Test your basic knowledge |

Music Appreciation

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. Upbeat variety of rock music represented by artists such as Elton John - Paul McCartney - Rod Stewart - Chicago - and Peter Frampton.






2. British hard rock band that formed in London in 1968. Zeppelin's sledgehammer style of guitar-focused rock music drew on various influences - including urban blues - San Francisco psychedelia - and the virtuoso guitar playing of Jimi Hendrix.






3. Slick variety of rhythm & blues - often with lush orchestral accompaniment: the O'Jays - the Spinners - Al Green - Barry White.






4. Tragic victim of conflicts between East and West Coast factions within the hip-hop business. He was an up-and-coming star with Los Angeles-based Death Row Records when He was shot and killed in Las Vegas in 1996.






5. Trade association whose member companies—Universal - Sony - Warner Brothers - Arista - Atlantic - BMG - RCA - Capitol - Elektra - Interscope - and Sire Records—control the sale and distribution of approximately 90 percent of the offline music in the






6. Born in Texas - Nelson was one of the most influential figures in the progressive country movement. Nelson's rise to national fame came in the mid-1970s - through his association with a group of musicians collectively known as 'the Outlaws.'






7. Trio consisting of the MCs Run (Joseph Simmons - b. 1964) and D.M.C. (Darryl McDaniels - b. 1964) - and the DJ Jam Master Jay (Jason Mizell - b. 1965). Perhaps the most influential act in the history of rap music - they established a hard-edged - roc






8. Began his performing career as a member of the Jackson Five. He achieved unprecedented success with his 1982 album Thriller - and his elaborately produced music videos helped boost the new medium of music videos. Jackson became the first African Amer






9. Born in Mexico - he began his musical career playing guitar in Tijuana. He formed his band in San Francisco in the late 1960s. Their 1971 album Abraxas established a Latin American substream within rock.






10. Publicly traded corporation that owns more than 1 -200 radio stations - 39 television stations - 100000 advertising billboards - and 100 live performance venues - ranging from huge amphitheaters to dance clubs - enabling them to present more than 70






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






12. Heterogeneous category that includes artists from Africa - the Near East - and Asia—the ultimate margins of the American music industry.






13. DJ and leader of the furious five - he developed many of the turntable techniques that characterized early hip-hop music.






14. Named after the Warehouse - a popular gay dance club in Chicago - it was a style of techno dance music. Many house recordings were purely instrumental - with elements of European synth-pop - Latin soul - reggae - rap - and jazz grafted over an insist






15. Form of rock music that blended elements of rock and European classical music. It included bands such as King Crimson; Emerson - Lake - and Palmer; and Pink Floyd.






16. DJ and leader of the furious five - he developed many of the turntable techniques that characterized early hip-hop music.






17. CEO of the New York independent label Bad Boy Records.

Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /var/www/html/basicversity.com/show_quiz.php on line 183


18. Veteran of folk pop groups such as the New Christy Minstrels and the First Edition - star of made-for-TV movies. One of the main beneficiaries of country pop's increasing mainstream appeal.






19. A digital recording process wherein a sound source is recorded with a microphone - converted to a digital stream of binary numbers - and stored in a computer. The sampled sounds may be retrieved in a number of ways.






20. Variant of MPEG; MP3 enables sound files to be compressed to as little as one-twelfth of their original size.






21. Co-founded in 1984 by the hip-hop promoter Russell Simmons and the musician-producer Rick Rubin. During the 1980s - Def Jam cross-promoted a new generation of artists - expanding and diversifying the national audience for hip-hop - and in 1986 became






22. Upbeat variety of rock music represented by artists such as Elton John - Paul McCartney - Rod Stewart - Chicago - and Peter Frampton.






23. Variant of MPEG; MP3 enables sound files to be compressed to as little as one-twelfth of their original size.






24. The most important woman in the history of hip-hop - in terms of both her commercial success and her effectiveness in establishing a feminist beachhead on the male-dominated field of rap music.






