1 . At the age of 12, I withdrew into my bedroom with my guitar. I had neither musical talent — many_______music lessons had proved that — nor musical training. My fingers ached as I tried to press down on the strings without making them buzz (发出嗡嗡声). _______, I worked my way through 2-, 3- and even 5-chord (和旋) songs and discovered the _______ thrills of these musical notes. No one _______ me to do this. I did this myself and of my own free will for a week, and the sense of happiness－ true happiness _______ in absorption in something － has _______ me. Fifty years later, that week’s self-directed practice became a model and _______ for almost every meaningful thing I have done since. It makes me understand the _______ between achievement and accomplishment.

The world favors achievement while _______ accomplishment. The former is the completion of the task imposed (强加) from the outside — the ________ being a path to the next task. The latter is the end point of an activity we have chosen, whose bonus is the sudden ________ of happiness.

The seeking of accomplishment always ________ people. I learned so long ago in that ________ week that simply lifting one finger from the guitar’s C chord, you should get the most moving ________ in tune. I didn’t know then it was a major 7th chord, a favorite of some masters’. I just ________ accomplishment. That’s real human “achievement”.

I spent 15 years trying to make it in the music industry. When I was a teenager, I did any odd job to afford time in a recording studio. I knocked at managers’ doors and sent out demo (录音样带) after demo, but I got nowhere. In 2010, aged 27, I was doing a job in a restaurant when I wrote a song called Dream Goes On. It was a song about never giving up. I just let out all of my frustrations at the keyboard.

Over the next five years, the music career never materialized but I persisted. Then, in 2019, I uploaded Dream Goes On to a music-sharing website. I just wanted someone to notice my music.

Later that year, I received an email out of the blue from Music World from South Korea, requesting a license for the song. They had chosen my song from the millions on the music-sharing website for a theme tune for one of their shows. I was amazed and negotiated a contract for $5,000 for the use of the song and signed up straight away. I was pretty excited, but didn’t think anything more would come of it, so I focused on my job in the restaurant.

This February, Music World organized a musical festival in Seoul and my song Dream Goes On was also chosen as the theme tune for the festival. I watched on YouTube as my song was being played to a huge crowd of people. It was amazing.

After three days of the festival, I was contacted by Music World and they asked if I’d like to go to Seoul to sing Dream Goes On in a concert. They flew me out there the next day. I was welcomed like a celebrity—everyone I met thought I was a big name in England. I had to break the news to them that I wasn’t a pop star.

I had never performed the song live, and hadn’t been on stage for years.

After the concert, I had photographers and journalists battling to interview me.

5 . Flamenco, a type of dance, is very popular in southern Spain.     1     Sometimes a woman dances alone and sometimes she dances with a man. The woman always wears a long, colorful dress. She moves her arms and hands slowly but her feet move in fast, difficult steps. The man often wears black.     2    

Cossack dances are from Russia and Ukraine.     3     Dancers have to be very fit because they jump very high and kick their legs up and down. They often jump over swords. The movements are similar to traditional Cossack activities, for example, sword fighting and getting or and off horses.

    4     But today it is an important part of celebrations in the Caribbean (加勒比人). Young people have to dance under a pole (杆). The pole is often on fire and the dancer mustn't touch it! After a successful "limbo", they put the pole lower and do it again.

Mask dances are important for the Dogon people in Mali. Each village makes different masks. They are often huge and colorful. There are masks of people, monsters or local animals like crocodiles and monkeys. Dancers of this kind are always men.     5     Today, the Dogon people also perform the dances for tourists.

6 . Music influences your emotions. In turn, your emotions influence your behavior. One of these is your food intake.     1     What does science say about this subject?

Researchers at the University of Arkansas studied how music influences people when they eat in a restaurant. For the study, they used four types of music: jazz, classical, rock, and hip-hop. Their results showed that people had more appetite when they listened to jazz music while they ate.     2     This has a lot to do with emotions. For instance, when you listen to music with harmonic rhythms like jazz, you feel happier. This increases your appetite.

However, another study published in Psychological Reports suggests it isn’t only increased appetite that causes people to eat more.     3     A more stimuli-filled environment makes you eat more. In fact, they tend to urge you on to eat and even “encourage” you to eat faster. On the other hand, if the atmosphere in the restaurant is relaxed, you’re likely to feel more relaxed and spend more time enjoying yourself. For this reason, you’ll tend to eat less.

Besides, the study conducted by the Journal of the Academy suggests that the volume of music can also have an effect on how you eat. More specifically, the study states that, with low-volume music, you eat better because you make healthier choices. On the other hand, the study claims that music at high volume increases stimulation and stress.     4    

For this reason, restaurants should consider the fact when thinking about the optimization of their products and services.     5     They equip themselves with the technology needed to provide memorable experiences through music, greatly strengthening their relationship with the customer.