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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. 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.
Scott Joplin
Gene Autry
Bridge
Duke Ellington
2. At the age of twenty-one - introduced 'I Got Rhythm' in the stage show Girl Crazy written by George Gershwin.
Boogie Woogie
Minstrel Show
Gene Autry
Ethel Merman
3. Pitched/unpitched - dynamic - timbre or tone color
Rock 'n' Roll
Aretha Franklin
ASCAP
sound
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
Polyphonic
Harmony
Chuck Berry
Patsy Cline
5. 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
Cole Porter
Boogie Woogie
Scott Joplin
Standards
6. 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
Timbre
Diana Ross
Motown
Banjo
7. Recordings of performances by African American musicians produced mainly for sale to African American listeners.
Strophic
Elvis Presley
Race Records
Motown
8. Blues written by professional songwriters and performed by professional female blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey.
Nashville sound
Classic blues
soul music
Arranger
9. 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
A cappella
Polyphonic
Harmony
Minstrel Show
10. 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.
Minstrel Show
Refrain
Buddy Holly
Irving Berlin
11. 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
Hook
Chuck Berry
'The twist'
12. In the verse-refrain song - the refrain is the 'main part' of the song - usually constructed in AABA or ABAC form.
Buddy Holly
Nashville sound
Refrain
Ragtime
13. Musical texture with interlocking melodies and rhythms.
Electronic recording
Polyphonic
Ray Charles
Glenn Miller
14. The musical structure of a piece of music; its basic building blocks and the ways they are combined.
ASCAP
Form
Harmony
Frank Sinatra
15. 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.
Cover version
Herman Parker
Electric Guitar
Disc Jockeys
16. Sophisticated approach to the vocal presentation and instrumental arrangement of country music; a fusion of 'country' and 'cosmopolitan.'
Texture
sound
Motown
Countrypolitan
17. 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
Glenn Miller
Rock 'n' Roll
Cakewalk
The Rolling Stones
18. A person who adapts (or arranges) the melody and chords to songs to exploit the capabilities and instrumental resources of a particular musical ensemble.
Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey
Scat singing
Arranger
Crooning
19. 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.
Ballad
Scat singing
Strophic
Rockabilly
20. The underlying pulse of a song or piece of music; a unit of rhythmic measure in music.
Hook
Beat
Duke Ellington
Boogie Woogie
21. 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).
phrase
motive
Beat
Ballad
22. 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.
Buddy Holly
soul music
James Brown
Aretha Franklin
23. 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.
Countrypolitan
Reverb
Phil Spector
Cover version
24. Pitched/unpitched - dynamic - timbre or tone color
Verse
sound
Cakewalk
Bluegrass
25. The quality of a sound - sometimes called 'tone color.'
Electronic recording
Aretha Franklin
Timbre
Duke Ellington
26. 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.
Aretha Franklin
Glenn Miller
Beach Boys
ASCAP
27. 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
The Beatles
AABA form
Lyrics
Electronic recording
28. Musical texture with interlocking melodies and rhythms.
cadence
Polyphonic
Ragtime
Form
29. 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.
Paul Whiteman
Melody
Dick Clark
urban folk
30. A short musical passage
Cole Porter
phrase
Major/Minor
Ray Charles
31. 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.
Texture
Bridge
Paul Whiteman
Bessie Smith
32. 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.
Phil Spector
Reverb
AABA form
Arranger
33. A musical rhythm accenting a normally weak beat
Syncopation
Irving Berlin
Blues
Payola
34. 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.
35. Describes a song where the stanzas are all sung to the same music
Strophic
Harmony
Beach Boys
Hook
36. '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.
Bessie Smith
Phil Spector
Tempo
Blues
37. Founder of Motown Records.
Chuck Berry
Ethel Merman
Berry Gordy - Jr.
ASCAP
38. Record company founded by Berry Gordy Jr. in Detroit.
Motown
Major/Minor
Payola
Rhythm
39. 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).
Elvis Presley
Scat singing
Ballad
Dick Clark
40. Technique that involves the use of nonsense syllables as a vehicle for wordless vocal improvisation.
Rhythm
Louis Armstrong
'The twist'
Scat singing
41. 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
Verse
Sheet music
Boogie Woogie
phrase
42. 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.
Janis Joplin
Tin Pan Alley
Bluegrass
Herman Parker
43. Born into a wealthy family in Indiana; studied classical music at Yale - Harvard - and the Schola Cantorum in Paris.
Dick Clark
Cole Porter
urban folk
Nashville sound
44. 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.
Rockabilly
Scott Joplin
Buddy Holly
Benny Goodman
45. 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
Lyricist
Berry Gordy - Jr.
12-bar Blues
46. 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
Frank Sinatra
Acoustic recording
Acoustic recording
Louis Armstrong
47. 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
Buddy Holly
Banjo
Cakewalk
Tempo
48. Chord - consonance - dissonance
cadence
motive
Harmony
Polyphonic
49. 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.'
Boogie Woogie
Timbre
Melody
Beach Boys
50. 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
R&B
Ragtime
Rhythm
Producer