IELTS Speaking for Success - 🎤 Singing (S10E04) + Transcript

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

Do you like singing? What kinds of music do you like to sing? Have you ever learnt how to sing? Who do you want to sing for? Is it difficult to sing well? 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/s10e04 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 © 2024 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 hosts of the IEL Speaking for Success podcast, the podcast that aims to help you improve your speaking skills, as well as your listening skills along the way. We're starting this podcast to give you gorgeous grammar and super vocabulary for your high I old school. Your band 9 score. Don't stop me now.

I'm having such a good time. I'm having a ball. Maria, you're quite good at singing, aren't you? Nah, not really. Let's talk about singing. Hopefully you're good at talking about it. Do you like singing? Listening to it, yeah.

Doing it myself, only ever in the comfort of my own home and by myself. I am not good at it. If I sing, it's like someone swinging a bag of cats around. It's a horrible sound. What kinds of music do you like to sing? Oh, anything I know the words are the tune for. I don't think there's a specific genre, although it's easier for me to remember the lyrics to pop songs, for example.

Have you ever learned how to sing? I think we had some lessons in school, but they weren't particularly advanced or in-depth. We learned some hymns and some folk songs to accompany traditional music. Some students had private lessons, of course, but not me. Who do you want to sing for?

I mean, ideally, no one. I can't hold the tune or control my breathing to keep a decent flow, and I won't really want to subject anyone to that, to be honest. Maybe if I was part of a choir or singing a hymn or a crowd, singing some kind of chant, then maybe, because then I could hide all of my flaws and disappear in the crowd. Is it difficult to sing well? Well, it's hard for me to do because of all the issues I mentioned before,

but if I had appropriate voice coaching, then it might be easier for me. When you're flying Emirates business class, relaxing in an exclusive airport lounge, you'll see that your vacation isn't really over until your flight is over. Fly Emirates, fly better. Deal is now, we do have our premium episodes for you,

No singing, just quality grammar, super vocabulary and fresh IELD speaking topics. So if you are taking IELS soon, check out our premium episodes speaking part two, three. The links are in the description. Rory, in which city do people sing a lot of songs? Which one? Singapore. If you are listening to us from Singapore, I apologize. God.

Oh, oh, we can have another joke, you know, like, where can't people sing? Like, people can't sing where? Singapore. Poor? Like, they have poor singing. Oh, poor people from Singapore. Singing, de listen to. So, I enjoy singing. Can I say I do singing? You could say I do singing. You definitely don't make it. You make a noise, or I do, but you do singing. Or you sing. We sing songs and in the past like, oh, at school I sang songs.

If you sing by yourself, so you are alone and you do this, Don't stop me now, by yourself, yeah, alone. Well, you sing by yourself, you sing solo, right? Yeah, solo, yeah, alone. In the comfort of my own home. So I usually sing by myself alone. In the comfort of my own home. So at home.

That is not something that is likely to happen. Or I sing while I'm driving a car. Or maybe I enjoy singing while I'm walking in the street. Also, Rory, where do people go to sing? There's a special bar. What do you call this bar? Oh, karaoke bar. Yeah.

How do you pronounce it? Kara what? Karaoke. But I think karaoke is a Japanese word, actually. Absolutely, yeah. karaoke. Do you listen to sing karaoke? You can say sometimes I enjoy singing karaoke, karaoke or karaoke, a form of entertainment originally from Japan. Or you can say that I have a poor singing voice or I have a beautiful singing voice. Rory told us that when he sings, it's like, like, like what?

It's like swinging a bag of cats around and I'm sure I've used this before. Imagine I have like a bag, I put cats in the bag and then I go like this. So I swing now this bag full of cats and what will cats do? They will make horrible sounds. So when Rory sings, it's like someone is swinging a bag of cats. Is it an Indian Rory? It's a metaphor because that's what it's. sounds like. Could you give us a sentence with a bag of cats? When untrained people sing,

sometimes it's like they're swinging a bag of cats around. Yeah. Kinds of music or genres. Dear listener also we call them styles of music. Rory told us about pop songs. So it's easier for me to remember the lyrics. We don't usually say the words use the word lyrics. So I remember the lyrics of pop songs more easily. I can remember the lyrics, the words of pop songs. What is a tune? So I know the words, I know the lyrics, and I know the tune for a song. So the tune is the sound that, well, I can't think of another word. The tune is a sound that characterizes a piece of music. So it's the music that's playing while a specific song is on. I cannot give an example without breaking copyright.

I'm sorry. So I sing anything if I know the lyrics and if I know the tune for this particular song. In terms of genres, styles, I prefer pop songs. You can say that, well, dear examiner, I actually enjoy extreme death metal. Do you enjoy extreme death metal? Oh my gosh. No, yesterday I listened to a couple of, no, seconds of extreme death metal and

I think most people like pop songs in fact I think that might be why they're called pop songs to be honest with you yeah jazz music for example

rock rock is pretty popular yeah R&B rhythm and blues I learned how to sing at school you can say

I had singing training or I had musical training at school or I didn't yeah Roy told us about music lessons at school or singing lessons, which were not advanced and they were not in depth.

