IELTS Speaking for Success - 🎸 Music, culture, and modern life (Part 3) + Transcript

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Get access to our episode archive: https://www.patreon.com/ieltssfs Is pop music truly 'the in thing' everywhere? Rory explains why you're 'at the mercy of' the crowd at live concerts and how musical education can enhance our cognitive abilities. Tune in for top-tier vocab! Tune in and have a great day! - Book a class with Rory here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://successwithielts.com/rory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Our course on Phrasal Verbs: https://successwithielts.com/podcourses Transcript: https://successwithielts.com/ Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2025 Podcourses Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, dear listener, and welcome into speaking part three about music events and music in general. What kind of music events do people like today? Well, generally speaking, it seems like pop music is the thing, or at least the in-thing these days. You can see pop artists at the top of most of the charts, like people like Taylor Swift, for example. What kind of music events are there in your country? Usually there's a little bit of everything, I think. We have folk music events and live bands all over the place, but there are also bigger concerts and orchestras and even operas in the major cities.

Do you think children should receive some musical education? In general, yes. It's good to be able to understand why things work and how they might be used to achieve some effect. And presumably we want music to be created in the future, so some kind of education will be necessary for that. It doesn't just happen by accident. What are the differences between old and young people's music preferences?

Well, that's a good question. I suppose usually older people seem to prefer more old-fashioned music, probably just because it's what they're used to, and they've been around longer, so of course it will be old-fashioned. While younger people tend to like newer and louder pieces and artists, I'm not sure why, that just seems to be the case. What are the differences between listening to music at home and at a live concert? By and large, when you listen to things at home,

you've got more control over the environment and choice in music, whereas, well, broadly speaking, at a live concert, you're sort of at the mercy of other people in their children, choices, aren't you? Why do many people like listening to music while doing sports? Well, I suppose as a rule, it might take their minds off any demanding activities or distract them from the huge effort they're probably making, because doing sports is pretty demanding, I would say, and maybe people don't really want to be in the moment, so they want to dissociate a bit. How has technology changed the way people listen to music? I suppose it's much.

made it more portable. So, for example, in the past, people would have had to go to an opera house to listen to music, whereas now, thanks to technology, you can just switch on a device and there everything is. The opera's literally in the palm of your hands. As you know, we now release all of our premium content for free, and it's available for one month. After one month, it goes into our super secret archive. To sign up for the archive, click the link in the description below. See you soon. Yeah, de Liszt. If we say it's music to my ears, it means you like it. Like I say like, oh, Rory, you are so educated. You look lovely. Your hair is fabulous. And Rory says, that's a lie.

No, I have. No, it's music to my ears. It's a nice thing to say. We're a nice thing to hear. No, let me see your hair. No, it does look nice. So yeah, it's music to my ears. It's like something I'm pleased to hear about.

So today, what music events do people like? So we should be up to date with the situation in the world. Everybody enjoys pop music, right? I think so. And we can say, like, different music festivals in New York, London, like, large-scale events, like large music festivals, massive festivals with pop music. And, like, top global music festivals include festivals in Belgium, for example, in, like, Burning Man, could be, like a music festival in the USA, yeah, like a famous Burning Man. Then there is some in the UK, actually, Glastonbury or something. Glastonbury?

Yes, you can see different music festivals all over the world. For example, Burning Man. And just small concerts, right, like music concerts, of pop artists. Artists, right? Like singers, we can call them pop. pop artists. Or pop icons. Icon.

Icons. An artist is someone who paints, draws, makes sculptures, but also who performs music. Then music events in your country. Right. Do you have any music festivals, any music concerts, maybe something massive? Like, oh, we have a massive music festival. Or we don't. We don't have anything.

or just like local concerts or gigs. Right, what's the difference between a concert and a gig? That's a good question, actually. I don't know. For me, they're kind of the same thing. What is the difference? So, a gig is a single performance by a musician or a group of musicians. Or it could be by a comedian.

So kind of like stand-up comedy could also be called a gig. So they did a gig in London. Could be music, could be stand-up comedy. A concert is only music, musicians, singers. So a pop concert, classical concert. Oh, okay. But you can say like, oh, like small gigs, small concerts in different pubs in my country. And we can say, like, we have pop concerts, we have folk music events.

So I think these days, like folk is really popular, like traditional music. Folk music. Folk is like traditional. Yeah. Bag pipes if you're in Scotland. Hmm. Traditional music. Yeah, in your country, like what is traditional.

So folk concerts, folk, folk festivals, folk singers, folk music events. Life bands play. play all over the place. So bands, like groups, music, bands, life bands. Like life music is popular. We also have bigger concerts with orchestras. Orchestra, okay, pronunciation, orchestra. Orchestra when, like, different instruments play a large group of musicians who play many

different instruments. And there is a conductor. So we have an orchestra and a conductor. So, for example, concerts with orchestras are popular. We have operas. You can, yeah. I don't think they're as popular as they are in other countries, but we definitely have them. Yeah, do you listen.

So you can say, like, we have jazz festivals, opera festivals, heavy metal festivals, hip-hop festivals, electronic music festivals, concerts, classical music festivals, Opera festivals, anything. Jazz, rock, festivals, reggae. Oh, like the music

Bob Marley made. Yeah. Very nice choice. Musical education is when you have lessons on music. Maybe you are taught how to play an instrument.

So children should be taught how to play an instrument. Like play music instruments, yeah, maybe. And you can, say it's good to be able to understand music. Be able to. So if you can understand music, it's good. It's good for kids. And you can say that musical education enhances cognitive abilities in children. So it kind of improves thinking. It improves brain. And it improves

social skills. So children communicate with each other. Yeah, they play music. They communicate, you know, with music. They teach us. And you can say that, yeah, to explore children's talents, they can learn to play music. So what do we do?

