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. 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.






2. Vocal singing without instrumental accompaniment.






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






4. White rockabilly singer and pianist.






5. 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.






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






7. 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.






8. 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.






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. 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.






11. 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.

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/basicversity.com/show_quiz.php on line 183


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






13. 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.






14. Urban folk singer and songwriter; he took his stage name from his favorite poet - Dylan Thomas. His songs include hits such as 'Blowin' in the Wind -' 'Mr. Tambourine Man -' and 'Like a Rolling Stone.'






15. 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.






16. Process for recording sound in the pre-microphone era. Performers projected into a huge megaphone.






17. 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






18. African American musical genre that emerged after World War II. Consisted of a loose cluster of styles derived from black musical traditions - characterized by energetic and hard-swinging rhythms. At first performed exclusively by black musicians for






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






20. Pitched/unpitched - dynamic - timbre or tone color






21. Developed in 1925 using a new device - the microphone. Electric recording converts sounds into electrical signals.






22. Popular dance ensemble during the swing era - consisting of brass - reeds - and rhythm sections.






23. Chord - consonance - dissonance






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






25. 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






26. The words of a song.






27. 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.'






28. '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.






29. African American musical genre that emerged after World War II. Consisted of a loose cluster of styles derived from black musical traditions - characterized by energetic and hard-swinging rhythms. At first performed exclusively by black musicians for






30. 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.






31. Behind-the-scenes role at a record company. Can be responsible for booking time in the recording studio - hiring backup singers and instrumentalists - assisting with the engineering process - and imprinting the characteristic sound of the finished re






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






33. A musical rhythm accenting a normally weak beat






34. 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.






35. 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






36. 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






37. 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






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






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






40. 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.






41. 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.






42. Motive - phrase - cadence






43. 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.






44. 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.






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






46. The son of an immigrant leatherworker - did much to bridge the gulf between art music and popular music. Studied European classical music but also spent a great deal of time listening to jazz musicians in New York City. Wrote Porgy and Bess (1935) -






47. A person who writes the words for songs






48. 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






49. A version of a previously recorded performance; often an adaptation of the original's style and sensibility - and usually aimed at cashing in on its success.






50. A memorable musical phrase or riff.