Describe a song or piece of music that means something to you.
A warm, memory-led media card. It is one of the easiest cards in the test to speak fluently on, because music attaches itself to specific times and people — but only if you choose a piece that genuinely has a memory attached.
The task card
Describe a song or piece of music that means something to you.
You should say:
- what the music is
- when you first heard it
- when you listen to it now
and explain why it means so much to you.
Now say it yourself
Record your own two minutes on this card and have it transcribed and marked against the Speaking criteria. Practising is free; the band estimate is part of Pro.
Record my answerHow long you have
- 1 minute
Preparation
The examiner hands you the card, paper and a pencil. Make notes — a few words per cue point, never sentences.
- 1–2 minutes
Your long turn
Speak until the examiner stops you at two minutes. Finishing early is the most common self-inflicted problem in Part 2.
- 1–2 questions
Rounding off
The examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions, then moves straight into the Part 3 discussion on the same theme.
Part 2 takes three to four minutes in total. The whole Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes across three parts, and Part 3 that follows lasts four to five minutes.
How to approach this card
Do not describe the music technically unless you are a musician; describing tempo and instrumentation for a minute is dry and hard to sustain. Describe what it sounds like in one or two sentences — 'just a piano and a very tired voice' — and then move to the memory, which is where the answer lives.
The second bullet is your narrative section. Where were you, how old, who was there, what was happening in your life. This is what gives you past continuous and past perfect without effort: I was fifteen, we were driving back from the coast, I had just failed my exams.
For 'when you listen to it now', a rule or a trigger is far better than a frequency. 'I only play it when I am packing to move house' tells the examiner something; 'sometimes' tells them nothing. Then let the last bullet explain the link between the memory and the rule.
Ideas you can actually use
Three angles on this card. Pick the one closest to something real in your own life — invented material is what makes candidates hesitate at ninety seconds.
Describe the sound in two sentences
- Instrumentation and texture: just a piano, a full brass section, a drum machine and nothing else
- The voice: tired, young, off the beat, straining at the top
- Length and shape — it builds, or it never builds, which is often the point
The memory is the answer
- Where you were, how old, who was there, what was happening in your life
- A car, a kitchen, a bus, a hospital corridor — a place with a specific smell
- Whether the song was chosen or arrived by accident
A rule, not a frequency
- 'Only when I am travelling alone' says more than 'quite often'
- Whether you avoid it, and what that avoidance protects
- Whether you have ever played it for someone else, and how that went
What your one minute of notes should look like
Not sentences — a few words per cue point. This is the level of detail sixty seconds actually buys you, and it is enough to speak from for two minutes.
- WHAT — folk song, acoustic guitar only, woman singing slightly off the beat, ~4 min
- FIRST HEARD — 17, uncle's car, driving grandmother back from hospital
- NOW — rule: only when travelling alone, usually a train; 3–4x a year
- WHY — she hummed along; she died a year later; not sad, just a reminder
Model answer
Speak your own answer first. Examiners are trained to spot memorised speeches and mark them down — use this to study structure, pacing and naturalness, never to recite.
Show the model answer
The piece I'd talk about is a fairly obscure folk song — just an acoustic guitar, a very stripped-back arrangement, and a woman singing slightly off the beat as though she isn't quite bothered about being on it. It's about four minutes long and almost nothing happens in it musically. I first heard it when I was seventeen, in my uncle's car, driving my grandmother back from hospital after she had been discharged. Nobody was talking. He put a CD on, more to fill the silence than anything, and this came on, and my grandmother — who hadn't said a word for about twenty minutes — started very quietly humming along. She knew it. None of us had any idea she knew it. Now, I don't play it often. That's deliberate. I have a rule about it, which sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud, but I only listen to it when I'm travelling somewhere on my own, usually on a train, usually at the start of something. Maybe three or four times a year. Why does it mean so much? I think because it's the only recording I have of my grandmother's voice, in a sense — obviously it isn't her voice, but it's bound up with that afternoon so completely that when the second verse starts I can smell the inside of that car. She died about a year later. And what I find strange is that it isn't a sad song, and I don't feel sad when I hear it. I feel like I'm being reminded of something I'd otherwise let slip, which is a different thing, and I think a more useful one.
Why this works: The musical description is deliberately brief and the memory carries the answer, which is the correct weighting for this card. The third bullet is answered with a rule rather than a frequency, which is far more revealing. The final section resists the obvious emotional conclusion — it explicitly says the feeling is not sadness — and that refusal to take the easy line is what marks the answer out as genuine thought rather than a prepared story.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- it takes me straight back to
The natural collocation for music triggering memory.
- it was on constant rotation
For a song you played obsessively during a period.
- it gives me goosebumps
Physical response language; vivid and entirely natural.
- a stripped-back arrangement
Precise description of simple, sparse production.
- it grew on me
Phrasal verb for gradually coming to like something.
- the hairs on the back of my neck
Idiomatic extension of a strong emotional reaction.
- it is bound up with that summer
Elegant phrase for a memory and a song being inseparable.
The same phrases in a full sentence
A phrase list is only useful if you know how the words sit around it. Say each of these aloud once before you attempt the card.
- it takes me straight back to
- “The second verse takes me straight back to the inside of that car.”
- a stripped-back arrangement
- “It is a very stripped-back arrangement — one guitar and a voice, nothing else.”
- it gives me goosebumps
- “It still gives me goosebumps, and I have heard it perhaps forty times.”
- it is bound up with
- “It is completely bound up with that one afternoon, and I cannot separate the two.”
Part 3 discussion
After your long turn the examiner moves into a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, working from two related discussion topics with about three questions each. The first stays close to your own experience; the second widens out. Answer with reasons and examples, not one-line replies.
Music in everyday life
Example questions
- 1When do people usually listen to music in your country?
- 2Why do you think music is so closely connected to memory?
- 3Do you think people listen to music more alone now than together?
Music and culture
Example questions
- 1How important is live music to a city?
- 2Should governments help protect traditional music?
- 3Has streaming changed the kind of music people discover?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Media, technology and culture. Model answers for Part 3: Part 3 questions and answers.