S01 - 7 Music

Native English speakers answer questions about music. 

The answers are analysed for the best bits to help get your English up to that next level.

For classes or transcripts go to https://realexamenglish.com/

Music: Wholesome by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5050-wholesome

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Real Exam English, my name is Trevor and today we´re talking about music.

I think more or less everybody loves music, right! In this episode we hear about a wide variety of different music genres, we learn about the difference between classic and classical music and we also have some great phrasal verbs.

We have a super mix of accents for you today and in case you can´t follow everything the speakers say then you can request the transcripts on Facebook or Instagram, and they include some excellent grammar and vocabulary exercises to help improve your English.

Ok then, let´s go with the questions.

Trevor: What kind of music do you enjoy most?

Karen: Well, it´s easier for me to tell you what I don´t like. I don´t like country music, at all. But other than that I like all kinds of music but mostly, in general, I would say I listen to folk music. But just depending on my mood I can listen to jazz, and anything…am…pop..whatever….so I´m pretty openminded but I know I don´t like country music.

Trevor: A nice clear answer there from the Midwest of the United States and just one word to pick out here and that's open minded. So to be open minded means that you are willing to try new things and you're open to new or different ideas.

Trevor: What kind of music do you enjoy most?

Adrian: I like a lot of music, there´s things that I don´t like, y´know I don´t like hard metal and I don´t like punk. I like things that are easy to listen to. So I like classic music like Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac and y´know, sort of older things but I´ve also moved with the times so I check the internet every week and I go on websites and I find new music from new bands and that´s usually chillout, trip hop, sort of electronic dance music. So yea, I like a bit of everything I guess, there´s just one or two things I don´t like.

Trevor: We heard a few different types of music he mentioned there. We heard hard metal, classic chill out, trip hop and electronic dance music. Just to note that classic music is not the same as classical music, so classical music would refer to Mozart and Beethoven whereas classic music is music from the 1970s and 1980s, such as Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac, in the example here.

Trevor: What´s your favourite kind of music?

Mary: Good question….I like a lot of indie music, I like electronic music as well, I like dance music, drum ´n´bass, big fan of drum n´bass, but mostly like during the day I would listen to indie, kind of folk rock, that kind of thing.

Trevor: Have you ever tried to play a musical instrument?

Mary: Yea I studied music at school. I used to sing in the choir all through, actually all through school I sang in the choir from the age of six through to 18 and then I also learned to play the piano and the recorder. They kind of used to teach us to start playing on the recorder. Then I moved on to the piano, then I did exams kind of all the way through but I don´t have a piano now so all those years are kind of wasted. I wish I had learned to play an instrument that was portable, y´know something you could travel with. Maybe a guitar or a fiddle even, that would be awesome.

Trevor: This speaker managed to get a few different instruments into her answer. Uh, she mentioned the piano and the recorder. So the recorder is an instrument that usually kids learn to play in school because it's quite a a simple instrument to master. And she also mentioned the guitar and the fiddle, which is another name for the violin. She also has this great structure, I wish I had learned to play an instrument, and when you're talking about wishes in the past, you have to follow it with the past perfect. So like in this example, I wish I had learned to play an instrument and that's a really nice advanced structure to use.

Trevor: Do you ever go to concerts?

Emma: I would more call what i do going to see live music. Yes, I have been to concerts but concerts per se wouldn´t be my favourite thing to go to. They´re more crowded, too difficult to get into, too….aaaa…you don´t get to see the stage very well, it´s a little bit impersonal. I more like to go to kind of live music, gigs, that are small and intimate and perhaps even bands that aren´t well known, as much, but you feed off of the intimacy of having a small venue and a more relaxed environment.

Trevor: Can you sing or play an instrument?

Emma: Unfortunately no. I don´t…..I´m not talented in that area but I would love to be. 

