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.
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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. Process for recording sound in the pre-microphone era. Performers projected into a huge megaphone.






2. 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.






3. White rockabilly singer and pianist.






4. 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






5. 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






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






7. Country music style involving polished arrangements and a sophisticated approach to vocal presentation. The recordings of Patsy Cline were among the most important manifestations of the Nashville sound.






8. 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






9. A British rock group who cultivated an image as 'bad boys' in deliberate contrast to the friendly public image projected by the Beatles.






10. 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.






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






12. 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






13. 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.






14. A person who writes the words for songs






15. Musical texture with interlocking melodies and rhythms.






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






17. 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






18. A musical rhythm accenting a normally weak beat






19. 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






20. The underlying pulse of a song or piece of music; a unit of rhythmic measure in music.






21. The quality of a sound - sometimes called 'tone color.'






22. Vocal singing without instrumental accompaniment.






23. The scale systems central to Western music; a series of pitches organized in a specific order of whole- and half-step intervals. The major scale can give music a feeling of openness and brightness - whereas a minor scale can give music the feeling of






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






25. Developed in 1925 using a new device - the microphone. Electric recording converts sounds into electrical signals.






26. 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






27. 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






28. 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.






29. 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






30. Musical texture with interlocking melodies and rhythms.






31. 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.






32. 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






33. A person who writes the words for songs






34. 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.






35. In the verse-refrain song - the refrain is the 'main part' of the song - usually constructed in AABA or ABAC form.






36. 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).






37. 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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38. 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.






39. 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.






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






41. In the verse-refrain song - the refrain is the 'main part' of the song - usually constructed in AABA or ABAC form.






42. 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.






43. 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






44. 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






45. 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.'






46. 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.






47. Motive - phrase - cadence






48. 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






49. 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






50. 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