Music and Live Events
Learn 20 A2 English words for music and concerts - band, gig, lyrics, venue, sold out, perform - with a story and a quiz.
Music is the topic people talk about when they have just met, which makes it worth having twenty precise words rather than three vague ones. This lesson also settles a spelling most learners get wrong (musician), a word that is pronounced two completely different ways depending on meaning (live), and the small grammar rule about play the guitar. Learn them, then come to a concert I nearly did not go to.
20 words to learn
The 20 words
/ˈkɒnsət/
A public performance of music.
The concert started ninety minutes late.
/ɡɪɡ/
A concert, usually small and informal. Very common in speech.
There is a gig at that bar every Thursday.
/bænd/
A group of musicians who play together.
They have been the same band for eleven years.
/ˈsɪŋə(r)/
The person who sings.
The singer apologised for her voice and then sang perfectly.
/mjuˈzɪʃn/
A person who plays music. Note: musician, not musicien.
Every musician on that stage was over sixty.
/ˈɪnstrəmənt/
A thing you play music on: guitar, piano, oud.
Which instrument did you learn as a child?
/ɡɪˈtɑː(r)/
The instrument with six strings. Stress on the second part.
He plays the guitar badly and with great confidence.
/drʌmz/
The instrument you hit. Usually plural.
You feel the drums in your chest at a live show.
/ˈlɪrɪks/
The words of a song. Always plural.
I had the lyrics wrong for nine years.
/tjuːn/
The main line of music that you can sing or hum.
It is a simple tune and you cannot forget it.
/ˈælbəm/
A collection of songs released together.
Their second album is the one everybody knows.
/træk/
One single song on an album.
Track seven is the reason I bought it.
/laɪv/
Performed in front of people, not recorded. Said LYVE.
They are much better live than on the album.
/ˈvenjuː/
The building or place where an event happens.
The venue was an old cinema with terrible seats.
/kraʊd/
A large group of people in one place.
The crowd sang the second verse without being asked.
/səʊld ˈaʊt/
With no tickets left.
It was sold out in about four minutes.
/pəˈfɔːm/
To play, sing or act in front of an audience.
She has performed in this city twice before.
/rɪˈhɜːs/
To practise before a performance.
They rehearse in a garage that belongs to somebody’s uncle.
/ˈpleɪlɪst/
A list of songs you choose to play in order.
I made a playlist for the drive and played four songs.
/ˈhedfəʊnz/
What you wear to listen privately. Always plural.
I have not left the house without headphones since 2011.
Now read the story
Story · all 20 words
Four Minutes
I nearly did not go. The tickets went on sale on a Tuesday morning while I was at work, and by the time I remembered, the whole thing was sold out – in about four minutes, according to somebody on the internet who was very angry about it.
A friend of a friend had a spare one three weeks later. That is how these things always happen.
The venue was an old cinema that somebody had taken the seats out of, with a ceiling far too high and a floor that was slightly sticky. It held maybe six hundred people. I have been to two enormous stadium concerts in my life and I would trade both of them for that room.
The support act was a singer of about twenty-two with an acoustic guitar and no band behind her at all. Six hundred people had come to see somebody else and were talking through her first two songs. Then she started the third one and the room simply went quiet, the way a room does when something real is happening, and by the end of it she had all of us.
The main band came on late. There were five of them, every musician on that stage was over sixty, and between them they played nine different kinds of instrument. The man on the drums played for two hours without appearing to breathe heavily once.
They opened with the best-known track from their second album, which no band is supposed to do, and it was a wonderful decision. The crowd sang the entire second verse without being invited to, and the singer stopped and let us, and stood there smiling at the ceiling.
I discovered that night that I had the lyrics of my favourite song wrong. Not slightly wrong – completely wrong, for nine years, in a way that changed the meaning of the whole thing. My friend found this funnier than I did.
They are much better live than on record, which is not true of many people. You could hear that they still rehearse properly. And they performed the last three songs with the house lights on, so that everybody could see everybody else, which I had never seen before and have never forgotten.
There is one tune from that evening that I still cannot hear without being in that room. It is on a playlist I made on the way home at one in the morning, on a bus, with my headphones on and my forehead against the window.
I have been to better-known gigs since. I have not been to a better one.
Live is two different words. Same spelling, different sound, different meaning:
live /laɪv/ – adjective, rhymes with five: a live concert, they are better live
live /lɪv/ – verb, rhymes with give: I live in Amman
So live music is LYVE music. And remember from the A1 house lesson that the verb live is also different from leave.
Play the guitar, but play football. Musical instruments take the; sports do not:
✓ She plays the guitar. He plays the oud.
✓ She plays football. He plays tennis.
The exception is when you are talking about a band: He plays guitar in a band is normal without the.
Spelling and stress: it is musician – mju-ZI-shn, ending -cian like electrician and politician. And guitar has the stress on the second part: gi-TAR, not GI-tar.
Always plural: lyrics, headphones, drums. Say the lyrics are beautiful, never the lyric is.
Crowd or audience? An audience sits and listens – a theatre, a lecture, a cinema. A crowd stands, moves and makes noise – a concert, a match, a street. At a big gig you can use either, but crowd sounds more alive.
Gig is informal and extremely common in Britain. It also means one piece of paid work for a musician or freelancer – which is where the gig economy comes from.
The people: band, singer, musician, crowd.
The sound: instrument, guitar, drums, lyrics, tune, album, track, soundtrack.
The event: concert, gig, venue, live, sold out, perform, rehearse.
How you listen: playlist, headphones.
Describe the best live music you have ever heard, in five sentences: who, where, when, what the crowd was like, and one moment you remember.
Now practise with the questions below.
Check your understanding
Answer the questions below. You will see instantly if you are right.
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