25. Singer and guitarist who founded the alternative rock band Nirvana. His recordings broke through to the commercial mainstream and popularized grunge rock. He shot himself in Seattle in 1994.






26. Slick variety of rhythm & blues - often with lush orchestral accompaniment: the O'Jays - the Spinners - Al Green - Barry White.






27. Tragic victim of conflicts between East and West Coast factions within the hip-hop business. He was an up-and-coming star with Los Angeles-based Death Row Records when He was shot and killed in Las Vegas in 1996.






28. Genre that developed out of hard rock in the 1970s and achieved mainstream success in the 1980s.






29. Centered on the creation of a strong rhythmic momentum or groove - with the electric bass and bass drum often playing on all four main beats of the measure - the snare drum and other instruments playing equally strongly on the second and fourth beats






30. 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.






31. Pioneered West Coast gangsta rap with the release of the album Straight Outta Compton. Their recordings expressed the gangsta lifestyle - saturated with images of sex and violence. The nucleus of the group was formed in 1986 - when O'Shea ;Ice C






32. Extreme variation of punk - pioneered during the early 1980s by bands in San Francisco (the Dead Kennedys) and Los Angeles (the Germs - Black Flag - X - and the Circle Jerks).






33. Form of rock music that blended elements of rock and European classical music. It included bands such as King Crimson; Emerson - Lake - and Palmer; and Pink Floyd.






34. Ice's first album - To the Extreme (1990) - monopolized the Number One position for sixteen weeks in early 1991 - selling seven million copies. When it was discovered that Van Winkle - raised in reasonably comfortable circumstances in a middle-class






35. Style modeled on that of the early acoustic string bands; probably the original 'alternative country' music.






36. Born in Mexico - he began his musical career playing guitar in Tijuana. He formed his band in San Francisco in the late 1960s. Their 1971 album Abraxas established a Latin American substream within rock.






37. Founded in 1982 - Public Enemy was organized around a core set of members who met as college students - drawn together by their interest in hip-hop culture and political activism. The group included the standard hip-hop configuration of two MCs—Chuck






38. Prince is one of the most talented musicians ever to achieve mass commercial success in the field of popular music. He has sold almost forty million recordings. Between 1982 and 1992 - he placed nine albums in the Top 10 - reaching the top of the cha






39. 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.






40. Rock style that emerged in the late 1970s. It was a 'back to basics' rebellion against the perceived artifice and pretension of corporate rock music—a stripped-down and often purposefully 'nonmusical' version of rock music.






41. Veteran of folk pop groups such as the New Christy Minstrels and the First Edition - star of made-for-TV movies. One of the main beneficiaries of country pop's increasing mainstream appeal.






42. The norm since the introduction of recording in the nineteenth century. Transforms the energy of sound waves into physical imprints (as in pre-1925 acoustic recordings) or into electronic waveforms that closely follow (and can be used to reproduce) t






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






44. In progressive country - performers wrote songs that were more intellectual and liberal in outlook than their contemporaries and were more concerned with testing the limits of the country music tradition than with scoring hits. The key artists includ






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






46. Emerged during the 1970s as one part of the cultural complex of hip-hop. It consisted of rhymed speech accompanied by funk-derived rhythmic grooves.






47. Hip-hop culture - forged by African American and Caribbean American youth in New York City - included distinctive styles of visual art (graffiti) - dance (an acrobatic solo style called breakdancing and an energetic couple dance called the freak) - m






48. Device that records musical data rather than musical sound and enables the creation of repeated sound sequences (loops) - the manipulation of rhythmic grooves - and the transmission of recorded data from one program or device to another.






49. 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.






50. Variant of hip-hop music; its emergence was heralded nationwide by the release of the album Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A. (Niggaz with Attitude). It included artists such as Snoop Doggy Dogg - 2Pac Shakur - and the Notorious B.I.G.