25+ English Expressions for Musicians & Music Lovers

Take it away.

Okay.

I will.

Well, welcome back to today's lesson in which

we are going to look at useful phrases for

musicians.

But don't go away if you are not a musician because this will serve as great listening

practice for you if you're preparing for an IELTS exam as an example.

But more than that, you will learn some

musical idioms on the second board behind me.

It's not behind me now, but it will be.

So it will help your general English ability.

And you'll probably learn a thing or two if you're not a musician about music.

So if you want to be a good musician, if you

want to be a working musician who people want

to play with, then you need to practice.

There's no getting away from it unless you're sort of Mozart.

Now I play the saxophone, and one of my role

models is Charlie Parker, who played the alto

saxophone.

And he coined this phrase of "spending some

time in the woodshed" because he used to live

on a farm in a shed, and when he lived in that

shed, he spent three or four years practicing

for 11 to 15 hours a day and became an absolute musical genius.

So if you feel that you need to spend some time at home practicing, then you could say

I'm just going to spend some time in the woodshed.

And it doesn't matter if you don't have a shed because we understand from that phrase

that all right, yeah, it's become an idiom, really.

He's going to go and do some practice, or she's going to go and do some practice.

You might hang a "please do not disturb" sign

on the door so that we're under no doubt that

this person is practicing.

Once you've practiced and you've got good, I hope it doesn't take three or four years,

but it is going to take some effort, then you might want to find a band.

Now, the old-fashioned way of doing that is by going to some open mic nights.

Open mic, the microphone, meaning the microphone

is set up with the speakers on the stage,

typically in a pub if you're in the UK, or the upstairs room of a pub, and you kind of

take it in turns to come and play a song.

Maybe someone's... you have musicians already there, and you'll take it in turns.

Maybe there's a list, you have to put your name down on the list so we know what order

you're going to be playing in.

But that's a great way of meeting musicians who are looking to get some experience, and

sometimes some very good ones.

Once you've started getting good, then sometimes

it just naturally happens that people start

going, "Oh, yeah, yeah, you play this instrument.

Maybe you can come and play with us."

So, word of mouth.

Now, that means that opportunities are coming

to you just by people talking, by word of

mouth.

Then there are websites which will say things

like "lead guitarist required", "needed",

and then you can get in touch and have a phone

call and discuss, see if they are the right

fit for you.

Once you've found a band, then you're going

to want to put together a repertoire of music

so that if you have a gig, as in a concert

that you are playing, then you have some songs

that you can play.

And you'll probably spend some time jamming.

Not pots of jam, no, it just means where you are improvising.

You're creating your own music.

You're not reading the music from sheet music,

which is music written down on paper, but

you are...

You're making it up.

You're creating it yourselves.

Now, at the actual gig, at the event, the

concert you are playing, you might find that

you are playing some covers.

Now, a cover is a popular song made popular by a famous musician, and you are going to

do sort of your version of the song.

Some things you might say to your band if you

are leading the band, you might say, "Take

it from the top", which means start from the

beginning, which seems a common sense thing

to say.

Or you might say, "Take it away, guys", which means let's play, play.

So probably you won't say anything to the audience before the first song, you'll just

play the first song and then address the audience.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.

We are...

What's the name of your band?

We are Hula Lula and the Lulu's.

I don't know what you're called.

And that was...

What was the name of the song you have just played?"

Yeah, past tense.

That was "In the Mood" by Glenn Miller.

I don't know.

What did you play?

Now, you probably won't introduce the band until a little bit later in the act, in the

gig, because the audience have to see that

the musicians are worth clapping, that they've

done a good job before you expect the audience to be like, "Woo, way to go."

But when you feel that it's time to introduce

the band, you might say, "On drums, we have...

On keys", which is short for keyboard, yep, "On keys, we have...

Give it up for", which means make some noise for.

Make some noise for Albert on the trumpet.

And Albert will be like, "Yeah, thanks very much."

Or another way of phrasing this, "Jack Bongo Wongo on the clarinet", okay?

So, covers are songs that you redo.

Tell them to start from the top, take it from the top.

If I say, "Take it away", it might be like I'm saying, "Okay, you do a solo now.

Take it away, Jack."

And then Jack's like,

"Boop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop."

Okay?

Talking to the audience, introducing the band.

It's time now to look at some musical idioms.

"Doop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop-a-doop."

"Hitting the right note".

If you hit the right note, you have exactly the right impact for the situation you are

in.

To hit the right note.

Maybe your clothes hit the right note, or maybe your thank you letter hit the right

note.

It creates just the right...

The desired effect that you were trying to have.

"Like a broken record".

I feel a bit like a broken record when I say,

"Make sure you subscribe", yep, because I've

said it lots of times now, and there are

still people out there who haven't subscribed.

Yep, so if I endlessly repeat something in the same way, I'm like a broken record.

Think of it, okay?

You've got a record, you've got a nice old record player, you lift the needle up, pop

it onto the record going round.

If it's all broken, it's not going to sound very nice.

It's probably going to play the same thing again, and again, and again.

To be like a broken record, or to sound like

a broken record, is where you repeat the same

thing again and again.

"Face the music".

If you have done something really bad, and you then have to go and see someone who is

in a position of authority, responsibility about it, then you're going to have to face

the music.

It's like facing the consequences of what you have done.

Facing the music to, yeah, to face the consequences.

Okay, "to sing from the same song sheet".

So if you and a colleague had to go and give...

had to go and give a presentation at a different

company and you were perfectly sort of in

harmony with each other, what I mean by that

is like you've both got similar ideas about the

project, so if person A was asked a question,

it would have a similar response to if person B was answering.

If you're singing from the same song sheet,

you have the same understanding as the person

in your group or the people in your group about that, okay?

