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WorksheetsMusic Knowledge Quiz
Total questions: 50
Worksheet time: 25mins
Which musician can play the yidaki and the electric guitar simultaneously?
Mark Atkins
William Barton
Annapurna Devi
Ravi Shankar
Alla Rakha
What are the three pedals on an American piano named?
high pedal, low pedal, and stop
loud pedal, quiet pedal, and middle pedal
slow pedal, fast pedal, and neutral
soft pedal, sostenuto pedal, sustain pedal
C minor, B major, and G flat
Who was considered a child prodigy for their skill at playing the Chinese pipa?
Faye Wong
Teresa Teng
Huo Zun
Wang Leehom
Liu Fang
What are the two main styles of opera?
low opera and high opera
petito opera and opera grandioso
grand old opera and semi-opera
grand opera and opera buffa
opera especial and opera original
Who introduced the term “symphonic poem”?
Franz Liszt
Ludwig Van Beethoven
Emilie Mayer
Frédéric Chopin
Richard Strauss
What bird from the Amazon rainforest inspired Heitor Villa-Lobos to write an orchestral work of the same name?
uirapuru
lapwig
hoatzin
new world barbet
macaw
In terms of volume and sound, which instruments are placed in the front of a typical orchestra?
the instruments producing waves which travel the farthest
the quieter instruments
the instruments which produce the beat
the loudest of the instruments
the instruments with lower pitch
What city is considered to be the European capital of music?
Paris
Vienna
Barcelona
Florence
Athens
Who is the folk hero who brought music to the people of Africa and is said to have created many of the instruments still played in Africa today?
High John the Conqueror
Shango: The Thunder God
Mami Wata: A Spiritual Connection
Queen of Sheba
Queen Marimba
What does “forte” mean in terms of music?
pedal
loud
hold
beat
forward
Where can composers place notes on a music staff?
only on the lines
only in the spaces
above the treble clef
to the left of the bass clef
on the lines and in the spaces
What expressive music style did Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach develop as he bridged the periods of Baroque to Classical?
Impressionism
Empfindsamer Stil
Tragic Dramatic
Boccherinism
Danke & Tschüss
About how many recordings did Herbert von Karajan record of major classical works?
15 recordings
90 recordings
90 finished and 115 incomplete recordings
about 500 recordings
over 800 recordings
What feature did Domenico Scarlatti develop which had fast notes close together played as a flourish in a melody?
palmasino
garnish
tether
ornaments
debunks
Who became sitar player Ravi Shankar’s student, lifting Ravi to international fame?
Elvis Presley
Jimi Hendricks
Carl Wilson of the Beach Boys
Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones
George Harrison of the Beatles
What Hebrew instrument was made from a ram or antelope’s horn?
shofar
veena
lute
harp
straight trumpet
From which country does a krar originate?
Niger
Tanzania
Algeria
Morocco
Ethiopia
Who is believed to have created the first bagpipes?
pharisees
farmers
herdsmen
butchers
vineyard workers
What instrument provides the lowest pitch in the woodwind section?
oboe
piccolo
bass clarinet
contrabassoon
bassoon
Who was one of the greatest jazz pianists of the 20th century and was called “Maharaja of the keyboard”?
Oscar Peterson
Bill Evans
Art Tatum
Vladimer Askenazy
Idil Biret
What is the conductor’s signal to start?
raising both hands slowly and in unison
a tap on the music stand
he/she asks the first violinist to make a long slow draw
a quick swing downward
lifting baton above head
How did the first performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker do in terms of the public's opinion?
It was a flop.
It became an instant hit for both adults and children of the wealthy.
It was considered very simplistic.
It opened to mixed reviews, with some loving it and others despising it. It caused quite a debate in the tabloids and between theater critics.
The plot was too difficult to follow, so critics encouraged Tchaikovsky to simplify the plot.
What is the group of three Japanese instruments (shamisen, koto and kokyu) called when played together?
konnichiwa
kimono trio
shakuhachi lotus
Rokudan no Shirabe
sankyoku
Which of Beethoven's nine symphonies is the least played?
Beethoven’s 4th Symphony
Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony
Beethoven’s 9th Symphony
Beethoven’s 1st Symphony
Beethoven’s 5th Symphony
What is the most common type of trumpet?
A minor trumpet
middle C trumpet
B flat trumpet
D flat trumpet
G sharp trumpet
Who was noted for composing five-part string quintets during his time working with the Spanish royal court?
Luigi Cheriubini
Luigi Boccherini
Manuel de Falla
Carlos Chávez
Heitor Villa-Lobos
Which instrument has more than one keyboard played by the hands and a pedalboard played by the feet?
accordion
electric keyboard
the American piano
organ
harpsichord
What mathematician used a monochord to explain his theory about the relationship between notes in an octave scale?
