INTRODUCTION Hi English learners! Lori here, your teacher from Betteratenglish.com. In this episode of Real English Conversations, you'll hear me talking to Kyla, a fellow musician. We met up to talk about a book that we both really like. It's called Daily Rituals, and was written by Mason Currey. But as it turned out, Kyla and I had a lot more to talk about than the book. In fact, we didn't even start talking about the book until several minutes into the conversation. So you'll have to wait until part two for that. In this first part, you'll hear us breaking the ice by talking about guitars and practicing and other things we have in common. This was a normal thing to do because it was the first time we ever spoke to each other. You'll be hearing lot of informal American English, including tons of phrasal verbs. I think the best way to really learn phrasal verbs is in context, so I've highlighted most of them for you in the transcript, along with the other vocabulary. As always, you can find the full transcript, including a bonus vocabulary lesson at betteratenglish.com/transcripts. OK, let's get this conversation started! CONVERSATION TRANSCRIPT Lori: Okay, great. Yeah! It was really, really cool that you– you stepped up to the plate and got in touch about– about talking about this book. Kyla: Good. Yeah! It's kind of...it's a– it's a book that I– I've read. I have...I own a copy. And coming up with rituals, I'm always looking for better ways to work and better ways to be creative, so it's a...yeah. It's a – when I saw your post, I was like, "Oh! I love that book!" [laughs] Lori: Oh! Yeah, great! Yeah, at that point, I don't even think I'd read more than, like, a quarter of it, and I was like, "Oh! This is such a cool book! I really want to talk to somebody about it." Kyla: Excellent. Lori: So yeah, but before we get into that, tell me a little bit more about what you're doing with guitar. Kyla: Well, I'm a...I was sort of trained as a classical guitarist as a kid and moved on, started playing electric in, like, some folk rock band in, you know, like, 15 years ago and just sort of...I've always been listening to metal so I think it was sort of natural that I got into playing– into playing metal. Now I play in a really, really proggy sort of a death metal band – Lori: Oh wow. Kyla: – called Molt. And we, after much strife, finally released an album a couple of years ago. But yeah, I mean, I'm always– I'm always striving to sort of streamline how I practice because I've always got, you know – actually, I just quit a job about a month ago to sort of start to...now I'm teaching myself Java and Python, and I'm working on...I'm actually working on writing an app to generate guitar practice exercises. Watch the video version with CC subtitles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTUynHNPNP8 Lori: Oh! Kyla: But yeah, so I'm just always– I'm always, you know, looking for ways to work, looking for ways to fit my practice time in the continual quest for speed. [laughs] I do have to thank you for your little...your post about using a 1-minute timer. Lori: Oh yeah! Kyla: I do that every day. That's– [laughs] that's really become– that's really become a part of my– my practice regimen. Lori: Oh, super! I'm glad that was useful. Kyla: Yeah, that was– that was extraordinarily useful. [laughs] Lori: Yeah, it's – it's one of the things about playing guitar if you're trying to achieve, yeah, higher than average level of technical mastery is that – you find that unless you're like one of these freaky people who seem to be just super, super gifted, it takes an inordinate amount of practice. Kyla: Yeah. Yeah, it's...and focused, focused practice. Lori: Yeah, and not just kind of going over the scales or the things that you like to do that are easy for you. You have to sort of get into the edges, and push yourself into the areas where you're not comfortable and where you start fee...