Hello, everybody, and welcome to another brand new Q -Lips episode.
You are tuned in to Simplified Speech, which is the Q -Lips series for intermediate English learners who want to hit that advanced level.
We're here to help you achieve that goal.
And each Simplified Speech episode features a clear, natural, and easy -to -understand English conversation between native speakers.
And joining me today as my co -host is Indiana.
Hey there, Indiana.
How's it going? Do you want to tell us what our topic for today is?
Sure. So today we are talking about musical education.
So we're going to talk about the types of lessons at school that we took growing up if we had exposure to learning music as kids.
We're also going to talk about, you know, the difference in experiences with learning learning music and lessons at school or also self -study, going out to the library and picking up a book and reading about music by yourself.
We're also going to talk about if we think parents should kind of force their kids to learn an instrument, how important is it for a kid to learn an instrument and our relationship today with musical instruments and musical education?
Are we still pursuing the guitar or the drums, for example?
So we have a lot of different topics about musical education that we're going to hit on today.
Yeah, and I should say that this episode was requested to us recently by two different Q -Lips members, by Priscilla and also by Aditka.
So guys, thank you so much for that awesome episode suggestion.
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In the study guide, you will find detailed vocabulary explanations and examples of the important vocabulary that you'll hear me and Indiana use in our conversation.
There's also a comprehension quiz.
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Thank you guys. All right, Indiana.
So I think it's time for us to get started with our conversation for today.
Enjoy everybody. Here it is.
maybe i will start by asking you did you learn any musical instruments when you were a kid what was your musical education like growing up you would think because i love music so much that i would be proficient in several instruments and really good at playing music or singing Absolutely not.
I'm really bad. But yeah, when I was growing up, I did take the violin, you know, in elementary school, maybe it was third grade, second grade.
And there were I was in chorus, I think choir or chorus is a common class that elementary and middle school students take.
so i participated in that and then you know later in life i tried to learn the bass and piano a little bit but just a little i just dabbled in musical education when i was a kid um although it's a very very popular choice um for for kids to take a musical class when they're in middle school and elementary school um i assume andrew that you took music lessons when you were growing up uh since you can you can play i believe is it guitar that you play yeah i like that word that you used there a second ago dabble because dabble means like try a bunch of different things and it can it can actually
have sort of two meanings i feel indiana and maybe you could see if you agree with me or not with these definitions but to dabble can mean to try something not seriously or to not get too serious about something right like maybe you you try piano, and you're like, that's not for me.
I'll try violin, and it's not for me, sort of dabble, right.
But it can also mean that you can do many things, but none of them really, really well.
And that's, that's my story.
As a musician, I can play a lot of different instruments, to various degrees, but I'm not like an expert at any of them.
But I can sort of play play several different instruments, like so -so, not bad, not terrible, but not amazing by any means.
Yeah. And one more vocabulary note here, because I just wanted to circle back.
I love that word that you used often there to talk about this topic was take.
You said, I took the violin.
And some people might think that you stole a violin.
But what does it mean if we like if we take the violin or take piano yeah so this take this verb is coming from the idea of to take a class to take a lesson so when you just use the instrument as the name you say I took the violin that sounds like I took a class where I learned how to play the violin yeah you took a lesson right I took a lesson and then instead of just saying lesson we can drop that out and just say yeah took violin took piano so yeah to get back to my musical history i started off by playing piano i took the piano i took piano when i was like maybe i want to say that i started
later than most kids like some of my friends started taking piano lessons when they were probably like six seven and i was maybe like 10 when i started my parents bought an electric piano and we got it delivered to our home it was a yamaha i still remember it it was awesome it had like all these built -in beats and you could change the voices on the piano it wasn't like a synthesizer with hundreds and hundreds of different presets in it but it It had like an organ, it had vibraphone and it had these different beats.
And yeah, I remember going to the music store with my parents to buy that piano and we got it delivered to our home and it was just so cool.
