow wave sleep' because the brain waves are much slower, that we consolidate our memories. These slow waves help move the information we have collected and stored in the hippocampus to our long-term memory.
So, what we have here is enough evidence to conclude that the best way to help you pass your exams is to learn the information in a fun, interesting way, review it regularly, and most importantly, get plenty of good-quality sleep.
And before you all drift off into a peaceful slumber, Id like you to ask any questions you might have.
Teacher: Thank you, Professor. OK, any questions?
Teens going veggie
Speaker 1. I switched to vegetarianism two years ago because I read an article about all the health benefits best decision Ive ever made. I feel so much healthier now. My skin is really good and my hair is much shinier. You have to be super-careful though that you still get all the nutrients you need in your diet. The main problem for me is that Im the only vegetarian in the family, and the others want to eat meat and fish. So sometimes its a bit of a pain for my mum, because shes the one who does most of the cooking. She usually cooks for the rest of the family, then throws something together quickly just for me. She says I should learn to cook for myself, but Ive got so much homework at the moment... OK, I am a bit lazy about cooking. Im going to have to get my act together or Ill be condemned to a diet of salads and omelettes, which I like, but if thats all youre eating, its pretty boring.
Speaker 2. Did you know that there are about half a million vegans in the UK? Thats people who dont eat any animal products at all. They reckon the number is growing because of teenagers on social media like me! Thats where I got links to videos which convinced me that its the best option for animals, our planet and my health. I did a lot of research into what kinds of things to eat before I changed my diet. Its really easy to find vegans online wholl answer questions and give you advice. Ive been given lots of useful tips, like you can eat chickpeas and spinach for iron you know, to make up for the iron youd get from meat in a conventional diet. I still really miss fried eggs and normal chocolate oops, I mean non-vegan chocolate. My family have been supportive about the change, but I get teased a bit at school. Some people think that being a vegan is weird. Luckily, Ive got a lot of friends who tell them its cool.
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Speaker 3. I gave up eating meat a couple of years ago because at the time I was following a celebrity who was a veggie. Stupid reason, I know, but you see beautiful, glamorous people on Instagram and you want their lifestyle, so I became a vegetarian. I dont miss meat but I still eat fish sometimes, which sort of isnt really allowed. My main problem is that Im not too keen on vegetables. My dad finds that hilarious. Hes always going, 'How can you be a vegetarian if you dont like vegetables?' I do like chips, though, and tomato ketchup theyre made from vegetables, arent they? I dont eat that much fruit either, apart from bananas. Anyway, but because my diet is a little on the unhealthy side, I take multivitamins every day. I also try and avoid rubbish like fizzy drinks and sweets. I dont think my diets so bad. I feel pretty healthy.
Speaker 4. My whole family is vegetarian, so if youre brought up that way it seems perfectly normal. My parents are both good cooks and we had a very varied diet. We ate lots of international dishes: Italian, Indian, Middle Eastern and so on. I never really missed meat or fish, except when I went out with friends. When I was young I remember lots of birthday parties in hamburger places that was a bit tricky! When youre young you never like being different. But later, quite a few people in my class at school became vegetarian, so I was no longer the odd one out. Anyway, now Ive left home, I keep having lapses. I wouldnt admit it at first, but I have tried meat a couple of times and Im getting to really like fish. I feel awful sometimes, but I love food and I want to experiment with everything. I havent told my mum and dad theyd be shocked!
Speaker 5. My main reason for becoming vegan was that I cant stand the way we treat animals most farms are run in such an inhumane way. I refuse to support factory farming. The treatment of hens is horrific, not to mention what they do to cows. So now I dont eat any animal products no meat, obviously, but no eggs, milk or cheese either. And I dont eat fish, of course. When I first started to be a vegan, I found I was getting tired all the time, so I went to see a nutritionist and she said I wasnt getting enough protein. Now Im a lot more careful and I eat lots of different nuts and seeds, and pulses you know, dried beans, chickpeas and lentils. Its a bit time-consuming, buying and cooking special things, but now I feel really good. My family think Im a bit weird, but theyre gradually coming round to my lentil and rice specials!
