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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. Known as the 'Genius of Soul'; songwriter - arranger - keyboard player - and vocalist fluent in R&B - jazz - and mainstream pop.
Rock 'n' Roll
Ray Charles
Rock 'n' Roll
12-bar Blues
2. 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
Elvis Presley
Cakewalk
Polyphonic
Crooning
3. 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.
urban folk
Lyrics
AABA form
Texture
4. '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.
Aretha Franklin
George Gershwin
motive
Lyricist
5. Host of the popular teen-oriented television show American Bandstand
Frank Sinatra
Countrypolitan
Dick Clark
Les Paul
6. 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
Buddy Holly
Tin Pan Alley
Jerry Lee Lewis
Phil Spector
7. Country vocalist who scored crossover hits with songs such as 'I Fall to Pieces -' and 'Crazy -' both recorded in 1961.
Patsy Cline
Irving Berlin
Irving Berlin
Herman Parker
8. Repeating section within a song - consisting of a fixed melody and lyrics repeated exactly - typically following one or more verses.
Chorus
Hook
Janis Joplin
Verse
9. Album conceived as an integrated whole - with interrelated songs arranged in a deliberate sequence.
Concept album
Race Records
Tempo
Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey
10. Blues written by professional songwriters and performed by professional female blues singers such as Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey.
Les Paul
Race Records
Classic blues
Timbre
11. 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.
Electronic recording
Producer
Bel canto
Rockabilly
12. The underlying pulse of a song or piece of music; a unit of rhythmic measure in music.
Form
Harmony
cadence
Beat
13. Vocal singing without instrumental accompaniment.
Patsy Cline
A cappella
ASCAP
Ethel Merman
14. 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
Producer
Gene Autry
Form
Standards
15. 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
Melody
Janis Joplin
Crooning
Duke Ellington
16. The musical structure of a piece of music; its basic building blocks and the ways they are combined.
sound
Dick Clark
sound
Form
17. The lead singer for the Supremes. After leaving the Supremes in 1970 - she became a successful solo artist.
Producer
Polyphonic
Diana Ross
Les Paul
18. 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
Melody
Bluegrass
Minstrel Show
Elvis Presley
19. Illegal practice - common throughout the music industry - of paying bribes to radio disc jockeys to get certain artists' records played more frequently.
Concept album
Lyrics
Payola
Chuck Berry
20. The principal medium for disseminating popular sings until the advent of recording in the 1890s.
Sheet music
Aretha Franklin
Benny Goodman
Cole Porter
21. Vocal singing without instrumental accompaniment.
A cappella
The Supremes
Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey
Brian Wilson
22. Musical texture with interlocking melodies and rhythms.
Polyphonic
Race Records
Arranger
Bessie Smith
23. 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
The Rolling Stones
R&B
Payola
Verse
24. African American composer and pianist; the best-known composer of ragtime music. Between 1895 and 1915 - Joplin composed many of the classics of the ragtime repertoire and helped popularize the style through his piano arrangements - published as shee
Ballad
Cover version
Sheet music
Scott Joplin
25. 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
Beach Boys
Benny Goodman
Reverb
Major/Minor
26. The standard form of a blues song: a twelve-bar structure made up of three phrases of four bars each; a basic three-chord pattern; and a three-line AAB text.
Chorus
12-bar Blues
Standards
ASCAP
27. 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.
Les Paul
12-bar Blues
Rhythm
Big Band
28. Describes a song where the stanzas are all sung to the same music
Nashville sound
Strophic
Timbre
Sheet music
29. 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.
Bluegrass
Phil Spector
Ray Charles
Bel canto
30. The lead singer for the Supremes. After leaving the Supremes in 1970 - she became a successful solo artist.
Paul Whiteman
Beat
Beach Boys
Diana Ross
31. 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.
urban folk
ASCAP
sound
Payola
32. 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.
urban folk
Sheet music
Rockabilly
Form
33. 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
A cappella
Tin Pan Alley
Bluegrass
James Brown
34. 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.
Bel canto
Payola
Aretha Franklin
Les Paul
35. Sophisticated approach to the vocal presentation and instrumental arrangement of country music; a fusion of 'country' and 'cosmopolitan.'
Countrypolitan
Hank Williams
Cakewalk
'The twist'
36. Sophisticated approach to the vocal presentation and instrumental arrangement of country music; a fusion of 'country' and 'cosmopolitan.'
Bluegrass
Motown
Countrypolitan
Bel canto
37. 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.
Rhythm
Paul Whiteman
Duke Ellington
Race Records
38. 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.'
Benny Goodman
Bridge
Lyrics
Beach Boys
39. White rockabilly singer and pianist.
Boogie Woogie
Jerry Lee Lewis
Disc Jockeys
Rock 'n' Roll
40. 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
Electronic recording
Scat singing
Form
41. 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
Paul Whiteman
Syncopation
Boogie Woogie
Ballad
42. Founder of Motown Records.
Bob Dylan
Payola
Berry Gordy - Jr.
Irving Berlin
43. The musical pattern created by parts being played or sung together
Ray Charles
Concept album
Texture
Les Paul
44. 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
Ray Charles
The Beatles
Lyrics
Melody
45. 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
Berry Gordy - Jr.
Gene Autry
Cover version
Chuck Berry
46. The words of a song.
Phil Spector
Les Paul
Lyrics
Buddy Holly
47. Musical texture with interlocking melodies and rhythms.
Elvis Presley
Melody
Polyphonic
Major/Minor
48. The principal medium for disseminating popular sings until the advent of recording in the 1890s.
Sheet music
sound
Syncopation
Gertrude 'Ma' Rainey
49. 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.
12-bar Blues
Blues
Frank Sinatra
Bridge
50. Known as the 'Genius of Soul'; songwriter - arranger - keyboard player - and vocalist fluent in R&B - jazz - and mainstream pop.
Scat singing
Ray Charles
Reverb
Phil Spector