To be... to be on the same message as someone else.

"Music to my ears", "good music", it's like, ah, that is such good news, yep.

"England won the World Cup", or "for some reason, some... some money fell out of the

sky", oh, great, that's... but it's something

you hear, it's "music to my ears", "music

to my ears", you hear some really good news.

"Your sister's just given a birth to a beautiful

baby girl", oh, that's "music to my ears",

it's such good news.

Let's...

"When do you want to meet Benjamin?", I don't know, should we play it by ear?

It means we won't make a definite plan now, we will have to... let's wait and see what

happens and, you know, I can text you.

So, play it by ear, to leave it unset, unfixed, and to kind of improvise a plan.

The origin of this is playing some music and

you're not reading it from the sheet music,

yep, you're just hearing what the other musicians

are playing and you're playing accordingly.

So, to play it by ear, you're not playing from the plan.

Okay.

"Does that ring a bell?", so if it rings a

bell, then like, "Ah, yeah, I think I've heard

that before, that is familiar", yep, to ring a bell.

Somewhere in here, your head, bell's going, "I've

heard this before, this... this is familiar",

this is the bell going, "Ding, ding, yes, yes, I know this one", okay, good.

"Strike a chord" is more of an emotional, is a deeper meaning.

If the song you were listening to struck, past participle, struck a chord, then you

would feel something, you'd be like, "Ah,

yeah, that song, it's so good, it just makes

me feel something, yeah, it makes me feel something", such good English.

To strike a chord, to create an emotional impact, to have an impression on you.

"To blow your own trumpet", if you think about

the trumpet, yeah, it's a brass instrument,

it's quite a loud noise.

And if you are blowing your own trumpet,

you are saying, "Look at me, I am fantastic.

I can do this, and I can do this, and I can

do this", it's like the trumpet is amplifying

out into the world all of these things that you can do.

"To play second fiddle" or "violin", so I

don't know if you watch any of the BBC proms,

it's a concert series we have in the UK every

summer, but typically the conductor, the man

or woman who waves their sticks and tells

them what to do, the batons, they're called,

they get a big old clap, yep, once they've done

this, they turn around and they take a bow, yep,

and often they'll go, "You stand up, first violin", the first violin is like the head

of the orchestra, and they get lots of credit

and everyone goes, "Haha, well done you, first

violin, very good", but the second violin

doesn't stand up, so if you're playing second

fiddle, it means like first fiddle over here

is doing the stuff that's going to get noticed,

and you're taking a sort of a backseat approach,

yep, you're more the sort of unnoticed one.

"To drum up support for", so perhaps you're running a marathon, perhaps you're doing a

skydive, let's go with the skydive one, and you

need to raise £500 for charity to be able to do

the jump, so you go around with your sheet saying,

"Will you sponsor me, please sponsor me, can you

sponsor me £5", or whatever it is, so you're

drumming up support for your charity event, yep,

you'll... "To drum up support" means to create

support, to find support, to encourage support.

"A whistle-stop tour", this actually has its

origins in politics, where politicians who were

trying to get voted would go around on a train,

and they would only stop in towns for a kind of

a whistle-stop, they would make a quick speech,

and then the train would carry on, so if you are

on a whistle-stop tour, then you're going to...

A whistle-stop tour around India, yep, half a day

in Agra, then on to Jaipur, then on to Jaisalmer,

then down to Mumbai, yep, going to all the places

but not staying in them for very long. "Call the

tune", so you're in a band, yeah, you call the

tune, you're like, "Right, let's play a little

brown jug next", you're saying what song we're

going to play next. Now, in a business context

or social context, if you call the tune, you're

saying what's going to happen, yep, you're like

the boss. "To change your tune" means, you know,

think about it, yep, you're playing a song, yeah,

you've got an audience, and then suddenly you're

like, "You know what? I don't like this song, let's

play something else. Everyone, stop, stop, stop,

guys, stop, please stop, yeah, let's play something

different." If you change your tune, then you are

changing your idea on something. So, someone might

say, "Oh, Benjamin, you've changed your tune a bit.

You never used to be a tree hugger, you used to

be all about, you know, building as much concrete

jungles as possible, and now you seem to want

to hug trees and support the environment.

Change your tune a bit, haven't you?" "To change

your tune" means to change your viewpoint.

"To fine-tune", so to tune an instrument is where

you make sure that the pitch, the sound is in

harmony with all the other instruments. It's

normally tuned to the piano, yep, so you might

find that it's sharp or a bit too flat, and you

have to make sure... I play the saxophone, so I

either push it in a bit or I pull the mouthpiece

out a bit, and maybe, yep, you're a little bit

too flat, so I push it in a little bit and I'm

fine-tuning it. If you fine-tune something, then

you're making very, very minor adjustments to

make it just right. Maybe you've created a remote

control car and the steering is a bit off, so you

get the car and you make some minor adjustments

to it. "To jazz something up". So you've created

a birthday cake for your child, and you're looking

at it like, "Oh, it's not very exciting. Let's get

a huge dinosaur and put it on the cake. Ah, yeah,

that's jazzed it up." So if you jazz something

up, then you make it, like, more colorful and,

you know, more enjoyable, more rich. Jazz, when it

came out, was, like, quite a sort of avant-garde

and kind of controversial music movement. So

if you're jazzing it up, you're adding a bit of

spice. You're making it more fun. As usual with

these videos, if I dare say so myself, there's

been lots of content, lots of useful stuff for

you guys. So what you need to do is try and

remember some of this stuff. "How, Benjamin? How

am I going to do that?" Well, luckily for you,

there's a quiz to do. Have a go at the quiz, get

10 out of 10, and then I'll see you in the next

video. Too-da-loo.