Like, we play music, we do music. Well, we play music if we press play play and something produces music. We might record music if we're in a band and we make songs, for example. Yeah, and musical education includes what? Hmm, good question. They take music lessons. They take music lessons and learn about music.

They learn rhythm, notes, and teaching children music reduces stress. People's music preferences. So preferences, what they like. And we can say that older people seem to prefer old-fashioned music. Like folk music, classical music, opera, while younger people, so contrast, while younger people tend to like pop music, yeah, newer music or louder.

I suppose that's just because they hear it. They're more immediately. Modern music. And here you mean like louder pieces, Like, not loud music, but louder in what meaning? Louder pieces, like louder songs. It's just loud. It's not quiet. Yeah. It's louder than the ones that older people listen to, for example.

But is a performance or like a piece of music, for example. Yeah, but louder in terms of volume, right? Yeah, the sound. Yeah, so young people prefer to listen to loud music while older people. prefer quiet music like jazz, blues. I think so, but I suppose that's just the older people now. Older people of the future, who are the young people today, may have different tastes. Yeah, and here you use a contrast.

So older people, blah, blah, blah, while younger people tend to, right? And we talk about trends. So older people seem to prefer classical music while younger people tend to like more. modern music. So here we're not saying younger people prefer, but younger people tend to prefer. So not always, there might be some young people who prefer to listen to quieter music. But that's okay. We can listen to music at home or at a live concert.

Careful, dear listener, listen to always. Listen to music. Listen to music. Listen to Rory. Listen to podcasts. Listen to, to always, yeah? And listen to live music, not a recording, but you go there and the orchestra. is playing, you listen to it, life. And then Rory uses buy and large,

which is a strange expression. How do you use it, Rory, buy and large? It's a binomial. You use it when you're talking about things and people in general. So instead of saying, in general, you say, buy and large. It's C1, dear listener. It's an idiom. So pretty much like, in general, the sound is better.

at a life concert or by and large, the sound is better at a life concert. Yeah, like generally speaking. And indeed, Maria, you have noticed what I've done with the other answers because in part three, we don't give answers about our personal life, we give answers about people in general. So ways that we can do this are very simple things like generally speaking, or usually, or what people tend to do, but there are more complex expressions like in general or by and large or as a rule.

So all of these can be used to talk about people and things in general. When you listen to things at home, you have control over the environment. You control the environment, you control the choice in music. Whereas at a life concert, see whereas while contrast, at a life concert, You are at the mercy of other people. So to be at the mercy of somebody. So to be under control of some other people. To be at the mercy of someone, it's C2, Band 9.

Oh my God. To be at the mercy of someone, to be in a situation where someone has complete power over you. so you go to a concert you don't control pretty much anything so you are at the mercy of other people's choices the organizers

of the musicians you just there you know yeah when you fly to some other country you are at the mercy of the airline so they have power over you or I'm at the

mercy of the government right I'm at the mercy of the weather We can't do pretty much Anything about the weather So we are at the mercy of the elements Yeah

Make efforts So people make a lot of effort While doing sports While working out So they want to dissociate But that's just like Disconnect from your body It's probably not a very good thing

So they don't want to be in the moment They don't want to be consciously aware of what's going on, it's not a healthy thing to do. It's just something that we refer to when you're not focusing on something. Yeah, so they want to dissociate, separate. That's why they listen to music to get distracted. They want to dissociate from doing exercises. Yeah, that's a nice idea. And these days, we have music in the palm of our hands or hand. Uh, in, in our hand. Oh, sorry, in our hands, I should see. Yeah, or you can say, like, you have music in the palm of your hand. It's an idiom, so pretty much under your complete control.

You have your phone, so it's in your hand, literally. So you have music in the palm of your hand. So under control, in your control. So like, like, handy. Close by. And it's usually used to talk about phones, for example. or some gadget that you can have in your hand. I think it used to be MP3 players, if you're old enough to remember those. But now it's about phones because we all listen to music on our phones,

or most of us do, by and large. By and large. Yes. Do you think we've covered everything by and large? Yay! Thank you very much for listening. We'll get back to you in our next episode, okay? Bye! What kind of music events

do people like today? Well, generally speaking, it seems like pop music is the thing, or at least the in-thing these days. You can see pop artists at the top of most of the charts, like people like Taylor Swift, for example. What kind of music events are there in your country? Usually there's a little bit of everything, I think. We have like folk, music events and live bands all over the place, but there are also bigger concerts and orchestras and even operas. in the major cities. Do you think children should receive some musical education?

In general, yes. It's good to be able to understand why things work and how they might be used to achieve some effect. And presumably we want music to be created in the future, so some kind of education will be necessary for that. It doesn't just happen by accident. What are the differences between old and young people's music preferences? Well, that's a good question. I suppose usually older people seem to prefer more old-fashioned music, probably just because it's what they're used to, and they've been around longer, so of course it will be old-fashioned.

While younger people tend to like newer and louder pieces and artists, I'm not sure why. That just seems to be the case. What are the differences between listening to music at home and at a live concert? by and large, when you listen to things at home, you've got more control over the environment and choice in music, whereas, well, broadly speaking, at a live concert, you're sort of at the mercy of other people and their choices, aren't you? Why do many people like listening to music while doing sports? Well, I suppose as a rule, it might take their minds off any demanding activities or distract them from the huge effort they're probably making because doing sports is pretty demanding,

I would say, and maybe people don't really want to be in the moment, so they want to dissociate a bit. How has technology changed the way people listen to music? I suppose it's made it more portable. So, for example, in the past, people would have had to go to an opera house to listen to music, whereas now, thanks to technology, you can just, well, switch on a device and they're everywhere. Everything is. The opera's in, literally in the palm of your hands.