2 . Alonzo Carter, also known as Zo, is currently a football coach for the San Jose State Spartans in California. He’s trained countless student athletes, which often means his previous job in the hip-hop industry goes unnoticed. But not always!

Back in 1989, he and a few of his college friends auditioned (试演) for a music video. The song? MC Hammer’s still-unknown classic, Let’s Get It Started. They were hired on the spot and soon went on tours with him! As the summer came to an end, Zo assumed he’d return to college to finish his degree and reclaim his spot on the football team, but MC Hammer gained great popularity and started taking over the airwaves. Zo had a huge decision to make and ultimately joined MC Hammer as a permanent (长期的) backup dancer! But Zo couldn’t shake his passion for football. He eventually left the group to return to his high school in Oakland, California, where he began coaching track and football.

Decades later, Zo is one of the most well-known and respected college football coaches and doesn’t call much attention to his hip-hop beginnings. But at a training practice in 2017, a familiar song started playing over the PA system (广播系统). It happened that the head coach Brent Brennan had caught wind of Zo’s past and wanted him to show off his moves.

Without missing a beat, Zo dived in and started doing the Hammer Dance he had helped create all those years before. The moves came to him as easily as they had done back in the day, and his players obviously couldn’t get enough of his impressive talent.

Zo is a good reminder of how surprising career paths can be. Just think what would have happened if he hadn’t gone to that audition! The Hammer Dance wouldn’t exist as we know it, which would be a real tragedy (悲剧).

The pipa is a four-stringed Chinese musical instrument,     1     (belong) to the plucked (拨弦的) category of instruments. Sometimes called the Chinese lute, the instrument has     2     unique pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets (琴格) ranging from 12 to 26. The pipa is one of the most popular Chinese instruments and     3     (play) for almost two thousand years in China.

In China, plenty of music and stories are associated     4     this instrument. The most popular one is about a beauty     5     (call) Wang Zhaojun. It is said that Wang Zhaojun began a journey northward     6     (marry) a nomad (游牧民族) ruler. She left her hometown on horseback on a bright autumn morning and along the way, the horse neighed (嘶鸣) making Zhaojun     7     (extreme) sad and unable to control her emotions. As she sat on the saddle, she began to play sorrowful melodies on a stringed instrument. A group of     8     (bird) flying southward heard the music, saw the beautiful young woman riding the horse, immediately forgot to flap their wings,     9     fell to the ground. From then on, Zhaojun acquired the nickname “drop birds” or “luoyan”. Later, the melody,     10     was played on the saddle, was regarded as Zhaojun’s Lament (《昭君怨》) and the stringed instrument was commonly described as a pipa.

5 . When New York City asked residents to stay home due to the pandemic, Jesse Means figured he wasn’t going to have any visitors anytime soon, so he might as well turn his living room into a studio.

Means, a Broadway actor turned elementary school music teacher, uses that studio to record weekly lessons that he said seek to not only educate but uplift and encourage. “My job is teaching, but my ultimate work is building up people and making sure their spirits are all right,” he said. “I became the modern-day Mr. Rogers, as some have referred to me.”

Mr. Means Music, his YouTube series, teaches rhythm, songs and vocabulary, but also includes assignments like asking students to write down something kind they did recently or a fond memory with a parent. And because his lessons are public, he said he’s received fan mails from as far as the United Kingdom and Kenya. “These little kids really need to have some normalcy(常态),” he said. “They’re used to seeing specific faces every day, mine being one of them.”

While Means said he works almost straight through every weekend on new 10-to 20-minute episodes, he said seeing video reactions showing strengthened bonds between parent and child has made the extra work worthwhile. One father, for example, regularly submitted videos of his daughter, sitting alone and responding to Means’ weekly questions. Halfway through the school year, the videos changed. “There was this very burly (魁梧的) man who is now in the video with his daughter singing ‘the bell on the buoy goes ding ding ding!’ and touching his nose,” Means said. “You can see how much he loves his daughter. That’s what keeps me going in those moments when I can barely keep my eyes open.”

8 . What does music mean to you? Do you use it to help relieve stress, anxiety and fall asleep to? For many, the value of music is endless, and scientists and Nobel winners are no exception. From seeing problems in a new way to developing discipline (自律), expressing creativity to working as a team, music has helped many winners in both work and life.

Music has often helped Nobel winners think and process scientific information in a new way. Albert Einstein was influenced by his mother who taught him to play the violin at a very early age. He was especially fond of Mozart, Bach and Schubert. For Einstein, music worked as a brainstorming technique to help him reflect on his theories and solve difficulties he met with. Einstein’s scientific ideas were often firstly created in the shape of images and intuition (直觉), which music later helped to turn into mathematics, logic (逻辑) and words.

Besides helping them reflect on scientifically complex problems, music has helped Nobel winners learn discipline and the importance of a creative mind. For Thomas Südhof’s awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, music gave him important inputs and ideas. Südhof mostly enjoys classical music by masters like Mozart, which requires a creative mind as well as great discipline. It is said that these two factors shaped Südhof’s development as a scientist.

Furthermore, the cooperation between the members of a music band can be compared with the team effort found within a research group. According to Medicine winner James Allison, it is necessary in both fields to build a team where each individual makes their own contribution to the overall work. However, it is important that the communication between the members work so smoothly that each individual also knows what needs to be done to achieve breakthroughs. As James Allison states, “Every now and then my lab has been as well tuned—it feels like a really good band”—the concept of great team work leading to great success can be applied to both science and music.

9 . Dancing is natural and almost any child can dance. However, why do so many people find it hard to dance when they reach their teens or adulthood?     1    

Most people have heard the words “Dance like nobody is watching”.    2     When we’re learning something new, we hate having an audience watching our silly mistakes. Actually, everyone else is too busy worrying about their own mistakes. Chances are that you’re not the only one struggling with the steps!

We all have patterns of muscle memory. Your body likes doing repetitive movements that it doesn’t have to think about.     3     Your brain may understand, but it can take a while to direct them to interpret these new and unfamiliar movements. Be patient with yourself and understand it’s the way your body works.

    4     If you’ve never danced before, the complex rhythms and fast footwork of flamenco(弗拉门科舞) would be a big challenge as the first dance style. If you’re inflexible, I recommend doing some yoga first to make your body get used to the new demands of dance.

A lack of rhythm is the biggest obstacle of learning to dance. However, it can be overcome with enough practice.     5     Then start learning to dance when you begin to feel the beat. Dance can be a very rewarding and enjoyable hobby. Just be patient with yourself and learn to dance.

If you do not have an     1     to join a local choir or have trouble finding like-minded friends, a virtual choir is your best choice, which involves setting up equipment, recording performances in the studio or just at home,     2     the videos onto the internet and putting them together. This creative idea, enabling not only music tents’ but also an     3     individual’s voice to be added to others’, comes from an award-winning composer and conductor, Whitacre. When in college, he fell in love with     4     music, devoting most energy and soul to it. In 2009, inspired by a video about a girl singing one of his     5     compositions, Whitacre created the first virtual choir, receiving millions of views on the internet and becoming a worldwide phenomenon ever since. Nowadays, it proves to make the world a better place.