Test your basic knowledge |

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. 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.






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. 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.'






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






5. 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.






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






7. Vocal singing without instrumental accompaniment.






8. 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






9. 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.






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






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






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






13. 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






14. Founder of Motown Records.






15. Musical texture with interlocking melodies and rhythms.






16. 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.






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






18. Founder of Motown Records.






19. 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.






20. 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.






21. Motive - phrase - cadence






22. 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.






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






24. 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.






25. 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.






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






27. 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






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






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






30. A person who writes the words for songs






31. Album conceived as an integrated whole - with interrelated songs arranged in a deliberate sequence.






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






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






34. Born into a wealthy family in Indiana; studied classical music at Yale - Harvard - and the Schola Cantorum in Paris.






35. 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.






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






37. A person who writes the words for songs






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

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39. 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.






40. 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.






41. 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






42. 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






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






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. 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






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






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






48. '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.






49. 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






50. 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