Test your basic knowledge |

Subjects : performing-arts, music
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
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  • Match each statement with the correct term.
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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. Illegal practice - common throughout the music industry - of paying bribes to radio disc jockeys to get certain artists' records played more frequently.






2. The lead singer for the Supremes. After leaving the Supremes in 1970 - she became a successful solo artist.






3. Founder of Motown Records.






4. 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).






5. A musical rhythm accenting a normally weak beat






6. 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.






7. 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.






8. 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






9. 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.






10. Teen-oriented rock 'n' roll song using a twelve-bar blues structure; it celebrated a simple - hip-swiveling dance step.

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11. 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






12. One of the most common structures that Tin Pan Alley composers used to organize their melodic and harmonic material. This structure would be found in the refrain of a verse-refrain song.






13. Illegal practice - common throughout the music industry - of paying bribes to radio disc jockeys to get certain artists' records played more frequently.






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. Style of folk music that grew in popularity in the burgeoning New York folk scene during the 1960s. It included artists such as Bob Dylan.






16. 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






17. 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.






18. Beat - meter - syncopation






19. Vocal singing without instrumental accompaniment.






20. Vigorous form of country and western music informed by the rhythms of black R&B and electric blues. Exemplified by artists such as Carl Perkins and the young Elvis Presley.






21. '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.






22. 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






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






24. The underlying pulse of a song or piece of music; a unit of rhythmic measure in music.






25. 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.






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






27. Bandleader for the most successful dance orchestra of the 1920s. He billed himself as the 'King of Jazz -' widened the market for jazz-based dance music - and paved the way for the Swing Era.






28. Founded in California in 1961 - they popularized the 'California sound' in the early 1960s. Their hit songs included 'Surfin' Safari -' 'Surfer Girl -' 'California Girls -' 'Surfin' USA' and 'Good Vibrations.'






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






30. A short musical passage






31. African American composer and pianist; the best-known composer of ragtime music. Between 1895 and 1915 - Joplin composed many of the classics of the ragtime repertoire and helped popularize the style through his piano arrangements - published as shee






32. Singer - songwriter - and harmonica player who achieved some success with his R&B band - Little Junior's Blue Flames; recorded 'Mystery Train' for Sam Phillips's Sun label.






33. 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.






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






35. 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.






36. Describes a song where the stanzas are all sung to the same music






37. 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.






38. The musical pattern created by parts being played or sung together






39. A recurrent rhythmical series






40. 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.






41. 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






42. Introduced as a commercial and marketing term in the mid-1950s for the purpose of identifying a new target audience for musical products. Encompassed a variety of styles and artists from R&B - country - and pop music.

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43. At the age of twenty-one - introduced 'I Got Rhythm' in the stage show Girl Crazy written by George Gershwin.






44. Chord - consonance - dissonance






45. 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.






46. 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.






47. A guitarist and inventor - designed his own eight-track tape recorder and began in 1948 to release a series of popular recordings featuring his own playing - overdubbed to sound like an ensemble of six or more guitars.






48. Host of the popular teen-oriented television show American Bandstand






49. Vigorous form of country and western music informed by the rhythms of black R&B and electric blues. Exemplified by artists such as Carl Perkins and the young Elvis Presley.






50. 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