Can’t get you out of my head: DJ on how music helps the mind
With a unique power to impact our mood and mental health, music is often something we turn to in times of great joy or sadness, to fill the void of silence or when congregating and sharing special moments with friends and family.
No one knows that more than DJ and presenter Nemone Metaxas, who has surrounded herself with music all her life and, when she’s not on the airwaves, tunes into her clients’ stories in her other job as a psychotherapist.
“For me, the comfort of music has been immense,” she said. “I think working in it means I’m surrounded by it every day, but still reaching for it.
“Hearing a specific song or a piece of music you love can turn the day on a dime. It just feels like it can move you in all sorts of directions, whether it’s something you hear that makes you tearful or it motivates you.”
Metaxas, billed as just Nemone when broadcasting, studied psychology at university in Manchester in the early 1990s but, while on a placement on a psychiatric ward, she heard an advert for new station Kiss 102 and pursued a career in broadcasting.
“I probably needed to follow music and get a bit more life experience before I lifted up the bonnet and took a look at what might be happening for me and therefore other people’s experiences,” she said.
“People’s experiences in life have always fascinated me. Even though I was in music, they were the sorts of questions that were coming through in my interviews with artists, their story and how their life had unfolded.
“I kind of always knew that psychotherapy was something I’d go back to and it really was me having my own family, settling down and just feeling like grounded enough to go back and study.”
She realised through this process she’d found a voice to express and explore the grief of losing a sibling in her early teens through music. this led her on a journey to explore the effect of music on mind, body and soul in her BBC series Journeys In Sound, which aired last year.
Combining both of her passions, she looked at how the brain reacts in different ways to music’s rhythms, vibrations and melodies, often managing to craft a playlist before being able to put what she wanted to say into words.
Recalling the music she first remembers moving her personally, she said: “It was something like Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. My emotions were stimulated and I absolutely loved that piece of music. I had it on a cassette and played it again and again.
“Music became part of my emotional development and probably formed part of a sort of language for me, a way of communicating. I think my shows have all been a way of conversing with the listeners.”
Metaxas is keynote speaker at Resonate, Scotland’s annual music industry conference, which takes place at Glasgow’s Platform on Thursday.
As well as live performances, the event aims to build a community between artists, record labels, producers, broadcasters and streaming platforms.
“Glasgow’s really close to my heart and I’ve been following and playing artists from the Scottish music scene for years,”
Metaxas said.“these events are invaluable because of the access that people have.there’s a myriad things going on at Resonate creatively, but also behind the scenes.
“For someone who loves music and wants to work in the industry but maybe isn’t sure what jobs exist and where, it’s a chance to sample all of that in one place.”
Metaxas is the perfect example of someone following her love of music into a varied and successful career, starting out on reception at Kiss in the late ’90s. She has presented on BBC Radio 1 and 2, and is now best known for her shows on Radio 6 Music.
“I had a properly varied intro to radio, but I think that gave me a grounding and an idea of just how many different areas there are to work in and the skills you need in each of those,” she said.
“Stepping inside the radio station, I thought, wow, this is a place of work? I permanently felt like I was clubbing and it didn’t feel like work – which we had to be careful of because otherwise you’d do it 24/7.”
Burnout is something all too familiar for those working in the music industry, and Metaxas hopes events like Resonate can put the spotlight on the mental health impacts.
She said: “It’s an industry that has a huge propensity for late nights and uncertainty, more so than ever.
“The financial worries were there at the beginning, but Covid has seriously put the boot in.
“I think it’s important we start to have wider conversations higher up the hierarchy of the music industry about what can be done, the working practices and things that might be put in place to help people have a healthier working environment.”