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Subjects : performing-arts, music
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
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  • 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. 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






2. 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.






3. 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






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

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5. 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.'






6. 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.






7. 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






8. 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.






9. Trombonist and bandleader; formed his own band in 1937. Miller developed a peppy - clean-sounding style that appealed to small-town Midwestern people as well as to the big-city - East and West Coast constituency.






10. 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.






11. Sophisticated approach to the vocal presentation and instrumental arrangement of country music; a fusion of 'country' and 'cosmopolitan.'






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






13. 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.






14. 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






15. At the age of twenty-one - introduced 'I Got Rhythm' in the stage show Girl Crazy written by George Gershwin.






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






17. Recordings of performances by African American musicians produced mainly for sale to African American listeners.






18. The principal medium for disseminating popular sings until the advent of recording in the 1890s.






19. Record company founded by Berry Gordy Jr. in Detroit.






20. 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.






21. A person who writes the words for songs






22. 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






23. 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






24. 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.






25. 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.






26. 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






27. A style of singing made possible by the invention of the microphone. It involves an intimate approach to vocal timbre.






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






29. 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






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






31. 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






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






33. 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






34. 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.






35. 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.






36. 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






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






38. Beat - meter - syncopation






39. 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






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






41. 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






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






43. Host of the popular teen-oriented television show American Bandstand






44. 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.






45. 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.






46. 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.






47. The principal medium for disseminating popular sings until the advent of recording in the 1890s.






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






49. A person who adapts (or arranges) the melody and chords to songs to exploit the capabilities and instrumental resources of a particular musical ensemble.






50. 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







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