Trevor: Just the word on the vocabulary here. If we take a look at the musical vocabulary and the answer we heard concerts, the stage, live music, gig, bands and a small venue. OK, so none of these words on their own are that fancy, but there's an excellent range of vocabulary and that is something that you're marked on in most English tests and something you should keep in mind when you're speaking or writing. And if we look at the the second answer it was really quite a short answer and that's absolutely fine. You don't have to have a long, elaborate answer for every single question in the test.

Trevor: Can you sing or play an instrument?

Diarmuid: Yes, some would say I can. I used to play a lot when I was younger and I played professionally in a band for many years, throughout my twenties. Had a great time, loved every minute of it but had to move on eventually.

Trevor: And what did you play?

Diarmuid: I played guitar and I sang.

Yet another phrasal verb for you here, which is I had to move on, so to move on means to start a new activity. So an example sentence would be when I finished tidying the house, I moved on to washing the windows. 

Remember you can get the transcripts for this and every episode on the real exam English pages on Facebook or Instagram, and you can also find lots of great grammar exercises there as well as really useful tips on how to prepare for your exam. And if you want information on classes to prepare for your exam, then you can find that there also.

Trevor: Do you ever listen to the radio? 

Roxane: Yea pretty much every day, I always listen. I listen to Radio One, BBC Radio One. I think I like it because it reminds me of home. I don´t always like every song but the talking always kind of keeps me up to date and reminds me of home a little bit.

Trevor: Yea I do the same, I listen to some Irish programs just because it´s someone Irish talking about Irish stuff like.

In this answer we heard this really nice expression the talking always kind of keeps me up to date and keep up to date means to ensure that you have the most current and accurate information, so an example sentence would be: please keep me up to date on how the sales of the new products are going.

Trevor: Do you ever go to concerts?

Adrian: Not at the moment because of Covid 19. I´m not a big concertgoer, no, I´m not. My girlfriend takes me to concerts. She´s a bit like me, she goes on these websites and she´ll look for new artists and she´ll drag me along to these things. And I´ll usually enjoy it when I get there. I went to watch an artist called Marc Ribellet and he makes music live, so he shouts out to the audience and he´ll say “gimme a theme” and people will say “eating pizza” and then he´ll just make a song up about eating pizza and he was brilliant, so funny, so that´s the last concert I went to. 

Trevor: We heard a really nice word in this answer, which was I'm not a big concert goer, so someone who goes to concerts is a concert goer. Or you may say that someone who goes to church is a churchgoer, or someone who goes to the theatre is a theatregoer. So really, really nice vocabulary there. And also we heard quite a common phrasal verb, which is to make a song up. So to make something up is to create or invent something. This is a phrasal verb that comes up quite quite frequently in Cambridge exams in use of English, so definitely make a note of it and an example sentence would be I made-up a story about having to work late so that I didn't have to meet my friend for dinner.

Trevor: What kind of music do you like?

Mike: I like all kinds of music. When I was younger I grew up on, like, a lot of funk, and heavy metal and punk rock, and as I was a teenager I was more into hip hop and djing and things like that. But if I have to choose right now, in my days right now, I don´t like anything too loud or too crazy so I prefer something a bit more mellow like jazz or classical which really helps me to, like, concentrate sometimes.

Trevor: We had this sentence when I was younger. I grew up on a lot of funk and heavy metal and punk rock. So to grow up on something is used for talking about things you did a lot or things you had a lot of when you were a child. So for example, you could say in Ireland we grew up on potatoes and butter. And we had another phrasal verb also in this answer, which was in the sentence as I was a teenager, I was more into hip-hop and DJing. OK, so to be into something means that you are interested in it. So an example would be: I'm really into photography these days.

That´s it for the questions today folks. You´ll notice that in every answer we heard a few different genres of music. Have a think about what different types of music you would mention in an exam if asked, and how you would structure your answer with some nice connectors. If you´re not really a music lover or a concert goer then you could always make up an answer!

Ok then, I´d really appreciate it if you can like and subscribe to the podcast on apple podcasts, spotify, ivoox or whatever podcast player you use. And don´t be shy about getting in contact on Facebook or Instagram, I´d love to hear from you.

Bye for now, Trevor