Pasquel
René Descartes
Leonardo DiVinci
Pythagorus
Both (B) and (D) worked together on this theory
Which of the following is NOT an Australian First Nation instrument?
tabla
bull-roarer
clapsticks
gumleaf
seed-rattle
Which Italian musician used a technique called “word painting”?
Thomas Weelkes
Johann Pachelbel
Lusa Marenzio
Henry Purcell
Luciano Pavarotti
What might an electric violin, used since the 1920s, be made of?
kevlar
resin
glass
Any of the above
Both (A) and (C)
Who revolutionized the traditional tango in the 20th century, using jazz harmonies?
Astor Piazzolla
Amy Beach
Louis Armstrong
Ella Fitzgerald
Fletcher Henderson
Which of the following best describe a wayang kulit?
a theater production using marionettes, puppets manipulated by strings, and music to tell a story
a game show type entertainment, produced on a stage with a live audience and full orchestra in an orchestra pit below the stage
a royal theater production in early Japan which only was viewed by the emperor and his select audience
a dramatic production with large masks and huge emotions
a shadow puppet theater with an accompanying Indonesian orchestra
Which electronic musician and composer reimagined Bach’s music on Moog synthesizers to produce a highly popular album in the 1960s?
Brian Eno
Wendy Carlos
Charlotte de Witte
Depeche Mode
Ryoji Ikeda
Which piece by Carl Orff has become one of the most popular and recognizable modern oratorios?
Carmina Burana
O Fortuna
The Flying Dutchman
Catulli Carmina
Trionfo di Afrodite
Who is buried and honored at the Jongmyo Shrine with music and dancers in South Korea?
Kim Young-Sam
Yoon Suk-Yeol
kings and queens of the Joseon Dynasty
kings and queens of the Koguryo Dynasty
kings and queens of the Paekche Dynasty
To what instrument is a sousaphone most closely related?
a trumpet
a tuba
a trombone
a saxophone
a bassoon
What nickname did Persian court musician Ali Lbn Nafi have that meant “blackbird”?
Ziryab
Khosh
Amadid
Zoolander
Pingvin
What play inspired Hector Berlioz to write Symphonie Fantastique?
Shakespeare and Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare’s Hamlet
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet
Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House
Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac
Although he rejected the Romantic forms, which German composer lived and wrote music during the middle Romantic period but followed Baroque and Classical styles?
Felix Mendelssohn
Johannes Brahms
Frédéric Chopin
Hector Berlioz
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Which is the correct progression of the composition Rokudan no Shirabe which is played on the koto?
choppy to smooth sounding, as the plot of the storyline resolves itself
it starts fast and becomes slower as it progresses
starts slowly and gets faster
it starts upbeat, becomes melancholy, and ends upbeat again
an easy and mellow beat all the way through
What title does the performance of Dido and Aeneas hold?
the first opera with an all-Black cast
the only opera which was filmed, which then won an Oscar for Best Film
first full-length English opera
the first sold-out opera performed in a foreign language
the first Opera to have sold-out performances for the entire opening year
Which culture created the nose flute?
Australia's aboriginal peoples
Polynesian
Hawaiian
Inuits, Alaska’s first inhabitants
Japanese
At which event is Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 sung to the words
of Land of Hope and Glory each year?
All accredited universities in America play this at graduation.
British Proms
The Sundance Festival
The Thanksgiving Day Parade
Trans-Siberian Orchestra concerts
What type of music do the Kenyan Maasai create?
clay drum music
add-on beats music
spiritual music only
call and response patterned music
natural music to mimic nature
At what conversatory was Antonín Dvořák the director?
Royal College of Music
National Conservatory of Music in New York
Prague Conservatory
The Julliard School of Music
Both (B) and (C)
What Welsh composer joined up with a team of scientists and anthropologists to
reconstruct the musical sounds that Neanderthals might have made using their voices
and their flint tools?
Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr.
Mansel Thomas
Simon Thorne
Karl Jenkins
William Penfro Rowlands
How many strings are on the Arabic rabab, an early precursor to the violin?
two
three
seven, or an odd number higher than seven
ten to twelve
fifteen
What wooden instrument belongs to the brass family and can be more than 13 feet
long?
didgeridoo
alpenhorn
contrabassoon
harp
trembita
Which conductor set up the World Orchestra for Peace using “the unique strength of
music as an ambassador for peace”?
Sir Karl Jenkins
Roderick Williams
Georg Solti
Sarah Brightman
Renaud Capucon
