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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. 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.'
Brian Wilson
Scott Joplin
Motown
Bob Dylan
2. At the age of twenty-one - introduced 'I Got Rhythm' in the stage show Girl Crazy written by George Gershwin.
Buddy Holly
Ethel Merman
Frank Sinatra
Chuck Berry
3. 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.
Phil Spector
Payola
Major/Minor
Standards
4. 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
Cover version
Strophic
Chuck Berry
motive
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.
Standards
Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey
phrase
Les Paul
6. 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.
The Rolling Stones
Aretha Franklin
Melody
Cover version
7. Illegal practice - common throughout the music industry - of paying bribes to radio disc jockeys to get certain artists' records played more frequently.
Boogie Woogie
Tempo
Payola
Bluegrass
8. Host of the popular teen-oriented television show American Bandstand
motive
Hank Williams
Dick Clark
Reverb
9. A person who writes the words for songs
Lyricist
Aretha Franklin
Berry Gordy - Jr.
Strophic
10. 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
Acoustic recording
Tin Pan Alley
cadence
Producer
11. A memorable musical phrase or riff.
George Gershwin
Hook
Major/Minor
Concept album
12. '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.
Tempo
Berry Gordy - Jr.
Dick Clark
'The twist'
13. The musical pattern created by parts being played or sung together
Texture
Bridge
soul music
Minstrel Show
14. A short musical passage
phrase
Nashville sound
Standards
Timbre
15. 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
Banjo
Timbre
Polyphonic
Duke Ellington
16. 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.
Nashville sound
Refrain
Gene Autry
Bridge
17. 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.'
Phil Spector
The Beatles
Polyphonic
Beach Boys
18. 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
Ray Charles
Gene Autry
soul music
19. Born in New Orleans; a cornetist and singer - he established certain core features of jazz - particularly its rhythmic drive and its emphasis on solo instrumental virtuosity. Armstrong also profoundly influenced the development of mainstream popular
Herman Parker
Ballad
Form
Louis Armstrong
20. 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.
Phil Spector
Frank Sinatra
Banjo
Timbre
21. Country music style involving polished arrangements and a sophisticated approach to vocal presentation. The recordings of Patsy Cline were among the most important manifestations of the Nashville sound.
Bel canto
Nashville sound
Les Paul
Chorus
22. 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.
Cole Porter
Berry Gordy - Jr.
Louis Armstrong
Janis Joplin
23. A British rock group who cultivated an image as 'bad boys' in deliberate contrast to the friendly public image projected by the Beatles.
Texture
Major/Minor
AABA form
The Rolling Stones
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.
Strophic
Reverb
Aretha Franklin
Buddy Holly
25. Process for recording sound in the pre-microphone era. Performers projected into a huge megaphone.
Race Records
Ray Charles
Acoustic recording
Banjo
26. 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.
Gene Autry
Les Paul
Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey
phrase
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
ASCAP
Banjo
motive
Cakewalk
28. 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.
The Supremes
Race Records
motive
The Rolling Stones
29. 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
Tin Pan Alley
Bridge
George Gershwin
Berry Gordy - Jr.
30. 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.
Ragtime
Duke Ellington
motive
Cover version
31. 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
Disc Jockeys
R&B
Dick Clark
Verse
32. 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.
Payola
James Brown
phrase
Lyrics
33. 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.
Cole Porter
Concept album
Frank Sinatra
Acoustic recording
34. 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
Dick Clark
Hank Williams
Major/Minor
Elvis Presley
35. 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
Hank Williams
R&B
Crooning
Minstrel Show
36. Chord - consonance - dissonance
Beat
Strophic
Harmony
Cole Porter
37. Record company founded by Berry Gordy Jr. in Detroit.
Scott Joplin
Motown
Bel canto
Payola
38. A theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music
Bessie Smith
Minstrel Show
motive
Lyrics
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
Benny Goodman
Texture
James Brown
Ray Charles
40. 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
Minstrel Show
Payola
The Rolling Stones
Hook
41. White rockabilly singer and pianist.
Jerry Lee Lewis
Frank Sinatra
Syncopation
Verse
42. At the age of twenty-one - introduced 'I Got Rhythm' in the stage show Girl Crazy written by George Gershwin.
12-bar Blues
ASCAP
Berry Gordy - Jr.
Ethel Merman
43. Album conceived as an integrated whole - with interrelated songs arranged in a deliberate sequence.
Concept album
Texture
Cakewalk
Classic blues
44. 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
Brian Wilson
Berry Gordy - Jr.
Countrypolitan
45. 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
Bessie Smith
Timbre
Rock 'n' Roll
Jerry Lee Lewis
46. A person who adapts (or arranges) the melody and chords to songs to exploit the capabilities and instrumental resources of a particular musical ensemble.
Strophic
Arranger
Classic blues
AABA form
47. 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.
Hook
Polyphonic
Boogie Woogie
Herman Parker
48. The words of a song.
Rockabilly
ASCAP
Crooning
Lyrics
49. 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
Payola
soul music
The Supremes
Banjo
50. Recordings of performances by African American musicians produced mainly for sale to African American listeners.
Race Records
Buddy Holly
Les Paul
Syncopation