That just means that they did not cover a lot in the lessons. It was just like, this is how you play this note, or this is how you do this thing. It is possible that they did more, but I was a child, and it's a long time ago, so I don't remember that much. I sang hymns. Hems are religious songs, usually Christian ones, although there are other religions that have hymns as well. Oh, what about every country has its own? Oh yes, a national anthem.

We don't have a national anthem in our country, so we didn't learn that. So you can say that at school I learned hymns, anthems, and I sang folk songs. Folk is something traditional. How is it going to be in Scotland? Well, that's a good question. because in different parts of the country there's different folk culture. So in northern parts of the country, those songs would be Gallic. In other parts it would be traditional Scots music.

It really depends where you are. And probably that's the same in most countries. Folk music tends to change based on the region of the country that you're in. We can sing for other people. And the question is like, who do you want to sing for? So I want to sing for my family. my family. Rory doesn't want to sing for anybody because he can't hold a tune. So to hold a tune. Yes, so to hold a tune is to sing the correct sounds of a piece of music. You can hold a tune or

you can carry a tune. Carry a tune. So I can't carry a tune or I'm good at singing, dear listener, if you're good. I can't control my breathing because breathing is important when you sing and you have to breathe from the diaphragm. Diapham. God, there's a fun word to spell. Diapham is this thing? Well, you won't be able to see a diaphragm. It's the muscle inside you that I think it's under your lungs. And it's part of your breathing.

So as you breathe in, the diaphragm goes down. I think it contracts or expands depending. And then when you breathe out, it forces the air out of your lungs. and I can't keep a decent flow. Flow of, you know, sounds of, I know, music of breath. I can't keep a decent flow. So I don't want anybody to hear my singing. So I say, I don't want to subject anyone to my singing.

Subject somebody to something. What's a choir? I think a choir is just a group of people that sing songs together. I'm sure it's usually religious songs, but there are non-religious versions of these kinds of groups. Yeah, like to sing in a choir, a group of people, sing at the same time. You can also say I can't reproduce a note, a note is a certain sound, yeah. You can not say, like, I'm tone deaf, deaf, I can't kind of distinguish music. Well, a lot of people think that they're tone deaf, but apparently they're not. They're just.

just don't, well, they're just not very good at singing songs. Those are two different things. Tone deafness is a really specific thing, actually, but lots of people say that they have it. Exactly. Yeah, only like it's a rare occasion that a person has this tone deafness. Yeah, like only 5% of people around the world have it. You sing well or you sing badly?

Or your singing is horrendous or horrible? But you can have voice coaching. Okay, so voice lessons or voice coaching, you can have a voice coach or a voice teacher. Right, or sometimes this person is called a vocal coach. Oh, you could teach yourself. Also, you can mention, like, the technical aspects of singing, like vocal production. So technical aspects are difficult. but also body movements to support your singing.

What are the technical aspects of vocal production? I don't know any of these. I think technical aspects are kind of about the organs. That's what do you have to do and how do you have to breathe to produce sounds correctly? Dear Listen, if you're into singing, could you let us know in the comments, okay? Like the technique, how to breathe, how to kind of posture your position, right? How to position your body? and also like what organs inside your throat you need to relax.

Is that just your tongue and your vocal cards? Yeah, maybe there are some other organs you have to. I don't know, I'm not a scientist. Your brain? Well, I would have to relax my brain. Also, the listener, here, the examiner can ask you questions about life concerts. Rory, have you ever been to a life concert? I have, but not for a very long time.

So you stay there for five minutes and then you left. No, no, I haven't. been there for a very long time. Although there are some terrible bands I've seen in bars, so I've just left after that. Dear listener, singing is as natural to us as speaking. Okay. Rory is too shy to sing. I'm too terrible to sing.

So remember that singing is our universal language. And now the joke. Rory, are you ready? As ready as I will ever be. Okay, brace yourself. Brace yourself. Oh, okay. Okay.

What do cats sing? Music. Oh, wow. Okay. I'm floating around in ecstasy. Don't stop me now. Oh, I'm going to have to stop you now. Bye.

Bye. Do you like singing? Listening to it, yeah. Doing it myself. Only ever in the comfort. of my own home and by myself, I am not good at it. If I sing, it's like someone swinging a bag of cats around. It's a horrible sound.

What kinds of music do you like to sing? Oh, anything I know the words are the tune for. I don't think there's a specific genre, although it's easier for me to remember the lyrics to pop songs, for example. Have you ever learned how to sing? I think we had some lessons in school, but they weren't particularly advanced or in-depth. We learned some hymns and some folk songs

to accompany traditional music. Some students had private lessons, of course, but not me. Who do you want to sing for? I mean, ideally no one. I can't hold the tune or control my breathing to keep a decent flow, and I won't really want to subject anyone to that, to be honest. Maybe if I was part of a quote,

choir or singing a hymn or a crowd, singing some kind of chant, then maybe, because then I could hide all of my flaws and disappear in the crowd. Is it difficult to sing well? Well, it's hard for me to do because of all the issues I mentioned before, but if I had appropriate voice coaching, then it might be easier for me.