Test your basic knowledge |

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. 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.






2. Technique that involves the use of nonsense syllables as a vehicle for wordless vocal improvisation.






3. 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






4. 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.






5. 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






6. Vocal singing without instrumental accompaniment.






7. 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.






8. 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






9. A person who writes the words for songs






10. Played records and provided entertaining patter on the radio.






11. 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






12. The musical structure of a piece of music; its basic building blocks and the ways they are combined.






13. Known as the 'Genius of Soul'; songwriter - arranger - keyboard player - and vocalist fluent in R&B - jazz - and mainstream pop.






14. 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.






15. Motive - phrase - cadence






16. 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.






17. 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






18. The musical pattern created by parts being played or sung together






19. Played records and provided entertaining patter on the radio.






20. 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






21. 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.






22. 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






23. Beat - meter - syncopation






24. Country vocalist who scored crossover hits with songs such as 'I Fall to Pieces -' and 'Crazy -' both recorded in 1961.






25. Teen-oriented rock 'n' roll song using a twelve-bar blues structure; it celebrated a simple - hip-swiveling dance step.

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/basicversity.com/show_quiz.php on line 183


26. A recurrent rhythmical series






27. Vocal singing without instrumental accompaniment.






28. 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.

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/basicversity.com/show_quiz.php on line 183


29. Illegal practice - common throughout the music industry - of paying bribes to radio disc jockeys to get certain artists' records played more frequently.






30. 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






31. 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






32. Popular dance ensemble during the swing era - consisting of brass - reeds - and rhythm sections.






33. 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.






34. White rockabilly singer and pianist.






35. 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






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.






37. 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






38. 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.






39. Pitched/unpitched - dynamic - timbre or tone color






40. White rockabilly singer and pianist.






41. The lead singer for the Supremes. After leaving the Supremes in 1970 - she became a successful solo artist.






42. 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






43. 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.






44. The musical structure of a piece of music; its basic building blocks and the ways they are combined.






45. Repeating section within a song - consisting of a fixed melody and lyrics repeated exactly - typically following one or more verses.






46. 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






47. 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






48. 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.






49. Blues written by professional songwriters and performed by professional female blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey.






50. 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.