The benefits of sport
Teacher: Good morning, class.
Students voices: Morning, miss / Morning.
Teacher: So, today were going to carry on with what we were talking about last class which are the advantages of doing sport on a regular basis. Lets start by seeing how much you remember about the benefits of sport. Im going to ask you some questions and in your groups, Id like you to answer them. OK, so the first question is, can you remember three of the specific physical benefits sport offers to the human body that we discussed last class? OK, Group B. What do you think?
Group B spokesperson: Um, well weve got two.
Teacher: OK, lets hear them.
Group B spokesperson: We think that doing sport reduces high blood pressure and the chance of getting diabetes.
Teacher: Absolutely. OK does anyone have any other advantages? Yes, Group D?
Group D spokesperson: Yeah, sport is good for your bones.
Teacher: Thats right. It strengthens our bones, particularly while we are still growing. OK, we also discussed that sport can be good for our minds too because of the chemicals that our brains release when we exercise. Can anyone remember the name of these chemicals and how they make us feel? Mmm, Group A?
Group A spokesperson: Are they called euphoria?
Teacher: Not exactly. Anyone else? OK, Group B again.
Group B spokesperson: Endorphins and they make you feel euphoric or really happy.
Teacher: Thats right. So, sport can help us feel happy and put us in a good mood because of these chemicals that are present in our bodies when we exercise. It also improves our capacity to concentrate, which is why doing PE at school can actually help you do better in exams. OK, so that was basically what we covered last week and what were going to move on to today is thinking about whether its better for us to take part in individual or team sports. So, lets have a quick show of hands to see what you think. Those who think its better for us to do individual sports put up your hands. OK, thank you. And now those who think its better to do a team sport? OK. Well, there are certain advantages to both individual and team sports, but, in my opinion, the benefits of team sport do seem to outweigh those of individual sport. Can you shout out a couple of examples of individual sports?
Group C spokesperson: Yeah, like, karate or swimming?
Group D spokesperson: And tennis.
Teacher: Good. Well, you wont be surprised to hear that in order to succeed in individual sport we need to have a fair amount of self-discipline to motivate ourselves, which is easier said than done for some people. However, with regular practice, it may be easier to see progress. Also, its worth pointing out that our individual successes and failures are completely down to the individual, no one else. OK, Id like you to have a think in your groups about the possible advantages of doing sport as part of a team as opposed to by yourself.
Teacher: OK, Group C. What have you come up with?
Group C spokesperson: Well, we were saying that it might be, like, easier to be more motivated to actually do a sport if youre in a team because you, like, you dont want to let anyone down, so you, like, always turn up for sports practice, you know, so you are sort of more committed to doing the sport.
Teacher: Thats a very good point. Yes, being a team member certainly helps people feel motivated and make an effort to turn up and play on a regular basis. Well done, Group C. Any other ideas? Group D?
Group D spokesperson: Err, because its boring doing sport by yourself and its more fun if youre with your mates.
Teacher: Absolutely! And the sense of being involved and belonging to a group is very positive for most people. Some experts actually believe that belonging to a group or a team makes us less likely to suffer from depression, as members develop positive bonds between them. And there are other benefits too. When you work as part of a team you are learning to work together and rely on each other. Everyone is responsible for the success of the team, so theres less pressure on an individual and consequently its less stressful. And finally, can you think of any skills you develop when you work as part of a team?
Teacher: Group A?
Group A spokesperson: Well, you need communication skills to talk to everyone on the team.
Teacher: Yes, very good, Group A. Any more? Group C?
Group C spokesperson: Err could it be, like, negotiation skills?
Teacher: Yes, you need to communicate and negotiate with your fellow teammates. You also develop trust as you work together with others to achieve a common aim or goal, and all these skills are ones that come in handy in other areas of your life as well as in sport. So, you can see that there are many all-round benefits to being in a team. However, perhaps, at the end of the day, the most important point is that you choose a sport you actually like, regardless of whether its an individual or team sport.
The fear factors
Extract one
