Earlier this year, three of our music business degree students completed an internship with Songlines magazine, a music-based magazine and website which covers traditional, contemporary, folk and fusion music from around the world.
Throughout the internship, the three students, Emily Priest, Lee Birch, and GeZ Addictive, worked closely with Songlines Magazine Editor, Russell Slater Johnson. The trio worked collaboratively with Russell at the nearby Antenna Nottingham, a media production centre for enterprise, creativity and innovation. Antenna has close ties to Confetti, particularly as it is based within the same building as our digital media hub, Confetti HQ, and our neighbours Notts TV, with an entrance located on Beck Street.
The purpose of the internship was to establish a team for Songlines in the region that could support Russell with editorial work and provide the students with valuable industry experience working in a fast-paced environment. Emily, Lee, and GeZ performed various roles for Songlines, including copywriting and proofing articles, editing the magazine, and selecting music for the album that accompanies each edition.
The project was a successful one, as the students were highly effective in completing the tasks set, in addition to sharing the benefit of their own knowledge and experiences.
Emily, Lee and Gez greatly enjoyed their time supporting Russell and Songlines. We caught up with them to find out more:
“The job included proofreading music reviews, writing articles for the websites and newsbytes, and selecting music for the album. The internship was enjoyable as it gave me an opportunity to try magazine editing, networking within the industry, and the chance to discover new musical genres. It was interesting to experience the editorial process of producing a magazine. It was also great to work with Russell as part of Songlines. It’s helped me develop valuable industry experience producing editorial work for print and digital media, and networking with industry experts.” – Emily Priest, BA (Hons) Music Business student
“I already have a strong background as a music entrepreneur with my own promotions and artist management company, Time to Shine. I decided to do the Music Business course, as whilst I have a great deal of industry knowledge and experience, I wanted to top this up with a degree and take advantage of Confetti’s expertise and opportunities like the internship with Songlines.
“For me, the experience of working with Songlines was quite interesting. Experiencing different genres of music from across the globe, when I’d previously only dealt with UK bands and artists of specific genres – the internship really opened my eyes to different music from around the world.” – Lee Birch, BA (Hons) Music Business student
In addition to studying on our Music Business course, GeZ Addictive, is an established freelance musician and General Manager for Alpha Pro Creative, a creative space in Derby for music rehearsal, creative workshops, tuition, photography, video shoots, and more. We spoke to GeZ to find out how he found the internship with Songlines, he said:
“Working for a magazine with worldwide physical distribution, featuring artists at the top of their genre was an excellent experience, as it provided me with a great working environment to try out some new things and develop skills.
“As part of my work, I proof read articles and conducted reviews, compiled articles from press releases, and formatted articles for web.
“As someone with a number of years’ experience working in the music industry, I started this course for the access to real life industry contacts and experience that I haven’t had in my own activities.
“The internship was a great opportunity to be at the other end of the media spectrum and see the processes that go on when media outlets receive press releases from labels, artists and PR agencies.
“It’s really helped me to develop my understanding of how media receive information about artists and how they compile it, e.g. a full-page press release might get condensed into a 3-line mention in a bigger article, or conversely to expand an article, some further research may be done in order to expand on what’s been provided.
“It’s provided me some valuable insights going forward on the best way to approach media for coverage.” – GeZ Addictive, BA (Hons) Music Business student
Songlines Magazine Editor, Russell Slater Johnson is a Nottingham Trent University graduate himself. He told us why he wanted to get involved with our students:
“I’ve always worked with volunteers and young writers, I feel it’s very important to try and improve their writing and knowledge, which is a process that I enjoy and makes me better at what I do too. I want to continue doing this with Songlines.
“The internship helped the students to develop their proofing skills, writing news and Q&A articles, as well as doing admin such as sending emails and scheduling interviews. They were really helpful, and it was nice to introduce them to different music – that was the most enjoyable bit!” – Songlines Magazine Editor, Russell Slater Johnson
Find out more about Russell and Songlines Magazine on the Antenna Nottingham website.
We still have places available for BA (Hons) Music Business through Clearing. To find out more, please call 0115 848 6000 to speak to the Admissions team at our partners Nottingham Trent University.
