Lesson 24 – Discussing music

Summary

Taking part in a group discussion and sharing opinions and thoughts

The topic of the lesson was music. I had time to:

• talk about different genres of music and how they make me feel
• develop vocabulary related to music and phrases for feelings and emotions
• focus on –ed and –ing adjectives
• focus on the phonetic alphabet.

Music is part of my life – perhaps saying this may be a bit exaggerating, but I do usually listen to music at different moment of my life – on bus, doing revision, reading and all that jazz. Yet, it’s a shame to tell you that I’ve not been to any concert, not even once – If I go, I prefer to the VIP zone because I could see the singer closely, otherwise, there is no reason for me to the live show.

Nowadays, we could access to the Internet and so to the Youtube anyway all over the world – you know? You could get access to the WWW even on plan En-route. Therefore, I’ve not bought any CD from warehouse for almost ten yrs. It’s hard to believe in though.

Recently, my sister have just back for Traditional (Lunar) Chinese New Year and we discussed about music – I realize that I am quite odd since I have no idea what she listens to. My playlist is combination of those music produced a year or even few years ago – anyway – I am not looking for the latest music. On the contrary, I choose music in terms of various factors – the rhythm, tone  and beat, sometime I repeatedly play the same lists of music because of the lyrics and theme. Also, the quality is considered – I can’t stand those with noise or poor version. Stereo is the best!

Not gonna lie, I can’t tell the genres of music although I usually play music. So, the lesson is vary useful to me.

1. musical
2. disco
3. hip hop
4. rap
5. folk
6. classical
7. Dangdut
8. Instrumental
9. indie – 90’s music
10. grunge – type of rock
11. gregorian
12. country
13. rock reggae
14. RnB

To describe our feelings and emotions, we could say something like:

Example 1

• I had one (musical) experience that was quite (interesting).
• (Ivy) asked me to (go for the musical carnival). To be honest, I wasn’t all that excited by the idea, but I knew how disappointed she would be if I rejected her invitation, so I agreed to go along with her.
• The (funny) thing is, as we were waiting in the queue at the door, I bumped into my old schoolmate, Ming. I hadn’t seen him for years, but now he is helping out as well as a manager for the event and he helped us getting into the VIP zone.
• You can imagine how excited Ivy was when that happened – she had always wanted to meet “SuperBoy” closely. I had expected pop stars to be terribly big-headed and arrogant, but it was unbelievable to see how kind they were to us and how interested they were in chatting to us, even though they must meet star-struck fans all the time.
• They even asked Ivy to go onto the stage for a game and gave her a hug. I’ve never seen her so happy. It was quite moving, really.
• The event itself was an unexpected pleasure. The band was totally captivating – they really knew how to get the crowd dancing along with the “SuperBoy”. What was really stunning was the Choreography – it was amazing how professional the dancer were. I even stared dancing as well – I though that would be embarrassing, but it wasn’t, because there were thousands of participants in beach doing the same thing and more importantly, they were looking at the band instead of me.

Example 2

• My worst experience of music was when Ivy from school wanted to celebrate her birthday in karaoke room, instead of having a party in a restaurant, like we normally do.  She was really excited those “music” about a chart-topping techno DJ and wanted us all to dance with her. A part of me had doubts about it beforehand, especially when I was preparing for my final exam of the semester. I really didn’t want to go, but I didn’t want she to be disappointed, so I went along with it.
• Well, I didn’t mind paying a huge amount just to get into the karaoke room for food because I had not planed to dance, but what was really shocking was others she invited. Her friends were boldly smoking in the room although the big sign of forbidden smoking was showing on the wall. Indeed, Ivy knew that smoking get under my skin. It made me angry, because I felt like I was being betrayed.
• For me, the techno music is just deafening and kind of terrible noise. I prefer seating in decent restaurant, chatting with each an other while we could enjoy a feast. Anyway, at least Ivy was having a good time, I suppose.
• I went home as soon as I could. On Monday, Ivy sent me a message, ” I didn’t enjoy the party since I noticed your annoying – I cannot feel happy if you don’t” I didn’t know how to give here a further reply – but it could be my “worst experience of music” – in contrast, it is the best party I have joined – we do treat each an other as an important person in our life. It’s kind of unexpected bad experience that we could accept every now and then?!