IELTS English Podcast - Speaking Topic: Music

good day students from around the world it's your arts tutor jack here and welcome back to another episode of the ielts plus english podcast [Music] today's topic is music and i love music it's quite a big part of my life so we're going to talk about it a lot today of course if you want to learn about music learn some great vocabulary expressions and see today's common questions go to jacks hyphen english dot com to download the free handout and all of the handouts from the previous lessons you can find there it's a wonderful resource

i hope you're enjoying it today's topic is quite an important one for me because as i said music is and has been a big part of my life you may not know this but i i used to play the drums a lot i used to play the piano i took exams in piano took exams in drums so i used to be part of a band believe it or not i was the drummer in a rock band so it's uh it is a i have a lot of history in music and nowadays i just love listening

to music it's a a big part of my commute when i go from my house to work so how about you do you play a musical instrument let me know in the comments on youtube i love to hear from you and let's get straight into today's topic do some part ones to start what types of music do you like to listen to i like to listen to all types of music really all types of music i sometimes listen to rock music rap electronic dance music i do like dance music a lot there's some musical genres

in england which are quite unique to england such as garage and indie rock these genres i think they originated or they are unique to england and i love those as well next question have you ever been in a music group or band yes i have been in a rock band it was a long time ago now a really long time ago it was when i was about perhaps 16 or 17 maybe around that kind of age and i joined a group of friends i was the drummer we had a bass guitar a lead guitar a

singer it was uh it was a lot of fun we would go to my friend's house he had a huge house and play jam practice yeah it was a really nice experience and uh let's go on to a part two so today's part two is describe a band you enjoy listening to okay so we'll put two minutes on the clock and start now i'd like to tell you about coldplay when i was young uh there was a song came out called yellow i don't remember how old i was i would guess around 15 and this

song came out called yellow i might have been older it was not revolutionary but it was a really lovely song it swept around the uk and then i believe it was a big hit around the world and it was just a really nice song it was a kind of mellow it was slow it was by a rock band i think you could describe coldplay as a rock band and it did so well and that was the start of their career that was the one that made them famous so let me tell you a little more

about coldplay coldplay are i suppose you would call them a rock band and this lead singer is a really good singer it's quite rare to have such a good singer as the front man the thing i really like about them is they've actually been around for certainly 15 maybe even 20 years now and they are constantly upgrading and evolving adding new technology to the way that they construct music you know they're doing collaborations with other famous artists so they're really interesting band who are constantly changing and redefining what you think are a rock band is

for me personally i like their music right from the start up until the present day the the earlier work was more traditional with guitars and it was kind of more mellow and some of my favorite songs come from the earlier days okay do you know coldplay i think everyone knows coldplay right here in south korea they have come here and performed and they were very very popular really they did a great performance here and i think all over the world you probably know them if you don't i recommend you know search on youtube see see

how they are they're really good band good okay let's move on to some part threes do you think music is getting better as time goes on i certainly don't think that i'm not someone who hates modern music i do like some modern music i think it's very catchy you know thinking about people like bts they make very catchy melodies and they do incredibly well around the world but i would say that it's definitely not getting better and for me some of the best music comes from the the 90s and 2000s but hey i'm sounding like

an old man now i like the older music that i grew up with i guess everyone will be like that right so no i don't think music is getting better god i feel so old now let's do another question is it better to go to a live concert or to listen to a cd that really depends on the person uh i'm not a personally i'm not a huge fan of going to a live concert because it's very loud uh it can be quite rough you've got a queue to get in the experience is incredible so

the high you feel from going to a live concert is more extreme than if you were to listen to a cd you feel an incredible euphoria as you're listening to live music but does that make it better maybe not because cds are so convenient we can listen to it while we drive while we're in the street anywhere of course nowadays cd is a bit outdated we we all use mp3s now so no i i would say it depends on the person okay i don't know why it says cd i think this today's topic is trying

to make me look more old talking about cds we haven't had cds for decades anyway one more do you think that music should be a compulsory subject in schools yes i think it should be a compulsory subject i don't think it should take much time uh i think it should just at least exist to give students an opportunity to experience music and then decide to take it more seriously or not i think that having music class gives students a chance to experience instruments to improvise music with the instruments to sing along to music together so

it's more about just providing a an initial experience that they may want to take more seriously later and i think that's important okay that's music done another topic ticked off we're on topic 27 now and we'll move to topic 28 next week which will be nation and culture a fantastic subject of course if you want all of the free materials that go with this podcast go to my website www.jacksonenglish.com please show me your appreciation with a like subscribe be part of the community comment i try to get involved with the ielts plus community and i

hope you enjoy it have a great week this week and study super super hard to review music and preview nation and culture see you next week bye [Music] [Applause] [Music]