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.
  • 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. 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.






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






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






4. 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.






5. 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






6. 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






7. A person who writes the words for songs






8. 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.






9. 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






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






11. 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.






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






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






14. 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






15. 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






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






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






18. 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






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






20. 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.






21. 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.'






22. 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.






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






24. 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






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






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






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






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






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






30. The words of a song.






31. Motive - phrase - cadence






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






33. Chord - consonance - dissonance






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






35. A theme that is elaborated on in a piece of music






36. 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






37. 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






38. Beat - meter - syncopation






39. 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.






40. 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






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






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






43. 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






44. 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






45. A short musical passage






46. 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






47. 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






48. 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.






49. 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






50. 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