IELTS Speaking for Success - 🎸 Musical instruments (S09E25) + Transcript

Episode Date: October 29, 2023

Do you play a musical instrument? Did you take any classes on musical instruments in school? Which musical instrument do you like? What instrument would you like to play? How easy would it be to learn to play a musical instrument without a teacher? Tune in and have a great day! - Book a class with Rory here: https://successwithielts.com/rory Get exclusive episodes on IELTS Speaking parts 1, 2, and 3: https://linktr.ee/sfspremium Our course on Phrasal Verbs: https://successwithielts.com/podcourses Transcript: https://successwithielts.com/s09e25 Our IELTS Writing course: https://linktr.ee/wfspremium Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2023 Success with IELTS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, lovely, I'm Maria. And my name is Rory, and we are the host of the AILD Speaking for Success podcast. The podcast aims to help you improve your speaking skills, as well as your listening skills along the way. We've started this podcast to give you gorgeous grammar and fabulous vocabulary for your high AILD school. Oh, yeah, I just forgot. Maria, are you playing the ukulele? Yes. Oh, it's very soothing.

Can by band nine Nine? The lengths I'm going to follow this focus. Yes, the listener, we are very excited to talk about musical instruments. Do you play a musical instrument? I'm afraid, no. I actually really

struggled to coordinate my hands and feet, so playing something like piano or the ukulele would be a real challenge for me. Did you take any classes on musical instruments in school? We used to have recorder lessons in school, in primary school that is. A recorder is like a woodwind instrument. It looks like a flute, but you don't play it from the side. You play it from the front with your fingers.

And then later on in high school, I had passing encounters with the drums and various guitars, but that's about it really. Which musical instrument do you like? I quite like the bass guitar and the flute, actually. I'm not sure if you would ever, or how you would ever get them in combination, but I like those two in particular. Oh, and I like the drums.

Well, any percussion instrument, really, I just like the idea of establishing the beat. That's quite good for me. What instrument would you like to play? I used to really want to learn how to play the flute, but it was, well, it was far too complex for me basically, and I had other things going on at the time. So I think I'd settle for playing things like the guitar or the drums right now. Like I say, I had isolated encounters with them in high school, but that all went completely out the window,

well, essentially after high school, because just other things were happening. How easy would it be to learn to play a musical instrument without a teacher? Well, for me, next to impossible, I really need the support for things like this. However, some people are really good at just, well, picking up an instrument and playing along with their peers or just by messing around with them. That's quite impressive. Dear listener, we do have our premium episodes for you, speaking part two and three with more gorgeous grammar and super vocabulary and four. fresh aiot speaking topics. This week on our premium we are talking about parks and gardens. In speaking part two, describe a park and in speaking part three about parks and gardens in general.

Do check them out the links are the description. So first of all, musical instruments. The listener, so we play a musical instrument. Rory told us that I really struggled to coordinate my hands and my hands and and fit. So when you coordinate your hands, so when you play, you have to coordinate, you know, hands. And then you change things here, you coordinate this hand with this hand. So coordination. Okay. You have to move them together effectively, but I can't do that. And I think with a piano, that's particularly important.

And we say like play the piano, right? So play the guitar. So play the ukulele. What about drums? Play the drums? Or, well, bang the drums. Yeah, it's important that it's the, though. And I think it's because it's a specific instrument that we have the. We don't usually say, I know how to play a ukulele, for example. You can also say a couple words about chords. And the chords is also a term for the musical notation as well, right? You see the chords in a line, and it tells you where to put your fingers to play the notes.

Right, and we change chords. And also, you can say that I struggle to stretch my fingers because like to play a chord, you need to sometimes, you know, do this. And this freaking like physically, I can't do certain things. And it's like, you know, like on YouTube, they're sitting there nicely with the guitars. Like, oh, you want to learn to play the guitar. That, da, that. And then at home, you were just sitting there like, I have to do what?

This finger goes where? So yeah, yeah, it's difficult to stretch my fingers or, um, Sometimes your fingers have to be stretched in an unnatural way. They even have to be positioned in an unnatural way. In school, we used to play something or I used to have classes. And Rory mentioned another musical instrument, which is a recorder. A recorder is a type of a flute. Yeah.

Well, I don't know if it's a type of flute. It's definitely a type of woodwind instrument, which means that the movement of the wind is how the sound is produced. is a really simple explanation because I have at least two friends who are into music and musical theater and I was talking to them about this yesterday and I think my really simple explanations made their heads explode

or you can say like I didn't used to have any classes on music or we just had music or you had music theory you learned things about nodes and I don't know what do what they what do well music theory oh no Again, I'm going to apologize for oversimplifying things. Music theory is about the underlying principles behind how to create musical pieces and how to understand them.

Musical notes and notation is the representation of the writing in this particular pattern because music has its own written system and code. It's like its own language. You can also say I had isolated encounters, with guitars or with drums or with yukule ladies like isolated isolated they're not together they're isolated encounters like meetings

so I can say like sometimes we had classes in music and we played the drums or to be super cool and full of awesome you say we had isolated encounters with drums but that just means it's like one lesson on the drums and nothing else, no chance for a progression, as it were. But that's just a sad fact of life in a high school. You don't have, unless you're taking specific lessons,

you don't have time for the sequencing to build up over time. That's a bit sad. Right, and we have classes in music. Classes in musical instruments? Yes. Well, it's interesting, because a class in something and a class on something. Hmm, what is the difference? So, classes in something or classes on something, usually interchangeable.

