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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. 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
Electronic recording
Hank Williams
Melody
Banjo
2. In the verse-refrain song - the refrain is the 'main part' of the song - usually constructed in AABA or ABAC form.
Hook
Refrain
Jerry Lee Lewis
Form
3. 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.'
Beach Boys
Aretha Franklin
Crooning
Scott Joplin
4. 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
phrase
cadence
Banjo
Minstrel Show
5. 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.
6. A British rock group who cultivated an image as 'bad boys' in deliberate contrast to the friendly public image projected by the Beatles.
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
Herman Parker
Rhythm
7. 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
Beat
Payola
Chuck Berry
sound
8. Beat - meter - syncopation
Rhythm
Cole Porter
Harmony
Les Paul
9. 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
Patsy Cline
Ragtime
Frank Sinatra
Syncopation
10. 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.
Diana Ross
Chuck Berry
Rockabilly
Texture
11. Sophisticated approach to the vocal presentation and instrumental arrangement of country music; a fusion of 'country' and 'cosmopolitan.'
Tin Pan Alley
Countrypolitan
Timbre
Chuck Berry
12. 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.
The Rolling Stones
Scat singing
Cover version
Bridge
13. Record company founded by Berry Gordy Jr. in Detroit.
Bridge
Strophic
Motown
Bob Dylan
14. Host of the popular teen-oriented television show American Bandstand
Dick Clark
Concept album
Ragtime
Irving Berlin
15. The underlying pulse of a song or piece of music; a unit of rhythmic measure in music.
sound
R&B
Cover version
Beat
16. '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.
urban folk
Tempo
Diana Ross
Louis Armstrong
17. 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.'
Ragtime
Dick Clark
Bluegrass
Brian Wilson
18. 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.
Major/Minor
The Supremes
ASCAP
Polyphonic
19. 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.
12-bar Blues
Crooning
Reverb
Dick Clark
20. Beat - meter - syncopation
12-bar Blues
Rhythm
Scat singing
Rock 'n' Roll
21. 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.'
Bluegrass
Bob Dylan
Scat singing
Ragtime
22. Popular dance ensemble during the swing era - consisting of brass - reeds - and rhythm sections.
Big Band
12-bar Blues
Rockabilly
Payola
23. 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
The Beatles
Elvis Presley
Acoustic recording
24. A musical rhythm accenting a normally weak beat
Countrypolitan
Glenn Miller
Jerry Lee Lewis
Syncopation
25. 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).
12-bar Blues
Lyricist
Ballad
'The twist'
26. Recordings of performances by African American musicians produced mainly for sale to African American listeners.
Texture
Hank Williams
Tempo
Race Records
27. Developed in 1925 using a new device - the microphone. Electric recording converts sounds into electrical signals.
Electric Guitar
Electronic recording
Rhythm
Banjo
28. 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
Electric Guitar
Crooning
Beat
Texture
29. African American musical style rooted in R&B and gospel that became popular during the 1960s.
Concept album
Louis Armstrong
soul music
phrase
30. A theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music
A cappella
'The twist'
motive
Phil Spector
31. 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
Gene Autry
Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey
Duke Ellington
Lyrics
32. A short musical passage
Standards
phrase
cadence
Benny Goodman
33. Pitched/unpitched - dynamic - timbre or tone color
sound
Patsy Cline
Les Paul
Texture
34. 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.
'The twist'
Producer
Arranger
James Brown
35. A theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music
motive
Standards
Sheet music
Producer
36. African American musical style rooted in R&B and gospel that became popular during the 1960s.
soul music
Buddy Holly
R&B
A cappella
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
Bessie Smith
Ragtime
Patsy Cline
Beach Boys
38. Played records and provided entertaining patter on the radio.
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
Disc Jockeys
Chuck Berry
39. 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
sound
Hank Williams
soul music
Minstrel Show
40. Motive - phrase - cadence
Standards
Chorus
Sheet music
Melody
41. Blues written by professional songwriters and performed by professional female blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey.
R&B
sound
Classic blues
urban folk
42. Chord - consonance - dissonance
Harmony
Janis Joplin
Producer
Classic blues
43. 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.
12-bar Blues
Blues
Concept album
Cakewalk
44. 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.'
Beach Boys
Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey
Frank Sinatra
Hook
45. 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.
Cole Porter
Les Paul
cadence
Bessie Smith
46. 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.'
Brian Wilson
Countrypolitan
soul music
Paul Whiteman
47. 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.
Concept album
Blues
Bob Dylan
Buddy Holly
48. White rockabilly singer and pianist.
Electric Guitar
Ragtime
R&B
Jerry Lee Lewis
49. 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.
George Gershwin
Minstrel Show
The Supremes
sound
50. Process for recording sound in the pre-microphone era. Performers projected into a huge megaphone.
Race Records
Acoustic recording
Timbre
Ragtime