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. '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.






2. 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.






3. 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.






4. Rock group from Liverpool - England - who dominated American popular music during the mid-1960s and started the 'British Invasion.' The band included John Lennon and George Harrison on lead and rhythm guitars and vocals - Paul McCartney on bass and v






5. 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






6. A short musical passage






7. 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.






8. 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.'






9. 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.






10. Album conceived as an integrated whole - with interrelated songs arranged in a deliberate sequence.






11. 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






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






13. 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






14. Country vocalist who scored crossover hits with songs such as 'I Fall to Pieces -' and 'Crazy -' both recorded in 1961.






15. 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






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






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






18. 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






19. 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.'






20. Beat - meter - syncopation






21. 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






22. 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.






23. 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.






24. A musical rhythm accenting a normally weak beat






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






26. 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






27. 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.






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






29. 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.






30. A memorable musical phrase or riff.






31. 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.






32. 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






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






34. 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.






35. 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






36. 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.






37. The words of a song.






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






39. 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






40. 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






41. White rockabilly singer and pianist.






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






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






44. 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






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






46. 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.'






47. Known as the 'Genius of Soul'; songwriter - arranger - keyboard player - and vocalist fluent in R&B - jazz - and mainstream pop.






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






49. 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.






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