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






2. 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






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






4. Describes a song where the stanzas are all sung to the same music






5. Founder of Motown Records.






6. 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.






7. The son of an immigrant leatherworker - did much to bridge the gulf between art music and popular music. Studied European classical music but also spent a great deal of time listening to jazz musicians in New York City. Wrote Porgy and Bess (1935) -






8. 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.






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






10. Chord - consonance - dissonance






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






12. 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






13. 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.






14. 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.

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15. '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.






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






17. 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.'






18. African American musical style rooted in R&B and gospel that became popular during the 1960s.






19. Founder of Motown Records.






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






21. 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






22. 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






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






24. 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.






25. A memorable musical phrase or riff.






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






27. 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.






28. 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






29. 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.'






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






31. A short musical passage






32. A musical rhythm accenting a normally weak beat






33. 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.

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34. The son of an immigrant leatherworker - did much to bridge the gulf between art music and popular music. Studied European classical music but also spent a great deal of time listening to jazz musicians in New York City. Wrote Porgy and Bess (1935) -






35. 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






36. 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






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






38. 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






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. 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






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






42. African American musical style rooted in R&B and gospel that became popular during the 1960s.






43. 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






44. 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.'






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






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. 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






48. 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.






49. 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






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