“Music can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable”. Leonard Bernstein.

 
The importance of English in the field of international music is simply a given nowadays. In this article, we present music as a very useful tool for improving listening skills in English; both to help improve our pronunciation in English and to learn to distinguish between the different accents and expressions of English-speaking countries.
 
Learning English does not have to be a boring task. How many tunes are there in your memory whose meaning you do not really understand? Well, it’s time to change this situation and learn to speak English.
 
Music is the most common artform in our society, and English is the most widely used language. This combination means that English is the language that appears in songs the most and therefore, if we don’t understand English, it prevents us from knowing the lyrics of great artists with whom we share many hours a day. For example, the American singer Bob Dylan Winehouse was loved all over the world for her distinctive voice, but did you know that at the University of Harvard they also study some of her lyrics in their poetry exams? Well, if you listen to this singer without knowing the language you can enjoy her voice, but you will miss out on half of the experience because you will not be able to appreciate the spell she casts in her lyrics.
 

Music Helps Improve Pronunciation In English

It is simply a matter of making the task of practising listening in English a bit more fun: go to YouTube, put in the name of the song along with the word “lyrics” in the search bar and that’s it! After that, you just have to play the video and sing your heart out as if you were in the shower. In this way, whether alone or with friends, you can not only improve your English pronunciation and enjoy yourself, you can also improve your listening comprehension and your ability to differentiate between the various accents and dialects of English-speaking countries.

And finally, most importantly, it will help you to speak English more fluently: by listening to several songs whose meanings you already know and memorizing the lyrics, your subconscious – the most important element in the process of speaking – will absorb many words and concepts that will later help you to speak English in a more natural way..
If you start from scratch, we recommend artists like Elton John, Queen or U2 for fans of classic rock and pop, or A Simple Plan or Adele for those who like to listen to current music. These artists and groups have a good clear delivery that will help you take the first steps in mastering English-language pronunciation.

 
O. Clavell
Traducción: J. Crowley

Mamen