The theoretical relationships between words and ideas are explored here, sincewords are metaphors for thoughts. How teachers can facilitate the development of students’ music vocabulary, while also honoring their own written and oral descriptions is the topic of this chapter. For teachers to make sense of their students’ verbal descriptions, tools such as concurrent and retrospective verbal reporting are presented. Thereby, teachers learn how to decipher their students’ verbal descriptionsof what they are thinking, hearing, and feeling during music listening classes. Examples of narratives from real-life situations provide insight as well. Teacher strategies (talk-alouds, essays, word-choice charts, music listening webs, music fill-ins, and Venn diagram, comparative listening) are presented that can be included in a wide variety of classrooms and rehearsals.