Yes, very small difference in meaning. A class in something would be like in the subject, so that's like a closed item. But a class on something, like a class on something specific, like a class on playing the drums, for example. Oh, Rory, this is impossible, really. Can I just say... It's not impossible. There is an underlying principle. there is an underlying principle behind how we use our prepositions in English. I never took an interest in music or I never took an interest in playing the drums or outside school, for example. Or I took an interest in playing the drums outside school.

Then, de listener, you should know some names for musical instruments. Rory mentioned the bass, the bass guitar, or electric guitar, de listner. or just bass. And we have acoustic guitar. Rory mentioned the flute. Please Google if you have no idea what we are talking about, the flute. And popular instruments are violin, the piano,

also saxophone, which is lovely. And that's it pretty much. Oh, ukulele, maybe. That's all of the instruments, every last one of them. No, no, but it's the most popular, the most popular instruments. Percussion instruments. are really nice percussion.

It's about the... To elaborate on Maria's technical explanation, percussion instruments create sound by striking something against something else. So the sound is created by the hitting or the impact, the kinetic energy, if you will. See, science words. I can do that. I can't do musical instruments, I'm afraid. I really want to play the fruit.

fruit or I want to play the guitar but it's complex or it's complicated yeah and even like this you know it has like four strings strings but it's pretty tough you know maybe it's the easiest instrument to play but still if something goes out the window oh if something goes out the window that it completely disappears and so all of my music lessons just went out the window and all of my musical interest went out the window aside from listening to music after high school, because I didn't have the chance to learn how to play an instrument after that. I have a gift for it. I have a gift for playing the drums.

I have a gift for creating music. Have a gift for something. Have this ability. Do you have a gift for playing the ukulele? Because I have never seen you do that before. That was amazing. Well, I've been playing for two months. Okay?

Why? Every day. Every single day. Maybe sometimes twice a day. Is this because you knew that we were going to talk about instruments and you were like, I'm going to play a musical instrument for this. No, no. Actually, I've always wanted to play an instrument. Yeah, because my father is a musician. My father can play different instruments. Actually, a Scottish one, back pipes, you can play.

But I didn't, so I've always wanted to do that. And now I'm doing it, okay, dear listener, and this is motivation for you to get a high school for IELs. If I can play this, you can do pretty much anything, okay, with my freaking fingers. And my left hand, my left hand just doesn't work. It's like half, half dead. I can't, do I have fingers here? I have to do what? So it's really, but I can do it. At least you're trying. I couldn't do that. Well, I know, let's have a gross mindset. I could probably do that, but I don't have the time or the inclination. Some people can pick it up. For example, I just take an instrument and kind of like, I else. Rory, I've spent so much time, Maria.

Please tell me, where is my band? I just start playing without learning anything. I'm natural, so I can pick it up just by watching some videos on YouTube. Well, or just through experiencing something, it's not about the explicit teaching. It's just about the experience and then trying out and failing and then trying again. Or you can play with your peers, with your friends, people of the same age as you, play with your peers or mess around with them. Although I should say my referencing was not really good though because I said you could play with your peers or just by messing around with them. And of course I meant by messing around with the instruments, not your peers.

But that's not super clear. So make sure that when you do that, you're much clearer than I am when you're talking. Right. With a teacher or without a teacher. So Rory told us next to impossible, and I actually agree, right? Because I have a teacher. And when you start from zero, I started from like zero knowledge about music. Look, there is this posture, first of all, the position of your body. Like how to hold an instrument accurately, correctly, right? How to like change chords. So how to finger chords. So we change chords. Finger position. How to tune it. Yeah? Like tune, tune's a guitar or any instrument. So we do need a teacher besides you. Okay, yeah.

Or at least someone with a great deal of patience. Right. Do you now, thank you very much for watching, for listening. Bye. Bye. Do you play a musical instrument? I'm afraid no. I actually really struggled to coordinate my hands and feet.

So playing something like piano, or the ukulele would be a real challenge for me. Did you take any classes on musical instruments in school? We used to have recorder lessons in school, in primary school that is. A recorder is like a woodwind instrument. It looks like a flute, but you don't play it from the side, you play it from the front with your fingers. And then later on in high school,

I had passing encounters with the drums and various guitar. but that's about it really. Which musical instrument do you like? I quite like the bass guitar and the flute, actually. I'm not sure if you would ever, or how you would ever get them in combination, but I like those two in particular. Oh, and I like the drums.

Well, any percussion instrument, really, I just like the idea of establishing the beat. That's quite good for me. What instrument would you like to play? I used to really want to learn how to play the flute. But it was, well, it was far too complex for me, basically, and I had other things going on at the time. So I think I'd settle for playing things like the guitar or the drums right now. Like I say, I had isolated encounters with them in high school, but that all went completely out the window,

well, essentially after high school, because just other things were happening. How easy would it be to learn to play a musical instrument without a teacher? Well, for me, next to Impossible, I really need the support for things like this. However, some people are really good at just, well, picking up an instrument and playing along with their peers or just by messing around with them. That's quite impressive. Then I bought the premium and the phrasse of off course, and I got my band nine. Of course. Then I got the premium and the phrase of course and I got five by nine. Of course.

The links are in the description to your listener. So if you want to support Maria's music, get the premium and the phrase of a course, okay?