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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 son of an immigrant leatherworker - did much to bridge the gulf between art music and popular music. Studied European classical music but also spent a great deal of time listening to jazz musicians in New York City. Wrote Porgy and Bess (1935) -
Lyrics
Lyrics
A cappella
George Gershwin
2. 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).
Bob Dylan
Ballad
Crooning
Rock 'n' Roll
3. African American musical style rooted in R&B and gospel that became popular during the 1960s.
Ragtime
Duke Ellington
soul music
Tempo
4. 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
Bob Dylan
Rhythm
Gene Autry
5. The musical structure of a piece of music; its basic building blocks and the ways they are combined.
Tempo
Bridge
Form
Frank Sinatra
6. 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
James Brown
Ballad
Electric Guitar
Bessie Smith
7. 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
A cappella
Electric Guitar
Ragtime
Hook
8. 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
Bridge
Bob Dylan
Syncopation
9. 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
Cole Porter
Sheet music
Les Paul
10. A person who writes the words for songs
Lyricist
ASCAP
Boogie Woogie
Rock 'n' Roll
11. 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
Aretha Franklin
Minstrel Show
Ballad
Aretha Franklin
12. 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
Timbre
Arranger
motive
13. 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
Bluegrass
Ray Charles
Ray Charles
14. Motive - phrase - cadence
Bel canto
The Supremes
Chuck Berry
Melody
15. Style of folk music that grew in popularity in the burgeoning New York folk scene during the 1960s. It included artists such as Bob Dylan.
Bridge
urban folk
Ray Charles
The Beatles
16. 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.
The Rolling Stones
Bluegrass
Janis Joplin
Beat
17. Recordings of performances by African American musicians produced mainly for sale to African American listeners.
Countrypolitan
ASCAP
Frank Sinatra
Race Records
18. Founder of Motown Records.
Cakewalk
Standards
Irving Berlin
Berry Gordy - Jr.
19. 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.
Frank Sinatra
Disc Jockeys
Dick Clark
James Brown
20. 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.
Countrypolitan
Rock 'n' Roll
The Supremes
Electric Guitar
21. 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
Frank Sinatra
The Beatles
Countrypolitan
Janis Joplin
22. 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
12-bar Blues
Nashville sound
Louis Armstrong
Bridge
23. 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.
12-bar Blues
soul music
Classic blues
Phil Spector
24. A short musical passage
phrase
motive
Irving Berlin
Dick Clark
25. Blues written by professional songwriters and performed by professional female blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey.
Classic blues
ASCAP
Big Band
Elvis Presley
26. The lead singer for the Supremes. After leaving the Supremes in 1970 - she became a successful solo artist.
Diana Ross
Bob Dylan
Form
Les Paul
27. 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
Hook
Duke Ellington
12-bar Blues
Timbre
28. Illegal practice - common throughout the music industry - of paying bribes to radio disc jockeys to get certain artists' records played more frequently.
Payola
Les Paul
Polyphonic
Paul Whiteman
29. Born into a wealthy family in Indiana; studied classical music at Yale - Harvard - and the Schola Cantorum in Paris.
Sheet music
Cole Porter
Harmony
The Rolling Stones
30. A style of singing made possible by the invention of the microphone. It involves an intimate approach to vocal timbre.
ASCAP
Crooning
Frank Sinatra
The Rolling Stones
31. Played records and provided entertaining patter on the radio.
Disc Jockeys
Brian Wilson
Cover version
A cappella
32. At the age of twenty-one - introduced 'I Got Rhythm' in the stage show Girl Crazy written by George Gershwin.
Rhythm
Ethel Merman
'The twist'
Beach Boys
33. Vocal singing without instrumental accompaniment.
Lyrics
A cappella
Herman Parker
Boogie Woogie
34. 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.
Patsy Cline
Cover version
AABA form
Verse
35. 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
AABA form
motive
Boogie Woogie
Chuck Berry
36. 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
Refrain
The Rolling Stones
phrase
Boogie Woogie
37. 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
Cakewalk
ASCAP
The Rolling Stones
Blues
38. The lead singer for the Supremes. After leaving the Supremes in 1970 - she became a successful solo artist.
Nashville sound
Acoustic recording
Herman Parker
Diana Ross
39. Known as the 'Genius of Soul'; songwriter - arranger - keyboard player - and vocalist fluent in R&B - jazz - and mainstream pop.
Ray Charles
Acoustic recording
George Gershwin
Race Records
40. Musical texture with interlocking melodies and rhythms.
Polyphonic
12-bar Blues
Phil Spector
Banjo
41. 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.
Buddy Holly
Payola
Les Paul
Louis Armstrong
42. A theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music
motive
Boogie Woogie
Gene Autry
James Brown
43. The underlying pulse of a song or piece of music; a unit of rhythmic measure in music.
The Rolling Stones
'The twist'
Rockabilly
Beat
44. Beat - meter - syncopation
Rhythm
Benny Goodman
Hank Williams
AABA form
45. 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.
Scott Joplin
Classic blues
Phil Spector
Cakewalk
46. 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.
Blues
Herman Parker
Buddy Holly
Major/Minor
47. 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
Crooning
Gene Autry
Sheet music
48. A person who adapts (or arranges) the melody and chords to songs to exploit the capabilities and instrumental resources of a particular musical ensemble.
Ragtime
Cole Porter
The Beatles
Arranger
49. A technique used by opera singers that emphasizes breath control - a fluid and relaxed voice - and the use of subtle variations in pitch and rhythmic phrasing for dramatic effect.
motive
Beat
Bel canto
Rock 'n' Roll
50. 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.'
Texture
Duke Ellington
soul music
Beach Boys