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






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






3. 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.






4. Regional style of alternative rock from Seattle that blended heavy metal guitar textures with hardcore punk. Bands from Seattle included Green River - Mudhoney - Pearl Jam - Nirvana - and Soundgarden.






5. 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






6. 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.






7. 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.






8. 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.






9. 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.






10. Singer-songwriter Who wrote many hits in the 1960s with Gerry Goffin. In 1971 - the success of her album Tapestry made her a major recording star.






11. 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






12. 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






13. The first commercially successful white act in hip-hop. Their early recordings represent a fusion of the youth-oriented rebelliousness of hardcore punk rock—the style they began playing in 1981—with the sensibility and techniques of hip-hop.






14. 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.






15. 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






16. 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






17. 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.






18. Acrobatic solo dancing improvised by the young 'B-boys' who attended hip-hop dances.






19. 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






20. Music played by San Francisco bands that encompassed a variety of styles and musical influences - including folk rock - blues - 'hard rock -' Latin music - and Indian classical music.






21. 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.






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






23. Singer-songwriter Who wrote many hits in the 1960s with Gerry Goffin. In 1971 - the success of her album Tapestry made her a major recording star.






24. 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






25. 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.






26. The first punk rock band. Formed in 1974 in New York City - the Ramones' high-speed - energetic - and extremely loud sound influenced English punk groups such as the Sex Pistols and the Clash and also became a blueprint for 1980s L.A. hardcore bands.






27. 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.'






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






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






30. The term 'alternative'—like the broadly equivalent terms 'underground' and 'independent'—is used across a wide range of popular genres - including rock - rap - adult contemporary - dance - folk - and country music. It is used to describe music that c






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






32. Acrobatic solo dancing improvised by the young 'B-boys' who attended hip-hop dances.






33. 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






34. Rapper from Oakland - California; hit the charts in 1990 with Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em - which held the Number One position for twenty-one weeks and sold over ten million copies - becoming the bestselling rap album of all time.






35. 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).






36. -one of the forerunners of the Grunge genre - originally part of the 'no wave' scene in NY -Many alternative bands such as Nirvana looked up to them -album 'Daydream Nation' was well-received by critics - and then they were signed to Geffen Records -






37. Rapper from Oakland - California; hit the charts in 1990 with Please Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em - which held the Number One position for twenty-one weeks and sold over ten million copies - becoming the bestselling rap album of all time.






38. 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.






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






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

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41. Internet-based software program that enabled computer users to share and swap files - specifically music - through a centralized file server. A federal court injunction forced Napster to shut down operations in February 2001.






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. 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.






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

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45. 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.






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






47. 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






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






49. 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






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