And I loved playing around with it and you could set it up so that you could hit one of the bass notes, the lower notes on the piano keyboards, and automatically it would make this track for you.
So it would play the drum beat and add the bass note.
and you could sort of just make a little melody with the bass and develop this track.
And I really loved that.
And then I took piano lessons probably, yeah, around nine or 10 years old, but it was a totally unique style of piano lessons, I think, compared to what most children take, because my friends who studied piano would always go one on one with an instructor, and it would be very formal.
In Canada, I don't know, do you have this in the States or not?
I'm not sure. But we have the Royal Conservatory of Music.
Do you have that in the States or is that a Canadian thing?
I'm curious. It doesn't ring a bell.
I don't know that we do.
Maybe there's an equivalent, but I'm not familiar with what that is.
Okay. So it's like this place where you can go and learn music in Canada, the Royal Conservatory of Music.
Music is like very classical, very formal music education.
And there's a series of textbooks.
I believe they're called Suzuki and it's like Suzuki piano books.
And yeah, it's like very classical piano orientated.
So my friends who took piano lessons all went to the conservatory of music.
They studied with the Suzuki curriculum and they learned how to play piano classically.
But my piano lessons were totally different.
It was a group lesson.
in, I went to this music store and in the back, they had a room with like 10 pianos and there were all these kids in there and we learned to play piano together.
And it was like a big focus, I think on being creative and not so much on like music theory.
And so even to this day, I kind of regret learning that way in a way it was good for my creativity, but in a way it was bad for my knowledge of music because I don't really know too much about music theory these days.
I don't really know too much about how to read music.
I'm pretty rusty with all of that kind of stuff.
So yeah, in a way I regret that, but it was still an awesome experience.
I remember even my dad would join me and he was learning to play piano a little bit at the same time as I was just like sitting in on the classes.
So that was fun. And yeah, from there, I got into guitar.
I started to play guitar when I was probably like 13 or so.
I had a paper route and I saved some of the money from delivering papers and saved up and bought this like crappy electric guitar.
And I would go to the library and get some books from the library about how how to play guitar.
And I kind of taught myself.
I never took guitar lessons.
I was self -taught and kind of figured it out to an extent.
And so, yeah, guitar was cool.
And my one true passion that I always wanted to do was play the drums. And I used to bother my parents all the time.
Like, can you please buy me a drum set?
Can I take drum lessons?
Please, please, please.
and i probably begged them for like years and years and years and then finally they were like okay so my family friend was a drummer and he lent me his drum kit it was this ludwig ludwig is the brand of drums kit and it was a huge drum kit it had like uh maybe five tom -toms or a regular drum kit will have three tom -toms this one had five so it was like you could really do the like it was it was cool and so i had it set up in my basement and i probably drove my family insane and uh my neighbors insane just like smashing away on these drums every day i my parents used to be like you can play when we
go shopping so they'd go out and go do the grocery shopping and that's when i'd play when everybody was out of the home uh but then i took drum drum lessons.
And I feel like I got pretty good at drums. I got really into it and I felt like, and still feel like that's probably the instrument that I can play the best. I mean, I don't really play any music these days, but when I do get the opportunity to sit behind a drum kit, I feel like it's like, Oh yeah, I'm pretty good at this.
Whereas with the other instruments, I think I would be pretty, pretty rusty these days if I picked up a guitar or sat behind the piano what impresses me with your story is like what a self -starter you were with the guitar because you didn't really have any lessons but you still like were passionate enough or had the drive even as a kid to like keep learning and teach yourself like I did not I would get really it's inspired to try to learn an instrument like also I was interested in the drums guitar all sorts of things throughout my life but when I was a kid I would have this spark of passion and then
like I didn't have lessons and you might think well you should just teach yourself then but I would it would fizzle out I would like lose the inspiration because I wasn't immediately good at it and like I never stuck with the instruments that I wanted to play so I'm impressed that you totally did that for guitar that's awesome yeah I don't know I've been thinking about this recently and I feel like some people have music inside them that they just need to release.
