Hi, I’m Pete. To me, rhythm is the most important thing in music, and in the band everybody follows my rhythm. That’s a nice feeling! I can make them play faster, slower, but also louder or softer. I keep the band together – they say that a good drummer is the jazz band’s glue. But what I like best about playing the drums is that it’s a bit like doing sport and playing music at the same time. It can also be hard work! My name’s Candy, hello. I want to tell you what I like about my instrument. Well, I chose it when I was a kid, I was just eight when I started. I remember one of my dad’s records with a picture of a saxophone player on the sleeve, so the beautifully shimmering instrument may have had some influence too, but I suppose it’s mostly the sound that caught me. And I still love that sound, that it can be smooth and sharp. And of course I like leading the tune, playing the melody. Hi, Jaco’s my name and I play the bass, both the double bass and the electric bass guitar. I love closing my eyes and feeling the deep sounds in my whole body. The bass is very important for every kind of music, it’s the basis of the band. Have you ever heard a band playing without the bass? It sounds ridiculous! That’s also something I like about my instrument: You often don’t hear it when it’s there, but you notice when it’s missing. Hi there, I’m Diana … and you know, talking about melody, harmony, rhythm – well, I can play everything at the same time. Very often, my left hand does the rhythm and harmony part, and my right hand plays the melody – or I can even sing the tune. That’s what I like most about my instrument: I can play the whole music by myself, but I can also play with friends. Track 9 – Focus on language – Exercise B leave – left read – read steal – stole teach – taught grow up – grew up split up – split up become – became produce – produced want – wanted
3 71,000,740 – 71,470 – 71,740 – 17,740 – 71,740 4 33,365,000 – nearly 34 billion – 33,365,000 – 33 trillion 365,000 – 33 billion 365,000 Track 28 – Focus on language – Exercise E 1 The great thing about texting is that you can do it from anywhere and no one can hear what you are saying. 2 Well, there are too many limitations. I mean, you mustn’t write more than 160 characters in one message, and so on. 3 I don’t have a mobile phone, I don’t believe in it because I don’t want to be available all the time. But the short message service, well, I think it could be quite practical. I might think about getting a phone for that reason in the future. 4 Short messages? Paah, they ruin my children’s language skills and spelling. I don’t allow them to text each other. They can use the phone, the landline’s free and easy. Plus I can control them better, you know. 5 I love having long dialogues through texting. That’s one of the greatest inventions. But I think short texts should be free. I mean, the phone company might ruin me one day! Track 29 – Task B – Exercise E Did you know that German was almost the official language in the United States of America? Now there’s actually no official language in the US. I’m here in Manatee County, in Florida, and although I don’t have to use my German here, it’s fun to do so. There are 1,383,440 German speakers in the US and about 74,000 of them live here in Florida. Many of them are second-generation Americans and most of the German speakers in the US today live in Pennsylvania or Texas. Tomorrow I return to Switzerland for a few weeks, but I’ll be off back to the US again soon. On my next trip, I’ll have to brush up on my Italian for a trip to New