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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. 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.'
Glenn Miller
Electric Guitar
Classic blues
Beach Boys
2. 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
Ragtime
Janis Joplin
Paul Whiteman
Beach Boys
3. A theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music
motive
Cover version
Buddy Holly
James Brown
4. The quality of a sound - sometimes called 'tone color.'
Arranger
Timbre
Phil Spector
Bob Dylan
5. 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.
Disc Jockeys
sound
Frank Sinatra
Sheet music
6. A style rooted in the venerable southern string band tradition. It combines the banjo - fiddle - mandolin - dobro - guitar - and acoustic bass with a vocal style often dubbed the 'high - lonesome sound.' The pioneer of bluegrass music was Bill Monroe
Rock 'n' Roll
Berry Gordy - Jr.
Bluegrass
Dick Clark
7. Developed in 1925 using a new device - the microphone. Electric recording converts sounds into electrical signals.
urban folk
Electronic recording
Refrain
Buddy Holly
8. The musical structure of a piece of music; its basic building blocks and the ways they are combined.
Blues
Form
Patsy Cline
The Beatles
9. The underlying pulse of a song or piece of music; a unit of rhythmic measure in music.
Phil Spector
Beat
Strophic
Rock 'n' Roll
10. 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
Bridge
Producer
Sheet music
11. Illegal practice - common throughout the music industry - of paying bribes to radio disc jockeys to get certain artists' records played more frequently.
Phil Spector
Payola
Big Band
Tin Pan Alley
12. 'The Queen of Soul -' she began singing gospel music at an early age and had several hit records with Atlantic - including 'Respect' in 1967 and 'Think' in 1968.
Crooning
Aretha Franklin
Brian Wilson
Ragtime
13. A musical genre that emerged in black communities of the Deep South-especially the region from the Mississippi Delta to East Texas-sometime around the end of the nineteenth century
Blues
Lyrics
Refrain
R&B
14. Founder of Motown Records.
Berry Gordy - Jr.
Acoustic recording
Rock 'n' Roll
Les Paul
15. The musical pattern created by parts being played or sung together
Dick Clark
Chorus
The Supremes
Texture
16. A person who writes the words for songs
Lyricist
Bridge
Chorus
Countrypolitan
17. 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
Nashville sound
R&B
Diana Ross
Sheet music
18. Sophisticated approach to the vocal presentation and instrumental arrangement of country music; a fusion of 'country' and 'cosmopolitan.'
ASCAP
Big Band
Countrypolitan
Chuck Berry
19. 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
12-bar Blues
Syncopation
Harmony
Benny Goodman
20. Born into a wealthy family in Indiana; studied classical music at Yale - Harvard - and the Schola Cantorum in Paris.
Cole Porter
Ray Charles
cadence
Cover version
21. A style rooted in the venerable southern string band tradition. It combines the banjo - fiddle - mandolin - dobro - guitar - and acoustic bass with a vocal style often dubbed the 'high - lonesome sound.' The pioneer of bluegrass music was Bill Monroe
Bluegrass
Bob Dylan
AABA form
Dick Clark
22. 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.'
Jerry Lee Lewis
Paul Whiteman
Brian Wilson
sound
23. Teen-oriented rock 'n' roll song using a twelve-bar blues structure; it celebrated a simple - hip-swiveling dance step.
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24. 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
Buddy Holly
Scott Joplin
Elvis Presley
Refrain
25. Describes a song where the stanzas are all sung to the same music
The Rolling Stones
Motown
Strophic
Arranger
26. Beat - meter - syncopation
Rhythm
The Beatles
Aretha Franklin
Payola
27. A musical rhythm accenting a normally weak beat
Phil Spector
Les Paul
Syncopation
Blues
28. Record company founded by Berry Gordy Jr. in Detroit.
A cappella
Cole Porter
Motown
Paul Whiteman
29. The words of a song.
Lyrics
sound
Minstrel Show
Electric Guitar
30. Repeating section within a song - consisting of a fixed melody and lyrics repeated exactly - typically following one or more verses.
The Beatles
Chorus
Lyrics
Scott Joplin
31. Popularly known as the 'Mother of the Blues -' was the first of the great women blues singers and had a direct influence on Bessie Smith.
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32. 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
Bridge
Chuck Berry
Diana Ross
Tempo
33. Album conceived as an integrated whole - with interrelated songs arranged in a deliberate sequence.
Concept album
Lyricist
Crooning
Polyphonic
34. 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
Rhythm
Race Records
Les Paul
35. 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
Ray Charles
R&B
Major/Minor
Boogie Woogie
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.
Hook
Tin Pan Alley
Phil Spector
Les Paul
37. 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.
Duke Ellington
James Brown
Standards
Timbre
38. 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
Paul Whiteman
A cappella
Form
Banjo
39. Repeating section within a song - consisting of a fixed melody and lyrics repeated exactly - typically following one or more verses.
Blues
Jerry Lee Lewis
Motown
Chorus
40. 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
Banjo
Frank Sinatra
Tempo
Glenn Miller
41. 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.
Hook
Paul Whiteman
Janis Joplin
The Beatles
42. 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
Brian Wilson
Minstrel Show
Irving Berlin
Rockabilly
43. 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
Form
Janis Joplin
Gene Autry
James Brown
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.
Ethel Merman
Tempo
Classic blues
Big Band
45. 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
Patsy Cline
Motown
12-bar Blues
46. Blues written by professional songwriters and performed by professional female blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey.
Scott Joplin
Frank Sinatra
Payola
Classic blues
47. 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
Cakewalk
motive
Benny Goodman
Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey
48. 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
Louis Armstrong
George Gershwin
Producer
motive
49. 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
Sheet music
Paul Whiteman
Arranger
50. 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).
Beat
Ballad
Strophic
Polyphonic