It's like you have this sense of music inside you and it needs to come out and you need to express it.
And I think this is on a spectrum.
Sometimes you see like, I think jazz is an amazing way to see this, but you can see it in other genres too.
And it's just like when you see a super, super talented, passionate musician, it's like the music just like flows out of them and they they can't help but create music and i feel like i i didn't have a huge reservoir of music within me but i did have some amount of music within me and it just needed to come out i needed some way to express that creative music that i had inside of me and so i think that helped me i think even though i sucked at playing guitar guitar for a long time and still do.
That is like, I needed to express myself.
I needed to get that music out of me.
It needed to be channeled through some instrument.
And yeah, so guitar was, was the best way for that.
And I think that's why I stuck with it, but yeah, it's kind of funny.
I was joking with some of my younger friends, like one of my friends who's in their twenties was saying that they wanted to learn guitar recently and I was like oh it's so easy for you guys you can just go on YouTube and watch tutorial videos and like I had to go to the library and get books with like pictures of how you should hold your hand and move your hand it's got to be so easy to learn an instrument these days compared to the past but I'm kind of sounding like a grandpa here talking talking about paper route and going to the library.
Oh my gosh. Right. Indiana, what do you think of forcing kids to learn an instrument?
I think a lot of parents would be pretty stoked if their children picked up an instrument and were passionate about it.
But so often kids give up easily.
They don't have that stick -to -itiveness in them them and they want to quit.
I don't know. It sounded like your parents were okay if you just sort of wanted to try this and try that and they were happy to let you experiment in that way.
What would you do if it were your kids who felt that way?
Yeah, I've thought about this a lot, actually.
Not like with the intent of like, oh, this is what I'm going to do when I have kids.
But just in general, right?
Like, I think that parents put a a lot of pressure on their kids and can you know force them to do too many extracurricular activities for their development and for like you know looking ahead at college applications right like sort of there's too much um like we need to make you look good for your future and I don't really love that but on the other hand like I do feel like as a kid you should definitely have like an activity that you're focusing on and an instrument is such an awesome choice um and even if you don't love it i feel like it's worth it to have the experience where you know if you say
i want to learn this instrument and so your parents get you the instrument and they set you up for lessons or you're learning through school then if you fizzle if your passion like i said mine did fizzles out i still think you should sort of commit and like have to learn for a while at at least. I mean, if it's a year and you're like, I hate this, it's like torture.
Sure. I don't think you should force your kids to continue with it, but like some level of discomfort and just pushing through the basics and the difficult part of learning the instrument.
I think that's really good for like your development and like, yeah, like the chance to actually start to get good in an instrument.
I feel like that's like really a sort of a gift you could give your kid.
Um, like if you can afford to pay for lessons and give them an instrument and push them towards that.
I think that's really wonderful.
What is your take on this, Andrew?
Yeah, I don't think I would force somebody to do something if they really, really hated it, but I would also not want them to quit right away.
So I think maybe it's good to do something uncomfortable for at least six months.
Try it for six months, and if you still hate it, Okay, you can quit.
But often it's like learning a language too, right?
Like when we're kids, we can learn so easily, so quickly.
And it gets fun once we start getting a little bit better, right?
Once you get past those beginner stages.
And I mean, if you're learning English, then you can have a conversation, even if it's not perfect.
That's fun. That's exciting.
It's better than just like memorizing vocabulary.
And when you're learning an instrument, when you can actually play a song and maybe you could do a little concert for your friends or family and they're like, wow, that's amazing.
Like that's when it gets fun, right?
So sometimes it takes some time to get to that stage.
And then once you're at that stage, then that good feedback that you get can be self reinforcing and it can encourage you and push you to do more and more and more.
So yeah, sometimes we need to stick with it for at least six months, but I wouldn't like, Like, you know, I had some friends that took piano lessons for years and years and years and hated every second of it.
And now looking back, they're like, I'm actually glad that my parents did that to me.
