Test your basic knowledge |

Subjects : performing-arts, music
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. A memorable musical phrase or riff.






2. White rockabilly singer and pianist.






3. A technique used by opera singers that emphasizes breath control - a fluid and relaxed voice - and the use of subtle variations in pitch and rhythmic phrasing for dramatic effect.






4. Blues piano tradition that sprang up during the early twentieth century in the 'southwest territory' states of Texas - Arkansas - Missouri - and Oklahoma. In boogie-woogie performances - the pianist typically plays a repeated pattern with his left ha






5. The most successful white blues singer of the 1960s. Born in Port Arthur - Texas - Joplin came to San Francisco in the mid-1960s and joined a band called Big Brother and the Holding Company.






6. Founded in 1914 in an attempt to force all business establishments that featured live music to pay fees ('royalties') for the public use of music.






7. Early rock 'n' roll guitarist - singer - and songwriter from the country/rockabilly side of rock 'n' roll. Killed tragically at the age of twenty-two in a plane crash.






8. Recordings of performances by African American musicians produced mainly for sale to African American listeners.






9. A type of song in which a series of verses telling a story - often about a historical event or personal tragedy - are sung to a repeating melody (this sort of musical form is called strophic).






10. Played records and provided entertaining patter on the radio.






11. A type of song in which a series of verses telling a story - often about a historical event or personal tragedy - are sung to a repeating melody (this sort of musical form is called strophic).






12. A style rooted in the venerable southern string band tradition. It combines the banjo - fiddle - mandolin - dobro - guitar - and acoustic bass with a vocal style often dubbed the 'high - lonesome sound.' The pioneer of bluegrass music was Bill Monroe






13. American popular songs from the Tin Pan Alley style of songwriting that remain an essential part of the repertoire of today's jazz musicians and pop singers.






14. The leader and guiding spirit of the Beach Boys during their first decade. He wrote and produced many of the Beach Boys' biggest hits - including 'Good Vibrations.'






15. The quality of a sound - sometimes called 'tone color.'






16. Generally recognized as the most productive - varied - and creative of the Tin Pan Alley songwriters. His professional songwriting career started before World War I and continued into the 1960s. His most famous songs include 'Alexander's Ragtime Band






17. The 'Godfather of Soul.' He was known for his acrobatic physicality and remarkable charisma on stage. No other single musician has proven to be as influential on the sound and style of black music as James Brown.






18. The principal medium for disseminating popular sings until the advent of recording in the 1890s.






19. Born in Hoboken New Jersey into a working-class Italian family. His singing style combined the crooning style of Bing Crosby with the bel canto technique of Italian opera.






20. Trombonist and bandleader; formed his own band in 1937. Miller developed a peppy - clean-sounding style that appealed to small-town Midwestern people as well as to the big-city - East and West Coast constituency.






21. A person who adapts (or arranges) the melody and chords to songs to exploit the capabilities and instrumental resources of a particular musical ensemble.






22. The standard form of a blues song: a twelve-bar structure made up of three phrases of four bars each; a basic three-chord pattern; and a three-line AAB text.






23. Known as 'The King of Rock 'n' Roll -' the biggest star to come from the country side of the music world. Born in Tupelo - Mississippi - made his first recordings in Memphis at Sun Records - and later recorded for RCA and became a Hollywood film star






24. Short for reverberation. An effect produced with an electronic device that adds a time delay to a sound and then adds it back to the signal.






25. A recurrent rhythmical series






26. A recurrent rhythmical series






27. Africanized version of the European quadrille (a kind of square dance). The cakewalk was developed by slaves as a parody of the 'refined' dance movements of the white slave owners






28. A theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music






29. Record company founded by Berry Gordy Jr. in Detroit.






30. Technique that involves the use of nonsense syllables as a vehicle for wordless vocal improvisation.






31. Four- or five-stringed instrument with a membrane stretched over a wooden or metal hoop that is strummed or plucked. It was developed by slave musicians from African prototypes during the early colonial period. The banjo was used in the music of the






32. Usually sets up a dramatic context or emotional tone. Although verses were the most important part of nineteenth-century popular songs - they were regarded as mere introductions by the 1920s - and today the verses of Tin Pan Alley songs are infrequen






33. The principal medium for disseminating popular sings until the advent of recording in the 1890s.






34. The most significant single figure to emerge in country music during the immediate post-World War II period. Williams wrote and sang many songs in the course of his brief career that were enormously popular with country audiences at the time; between






35. The musical structure of a piece of music; its basic building blocks and the ways they are combined.






36. The scale systems central to Western music; a series of pitches organized in a specific order of whole- and half-step intervals. The major scale can give music a feeling of openness and brightness - whereas a minor scale can give music the feeling of






37. The leader and guiding spirit of the Beach Boys during their first decade. He wrote and produced many of the Beach Boys' biggest hits - including 'Good Vibrations.'






38. 'Time' in Italian; the rate at which a musical composition proceeds - regulated by the speed of the beats or pulse to which it is performed.






39. Sophisticated approach to the vocal presentation and instrumental arrangement of country music; a fusion of 'country' and 'cosmopolitan.'






40. A British rock group who cultivated an image as 'bad boys' in deliberate contrast to the friendly public image projected by the Beatles.






41. Born into a wealthy family in Indiana; studied classical music at Yale - Harvard - and the Schola Cantorum in Paris.






42. A musical rhythm accenting a normally weak beat






43. Repeating section within a song - consisting of a fixed melody and lyrics repeated exactly - typically following one or more verses.






44. The scale systems central to Western music; a series of pitches organized in a specific order of whole- and half-step intervals. The major scale can give music a feeling of openness and brightness - whereas a minor scale can give music the feeling of






45. The words of a song.






46. Dubbed the 'first tycoon of teen -' his studio production techniques are known as the 'wall of sound' because of his utilization of dense orchestrations - multiple instruments - and heavy reverb.






47. The first form of musical and theatrical entertainment to be regarded by European audiences as distinctively American in character. Featured mainly white performers who artificially blackened their skin and carried out parodies of African American mu






48. The word derives from the African American term 'to rag -' meaning to enliven a piece of music by shifting melodic accents onto the offbeats (a technique known as syncopation). Ragtime music emerged in the 1880s - its popularity peaking in the decade






49. Called the 'Empress of the Blues -' She was born in Chattanooga - Tennessee - and performed in traveling shows and vaudeville before embarking on a recording career with Columbia Records. Her recordings include W. C. Handy's 'St. Louis Blues' and Irv






50. Black female vocal group who were featured artists with Motown Records in the 1960s. Their song 'You Can't Hurry Love' was a Number One hit in 1966.