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. 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.






2. 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.






3. Marketing category that emerged around 1990; it is most often used to describe bands like are.E.M. - Sonic Youth - the Dead Kennedys - and Nirvana.






4. 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






5. 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.






6. The most influential and economically successful member of N.W.A. He founded an independent record label (Death Row/Interscope) - cultivated a number of younger rappers - and continued to develop a distinctive hip-hop production style - christened 'G






7. 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.






8. 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.






9. 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






10. The leader of the Wailers and a national hero in his native Jamaica - Marley was reggae's most effective international ambassador. His songs of determination - rebellion - and faith - rooted in the Rastafarian belief system - found a worldwide audien






11. 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.






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






13. Band that originated in the 1960s San Francisco rock scene. Their career spanned more than three decades.






14. Parton was born in the hill country of Tennessee and began her recording career at age eleven. She moved to Nashville in 1964 and built her career with regular appearances on country music radio and television.






15. 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






16. Style of electronic dance music that originated in the Detroit area during the 1980s.






17. Device that standardized digital technologies - enabling devices produced by different manufacturers to 'communicate' with one another.






18. Achieved celebrity as a member of the art rock group Genesis before embarking on a solo career. Gabriel's best-selling single 'Sledgehammer' became Number One pop and Number Sixty-one R&B in 1986. The award-winning video version of 'Sledgehammer' was






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






20. 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






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






22. 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.






23. 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).






24. 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.






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






27. Heterogeneous category that includes artists from Africa - the Near East - and Asiathe ultimate margins of the American music industry.






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






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






30. 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






31. Got his start in the 1960s as a member of the famous folk rock duo Simon and Garfunkel. His album Graceland (1986) was a global collaboration recorded in South Africa - England - and the United States. It is the album responsible - more than any othe






32. Style of electronic dance music that originated in the Detroit area during the 1980s.






33. 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.






34. Device that enables musicians to create or 'synthesize' musical sounds. Began to appear on rock records during the early 1970s.






35. A style of soft rock - lightly tinged with country music influences: John Denver - Olivia Newton-John - Kenny Rogers.






36. 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






37. Device that enables musicians to create or 'synthesize' musical sounds. Began to appear on rock records during the early 1970s.






38. 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 MCsChuck






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






40. The most original - inventive - and influential guitarist of the rock era - and the most prominent African American rock musician of the late 1960s.






41. A style of soft rock - lightly tinged with country music influences: John Denver - Olivia Newton-John - Kenny Rogers.






42. Springsteen's music and personal image evoked the rebellious rock 'n' rollers of the 1950s and the socially conscious folk rockers of the 1960s. His songs reflected his working-class origins and sympathies.






43. 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.






44. 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.






45. From the late 1980s through the 1990s - Madonna's popularity was second only to Michael Jackson's. She created controversial songs and music videos - including 'Papa Don't Preach' (1986) - 'Express Yourself' (1989) - and 'Like a Prayer' (1989).






46. 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.






47. Born in the impoverished shantytowns of Kingston - Jamaica - reggae first became popular in the United States in 1973 - after the release of the Jamaican film The Harder They Come and its soundtrack album. The heart of reggae music consists of 'riddi






48. One of the main venues for techno. Semipublic event modeled partly on the be-ins of the 1960s counterculture.






49. 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.






50. Marketing category that emerged around 1990; it is most often used to describe bands like are.E.M. - Sonic Youth - the Dead Kennedys - and Nirvana.