But at the time, they would always complain about it.
And I think I would just be like, okay, if you really, really hate it, you can go find something else that you're passionate about.
In a way, it could be detrimental too, right?
You might be taking away this golden opportunity for your child to explore some other passion and to get really good at some other passion that they have in life.
Exactly. You never know.
Indiana, what about the music education that you got at school in the States?
I'm kind of curious about what it was like growing up as an American and learning about music in band class at school.
What's that all about?
about? So since I never pursued an instrument for very long, I didn't have any experiences in high school when it would be a little more advanced.
Like when you're playing in band, you're kind of doing performances, or maybe you're participating in the music for the school play, right?
I was not at those advanced levels.
But I took violin lessons in elementary school, and I was in chorus in middle school so doing singing I think those were great experiences and um like kind of I remember being some days like I totally don't want to do this but then like I was introduced to a lot of cool music um in the chorus like the choir lessons um like international music I think we did like a Japanese folk song once that was pretty cool like it was really a nice opportunity to learn about more music than was like you know playing on the radio um and I did learn some of like how to read music in elementary school when I took
those violin lessons so I would say like I think the quality of the education was pretty good but um unfortunately I do think that music education in public schools often gets cut quite quickly when there's budget cuts there's not enough money that's one of the first things to go the arts programs right so i'm i'm not sure what it would be like today or if that my experience was the same for a lot of schools um what about in canada like it sounds like from your stories a lot of those lessons you took were private lessons or your friends were going to the conservatory but not taking lessons at their
own school necessarily what was it like for you growing up?
Yeah, I think I had a pretty good musical education at school too.
But from what I can remember, we had a different instrument that we would learn each year.
So I think we started with the recorder, maybe like grade one of kindergarten.
Yes, the recorder. Drawn to memory.
Classic. Probably a lot of our listeners out there, you guys can relate.
I think the recorder recorder is like the classic elementary school instrument and if that's your case as well let us know in the comments but yeah learning the recorder and then I remember learning vibraphone we had these really awesome vibraphones in elementary school like I think it's called a vibraphone or xylophone maybe the one that's made out of wood and you hit it it's got like a wooden keyboard that you hit with mallets and it makes this really mellow, deep, resonant tone.
It was really awesome.
I loved learning that instrument.
And then the next year, I think we learned ukulele.
I remember learning ukulele at school and a whole host of other instruments.
And then once I got into middle school, I took band class and I played trumpet and my brother was on trombone.
So that was kind of funny for a little little while.
We had a brass section in our house.
I don't think either of us got very good at trumpet or trombone, but yeah.
And then in high school, I was a part, again, I took a band class is what we call it, but it's really like the school orchestra.
So we had a big school orchestra with a string section, woodwind section, brass section, and percussion section.
And during this time was when I was really into the drums so I wanted to play drums for the band and there were like six or seven percussionists in the orchestra and unfortunately I wasn't chosen as the drummer so I had to do all of the like small little percussion stuff you know like the triangle and the cymbals and the big bass drum which was kind of fun like I remember just hanging out with my friends in the back in the percussion area and the the rest of the band would be practicing some some number and i would have like at the end of the song i would have to smash the symbols once so i just
hang out and talk with my friends and then at the very end i'd get ready boom smash the symbols and then that would be it so it was a pretty easy class in that regard but yeah unfortunately there was a better drummer at the school so she she got to play instead of me But yeah, so to sum up, I think music education in Canada at the time that I was a student was really, really good and very high quality.
But as you said, it is one of the first things to get cut.
And it really depends on the school district that you go to, the teachers that you have. And I imagine that it would really vary a lot from school to school to school.
But at least for me thankfully I got a pretty good music education at school I think like I said earlier I think it is really like formative and important yeah to get exposed to that stuff at least a little bit but ideally long term yeah so Indiana I think we're almost at the end of our conversation here I'll wrap things up with one final question we've been talking a lot about our childhood but now we're adults and especially me I'm an old guy I don't play musical instruments as much as as I used to.
