Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 871.
Listening to club music.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 871.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there to download a learning guide for this episode that will help you improve your English faster than ever.
This episode is a dialogue between Anastasia and Joshua about going somewhere to listen to a specific kind of dance music.
Let's get this party started.
This is the best club in the city.
Grace brought me here last month.
You're going to love it.
What?
You're going to love this club.
It has the best DJ in town.
She spins the best mixes.
Did you say you're going to get us some mixed drinks?
No, I said that this DJ is great.
She plays music that gets people pumped up.
Oh, I love this song.
It's samples from two of my favorite songs, and it's my favorite track on this CD.
Did you say that you want to buy this CD?
No, I said I like this song.
It's got a pounding beat and I can really feel the music.
I love dancing to it.
Do you want to get out onto the dance floor?
Let's wait until she segues into something mellower.
I don't really like dancing to this kind of club music.
What?
You love club music?
That's great.
Let's go dance.
I think I'll sit this one out.
Don't you think that the volume is a little loud in here?
What?
You want the music to be louder?
I'll go ask the DJ to turn it up.
No!
Anastasia begins by saying to Joshua, this is the best club in the city.
A club C-L-U-B in this case refers to a dance club, a building with a large open area where people can dance and listen to music, usually modern music that is easy to dance to, or at least some people think it's easy to dance to.
I do not.
Anastasia says, grace brought me here last month.
You're going to love it.
Joshua, however, is having difficulty hearing Anastasia because it's so loud in the dance club.
This, of course, is quite common.
They play the music very loud and it's very difficult to talk to someone.
So Joshua says, what?
Because he didn't hear Anastasia.
Anastasia repeats herself.
She says, you're going to love this club.
It has the best DJ in town.
A DJ is a disc jockey.
That's the person who decides which songs are going to be played and in what order.
You'll often find a DJ on a radio station or at a dance club like this.
Anastasia says the DJ spins the best mixes.
To spin S-P-I-N here means specifically to play recorded music, to be a DJ in a club.
Spin can also mean to move something around in a circular way.
And of course, in the old days when we used to play these vinyl things called records, they would spin around in a circle.
Even your CDs, your compact discs did that.
Now, with MP3s and other kinds of digital music, Nothing has to spin around physically, but we still use this verb spin.
This DJ, according to Anastasia, spins the best mixes.
A mix M-I-X is when you take two or more songs and you combine them together so that it's almost like one song.
Joshua says...
Did you say you're going to get us some mixed drinks?
Mixed, M-I-X-E-D, drinks have nothing to do with mixes like recorded songs.
A mixed drink is a drink with alcohol and some other liquid like juice, coffee, or cream mixed.
Often it has a sweet taste, though not always.
It's a kind of alcoholic drink that you would find in a dance club for adults like this.
Anastasia says, In other words, Joshua isn't understanding what Anastasia is saying.
He thought she said something about getting mixed drinks, when in fact she was talking about spinning mixes.
Anastasia says the DJ plays music that gets people pumped up.
To be pumped, P-U-M-P-E-D, up, means to be excited, to be enthusiastic, to be ready to do something.
Pump up the jam, pump it up.
That's a line from a dance song from, I don't know, many years ago.
Pump up the jam.
The jam was probably just the music there, the mix.
Pump up the jam, pump it up.
That's what dance music is like.
You can tell why I'm not a very good dancer.
Anyway, Anastasia says the music gets people pumped up.
Oh, I love this song, she says.
It's samples from two of my favorite songs, and it's my favorite track on this CD.
To sample, S-A-M-P-L-E, Here means to take a small part of a song and create a new song with it.
So it's similar to a mix, but usually when you're sampling, you're just taking a very small part maybe just 10 seconds or so from another song and making it part of a new song.
That's what sampling involves.
Sampling usually has a new song that is combined with an older song or part of an older song.
This particular song that Anastasia loves is one of her favorite songs.
It's my favorite track on this CD.
