The future sound of music

The future sound of music

The objective

To discuss the effect the internet has had on people´s music listening habits and the future of the music industry

The language

Present simple to describe habits: I listen to..., I use..., I prefer...

"Going to" for plans: We are going to...(allow people to download some music from our website)

Will for general future: Users will be able to..., People will..(download)

Comparatives and superlatives

The set-up

There´s no set-up needed.

The low-down

Ask students to work in pairs/groups and brainstorm the following:

• formats for listening to music (e.g. CD, Mp3, records)
• sources for listening to music but not owning (e.g. radio, streaming services, record-stores)
• sources for owning free music (e.g. copying a CD from a friend, P2P sharing, free downloads)
• sources for buying music (e.g.. record shops, i-Tunes store, street vendors)

These can be in the form of general terminology for these things or name-brands and should only take 5 minutes or so. Once they´ve done that, ask them to compare their answers with other pairs/groups. Clear up any problems with vocabulary. Next, ask the class to raise their hands if they buy CD´s in a record store. Few, if any, should raise their hands. Ask them why. Then ask someone who didn´t raise their hand where they get their music. Continue with the general discussion until it becomes clear to everyone that digital downloading (of just one song), streaming services and P2P sharing are the most popular ways of obtaining music nowadays. Then present them with the following challenge:

You and your partner/group are members of a rock/pop/electronic/rap group. You have decided to sell your music yourselves (not through a major record company). Consider how you are going to market and sell your music.

You can get the ball rolling by brainstorming in open-class if necessary.

Now what?

When pairs/groups are finished. Invite a couple to report their ideas to the rest of the class. Use their ideas to generate a general discussion on people´s habits in the present, how they´re changing and what the future will be like. Compare ideas and come to a decision as a class as to the best ways to market, distribute and deal with competition.

Time to teach

Regarding vocabulary, probably the most interesting thing to focus on would be on the use of words such as "download", "stream", "pirate" or even "listen" and how they work as adjectives, adverbs, nouns and verb.

Example chart:

Noun	Verb	Adjectives
download	to download	downloadable
stream	to stream	streaming
pirate	to pirate	pirated

More talk-time

How do you get your music?

Do you think it´s ethical to download music freely without paying or getting permission?

Example plan:

"We think that the best way for people to hear our music is to put it on the internet free. We will make a website which has all our artists and allow people to listen to samples in streaming format. Also, we will put our music videos on You Tube.

"To sell our music, we will sell on the i-Tunes store, other online stores and on our own website.

"We think the future of music is in "cloud-based subscription networks" so we will allow people to listen to our artists´ music for a monthly fee of 10 euros.