I used to play my guitar all the time.
Every day I'd come home from work and it would just be sitting on my bed and I'd pick it up and play it for a couple of hours, but not so much anymore now that I'm in my 40s.
But I'm wondering, do you have any ambition to maybe learn an instrument again as an adult?
Would you consider doing this at all?
What do you think? I would, yeah.
That's one of my my you know general goals for myself like i have a keyboard and i learned i was into learning piano a couple years ago and i learned a couple songs um and it just like i have issues with sticking to it like i get sort of this brief inspiration for a couple months this is like what i'm gonna do after work this is what i'm really into and then maybe like work just gets hard or i lose the momentum and you know i also have a bass guitar i'd like to uh you know continue learning which that was like five years ago that was my project so in general i really would like to yeah because i think
it there's something that feels so satisfying in your brain like when you learn a song or you finally nail that like you know that riff or whatever it is um that melody it's like it feels really good um and it's like just wonderful i think for for your own you know like like, self -satisfaction and growth.
Do you feel like, Andrew, you wish you would play guitar more, you know, now that you're in your ripe old age of 40, as you've said?
That's a great question, Indiana, in my ripe old age of 41 here.
I joke with my friends that I'm a retired musician.
I don't know. I would love it.
I would love to have the time to play musical instruments more often.
But there are other things in my life right now that take priority.
Q -Lips takes a huge priority in my life and I really want to dedicate myself to doing a good job here at Q -Lips.
Also, I'm learning Korean.
I'm really into running and I'm trying to get an amazing marathon time.
I want to get good at running and be a fast runner.
So when I take all of those three things into consideration, and then of course, like family time as well, at the end of the day, I'm not really left with too much time for music.
And that little remaining part of time that I have left over, I usually try to spend that time listening to music instead of creating it myself.
So, yeah, I don't know.
Maybe I'll come out of retirement one day and pick up the guitar again.
And I did, to be honest with you, not too long ago, I did pick up a drum practice pad.
And a practice pad is just a little rubber pad that you can hit with your drumsticks for practicing.
We call them rudiments, which are like the building blocks of building.
I don't know, just like the essentials.
Maybe I could put it that way, the essentials of drumming.
So I do have this little practice pad and I have some drumsticks.
And from time to time, I'll put that on my desk and do a little rat tat tat and practice some of my rudiments.
And that's pretty fun.
But yeah, I don't see myself playing music in a big way going forward. I think that period of my life is pretty much finished for now.
Yeah, that makes sense.
You have to pick. You can only have so many hobbies.
Yeah, that's just life.
Running and language learning are big ones.
I got to win the lotto.
If I win the lotto and I can retire and just live a life of luxury, then definitely I would love to pick up the instruments again.
Anyways, we can dream.
We can always dream.
But Indiana, I think this will bring us to the end of this episode.
So thank you so much for the conversation.
I really enjoyed it.
And listeners, thank you for listening.
Congratulations on making it all the way to the end of this episode.
You did an amazing job and completed an English study session here with me in Indiana today.
So job well done. Keep up the good work.
This is what you need to do to build your English fluency.
You need to spend a lot of time listening to the language.
So yeah, keep up the good work.
and indiana we would love to hear our listeners perspectives as well and guys the best place to share your thoughts or your opinions or your takes about this episode is on our discord community it's completely free for everybody to join and the link to join the discord is in the description for this episode also don't forget that there is a helpful study guide and an interactive transcript and a comprehension quiz and more available for all Q -Lips members.
If you'd like to sign up and become a Q -Lips member and support the work that we do here at Q -Lips, then you can do that for an affordable price just by visiting our website, which is Q -Lips .com.
And again, a big thank you to all the members out there for your support.
Guys, we couldn't do Q -Lips without you.
So thank you so, so much. Okay, Indiana, that brings us to the end.
Take care and I'll talk to you next time.
Bye. Have a good one.