We talk about one song on a compact disc or one song on an old record album as being a track.
We also use the term now for MP3s on iTunes, for example.
You can have a track.
A track, T-R-A-C-K, is one song.
Joshua says, did you say that you want to buy this CD?
Notice again.
Joshua is just not understanding what Anastasia is saying because it's so loud in that particular place.
Anastasia says, no, I said I like this song.
It's got a pounding beat and I can really feel the music.
I love dancing to it.
A pounding beat is a very strong rhythm in a song, especially for dancing.
If you go to a dance club, that's pretty much all you can really hear.
It's that pounding beat that people use in order to dance.
It's probably a combination of the alcohol and the pounding beat that gets them to dance.
Anastasia says to Joshua, do you want to get out onto the dance floor?
To get out onto means to go, in this case, to a place where you can dance.
The dance floor is part of the area in the dance club where everyone goes to dance.
They of course also have tables in the dance club for people to sit and drink and try to talk to beautiful women who don't want to talk to you.
Joshua says, let's wait until she, the DJ, segues into something mellower.
To segue S-E-G-U-E means to transition or move from one thing to another very smoothly, without any breaks or any pauses.
It's sort of a more formal word.
You wouldn't expect it to be used in a dance club, but there it is.
The DJ is going to segue into something Joshua hopes that is more mellow, that is mellower.
M-E-L-L-O-W-E-R.
Something that is mellower, something that is calmer, that is more relaxing, that is not quite as exciting or loud.
Joshua says, We talked about a dance club is a place where you can go to dance or simply a club.
Club music then is the kind of music you typically hear at a dance club.
It's usually very loud.
It is often what we call electronic music.
All of the music is made by machines and computers rather than, say, an actual piano or a drum.
Anastasia says, what?
You love club music?
Of course, she didn't hear what Joshua said.
That's great.
Let's go dance.
So the two of them aren't communicating because of the loud noise.
Joshua then says, I think I'll sit this one out.
To sit something out. means not to participate in something.
At least not participate right away.
Maybe you'll wait a little while for the next opportunity.
So there's a song on and you don't really like it and you don't want to dance to it.
You may say to your boyfriend or girlfriend or dog if you bring your dog to the dance club, as I do, let's sit this one out.
I don't want to dance to this song.
We'll dance to the next one.
And your dog goes, I'm crazy.
I know.
Joshua says, don't you think that the volume is a little loud in here?
The volume V O L U M E is how loud something is or how quiet it is.
That's the volume.
Anastasia says, what?
You want the music to be louder?
She again doesn't understand Joshua and thinks Joshua wants the music to be even louder than it is now.
She says, I'll go ask the DJ to turn it up.
To turn something up means to increase the level of something, especially when we're talking about volume on a television or on a radio.
It could also be talking about temperature.
I'm going to turn up the heater.
I'm going to make the heater give us more heat so it's warmer in here.
Joshua at the end simply says no, meaning no means He doesn't want the music to be louder.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
What?
You're going to love this club.
It has the best DJ in town.
She spins the best mixes.
Did you say you're going to get us some mixed drinks?
No, I said that this DJ is great.
She plays music that gets people pumped up.
Oh, I love this song.
It's samples from two of my favorite songs, and it's my favorite track on this CD.
Did you say that you want to buy this CD?
No, I said I like this song.
It's got a pounding beat and I can really feel the music.
I love dancing to it.
Do you want to get out onto the dance floor?
Let's wait until she segues into something mellower.
I don't really like dancing to this kind of club music.
What?
You love club music?
That's great.
Let's go dance.
I think I'll sit this one out.
Don't you think the volume is a little loud in here?
What?
You want the music to be louder?
I'll go ask the DJ to turn it up.
No.
She doesn't normally spin mixes in a dance club.
I don't think.
But she does write wonderful scripts.
I speak of our wonderful script writer, Dr. Lucy Say.
Thank you, Lucy.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
