Nick Jonas' Lesson for Other Teen Musicians

This is the VOA Special English Education Report, from voaspecialengli... | / voalearningenglish
More than one hundred teenage musicians recently attended a summer camp in Los Angeles to learn about the music business. Some of the advice they received came from the youngest member of the Jonas Brothers, eighteen-year-old Nick. Nick Jonas appeared in Broadway musicals before he became a pop star with his brothers. He told the students at the Grammy camp that social media was "incredibly important" at the beginning of the brothers' career, and still is today. "With Twitter and KZbin and Facebook, there are so many instant ways to connect with your fans."Other music professionals also shared their knowledge at the week-long camp. The annual event is part of "Grammy in the Schools," a project from the organizers of the music industry's Grammy Awards. The camp gives students a chance to perform or to learn music production skills. Ben LoPiccolo worked on his skills as a music reporter. He found that he "really enjoyed writing and telling people about music" to expand their tastes.These teens hope to be part of an industry that is going through big changes. Kristen Madsen at the Grammy Foundation points to the influence of social networking on sites like Facebook and Twitter. "There are new ways and new roadmaps for kids to succeed in the music industry, and they have a lot more access to doing it themselves."Thirteen-year-old Greyson Chance is about to release his first album. He told the other young musicians that his career began with a music video on KZbin.Giovanni Quattrochi hopes for a career as a music producer. "I'm excited to see where music is going to go," he says. For example, he likes the way, "especially with hip-hop, there's a lot of sampling of different genres of music." Music is also becoming more international, says Elise Go, who hopes to be a songwriter. She points to American influences in Korean and Chinese pop music. She says, "That's very cool to hear, a pop song you think you'd hear on the radio in America, in another language."Brian London plays keyboard for Lady Gaga and other artists. He told the students that succeeding in music is about hard work, not just talent. "Being a great player -- everybody's a great player. So a lot of artists, management labels and music directors look at more than just being a great player in order to be hired for a gig."For VOA Special English, I'm Carolyn Presutti. You can watch a video about the Grammy camp at voaspecialenglish.com.
(Adapted from a radio program broadcast 28Jul2011)