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Test your basic knowledge |
Music
Start Test
Study First
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. Nickname for a stretch of 28th Street in New York City where music publishers had their offices—a dense hive of small rooms with pianos where composers and 'song pluggers' produced and promoted popular songs. The term - which evoked the clanging soun
Harmony
Tin Pan Alley
Hank Williams
Dick Clark
2. The musical pattern created by parts being played or sung together
Texture
Timbre
Classic blues
Duke Ellington
3. 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
Hook
soul music
Ethel Merman
Major/Minor
4. Known as the 'Genius of Soul'; songwriter - arranger - keyboard player - and vocalist fluent in R&B - jazz - and mainstream pop.
Bridge
phrase
Ray Charles
Herman Parker
5. Record company founded by Berry Gordy Jr. in Detroit.
Elvis Presley
The Supremes
Motown
Patsy Cline
6. A theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music
motive
Strophic
Blues
Polyphonic
7. A short musical passage
phrase
Glenn Miller
Bel canto
Beat
8. The first successful singing cowboy; born in Texas - He was a successful film star and a popular country and western musician. Helped establish the 'western' component of country and western music. Developed a style designed to reach out to a broader
Gene Autry
Polyphonic
Tempo
Diana Ross
9. The B section of AABA song form found in the refrain of a Tin Pan Alley song. The bridge presents new material: a new melody - chord changes - and lyrics.
motive
Duke Ellington
Bridge
Sheet music
10. Known as the 'Genius of Soul'; songwriter - arranger - keyboard player - and vocalist fluent in R&B - jazz - and mainstream pop.
Bob Dylan
Ray Charles
A cappella
Chorus
11. 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
Lyrics
Cakewalk
Syncopation
Phil Spector
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.
AABA form
'The twist'
soul music
Boogie Woogie
13. 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
Irving Berlin
Bessie Smith
Strophic
Big Band
14. 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.
motive
Minstrel Show
Janis Joplin
Electronic recording
15. 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.
Les Paul
Refrain
Bel canto
Refrain
16. In the verse-refrain song - the refrain is the 'main part' of the song - usually constructed in AABA or ABAC form.
Countrypolitan
Refrain
Bluegrass
Frank Sinatra
17. Album conceived as an integrated whole - with interrelated songs arranged in a deliberate sequence.
Banjo
Concept album
George Gershwin
Irving Berlin
18. 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
Texture
The Supremes
The Supremes
Cakewalk
19. A memorable musical phrase or riff.
AABA form
Classic blues
Hook
Minstrel Show
20. A recurrent rhythmical series
Texture
Herman Parker
cadence
Texture
21. A theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music
motive
Reverb
Jerry Lee Lewis
Boogie Woogie
22. Host of the popular teen-oriented television show American Bandstand
Electric Guitar
Dick Clark
Brian Wilson
Ragtime
23. 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
Tempo
Banjo
Disc Jockeys
The Rolling Stones
24. 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.
phrase
Big Band
Form
Rockabilly
25. At the age of twenty-one - introduced 'I Got Rhythm' in the stage show Girl Crazy written by George Gershwin.
Ethel Merman
Scott Joplin
Verse
Bob Dylan
26. At the age of twenty-one - introduced 'I Got Rhythm' in the stage show Girl Crazy written by George Gershwin.
Aretha Franklin
Lyricist
Ethel Merman
AABA form
27. A guitar whose sound comes chiefly from electro-magnetic amplification The pioneer of electric blues guitar was Aaron T-Bone Walker - whose urban blues recordings just after World War II were extremely popular - Les Paul created
cadence
Race Records
Electric Guitar
Arranger
28. Album conceived as an integrated whole - with interrelated songs arranged in a deliberate sequence.
Concept album
Standards
Tin Pan Alley
12-bar Blues
29. 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
Minstrel Show
Verse
Scott Joplin
urban folk
30. Sophisticated approach to the vocal presentation and instrumental arrangement of country music; a fusion of 'country' and 'cosmopolitan.'
Beat
Countrypolitan
phrase
Janis Joplin
31. 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
James Brown
Producer
Elvis Presley
The Rolling Stones
32. The principal medium for disseminating popular sings until the advent of recording in the 1890s.
George Gershwin
Nashville sound
Sheet music
cadence
33. Founder of Motown Records.
Lyricist
phrase
Berry Gordy - Jr.
ASCAP
34. Repeating section within a song - consisting of a fixed melody and lyrics repeated exactly - typically following one or more verses.
Harmony
Beach Boys
Chorus
AABA form
35. Country vocalist who scored crossover hits with songs such as 'I Fall to Pieces -' and 'Crazy -' both recorded in 1961.
Patsy Cline
Bridge
Tempo
Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey
36. 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.
Banjo
Patsy Cline
The Rolling Stones
Frank Sinatra
37. The lead singer for the Supremes. After leaving the Supremes in 1970 - she became a successful solo artist.
Les Paul
Electric Guitar
Diana Ross
Beat
38. The musical structure of a piece of music; its basic building blocks and the ways they are combined.
Payola
12-bar Blues
Form
Bessie Smith
39. Clarinetist and popular band leader; known as the 'King of Swing.' His popularity and the success of his band helped establish the swing era in the early 1930s. He was the first white bandleader to hire black musicians in his band
motive
Ethel Merman
Benny Goodman
R&B
40. Popular dance ensemble during the swing era - consisting of brass - reeds - and rhythm sections.
Herman Parker
Big Band
Chuck Berry
Crooning
41. 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.
Lyricist
Paul Whiteman
Race Records
Brian Wilson
42. 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.
Reverb
Texture
Tin Pan Alley
Brian Wilson
43. 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
Bridge
Major/Minor
motive
Frank Sinatra
44. '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.
Ragtime
Tempo
Duke Ellington
Boogie Woogie
45. Pianist - composer - arranger - and bandleader; widely regarded as one of the most important American musicians of the twentieth century. As a composer and arranger - he devised unusual musical forms - combined instruments in unusual ways - and creat
Duke Ellington
Countrypolitan
Jerry Lee Lewis
Harmony
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.
Acoustic recording
Phil Spector
Melody
Timbre
47. Technique that involves the use of nonsense syllables as a vehicle for wordless vocal improvisation.
Hank Williams
Texture
Scat singing
phrase
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
Lyricist
Hank Williams
Cakewalk
Ragtime
49. 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
Brian Wilson
Elvis Presley
Producer
Banjo
50. Brilliantly clever and articulate lyricist and songwriter - fine rock 'n' roll vocal stylist - and pioneering electric guitarist. One of the first black musicians to consciously forge his own R&B styles for appeal to the mass market. Also known for h
Ray Charles
Diana Ross
Chuck Berry
A cappella