music 12 - American Popular Music, Units 1-4

One of the benefits of the shift to electric broadcast technology from acoustic technology was a dramatic improvement in the recorded sound.

true

Joplin believed a piano rag should be played at a fast tempo so that one could dance to it.

False

After the mid-1920s, a decided majority of popular songs were written in the AABA song form.

True

As the cakewalk faded away, other dances named after a wide variety of animals were adapted or borrowed from African American folk dances.

True

Blues helped shape the modern popular song.

True

Chords are most easily recognized when all pitches sound at the same time.

True

The rhythm of the cakewalk dance fad is most notable for ______________________.

its persistent use of syncopation in popular music

The trumpet/cornet typically plays __________________________ in early New Orleans jazz collective improvisation.

melody

One of the ways to experience live music in 1929 that was not available ten years earlier was ____________________________.

tuning in to a live radio broadcast

What form is most widely used for a blues song?

twelve-bar form

The first film with a soundtrack was The Jazz Singer, and it was released in the 1930s.

False

Scott Joplin composed the most enduring piano rags of the era.

True

Scott Joplin helped inspire a movement among historically conscious black musicians to preserve their musical heritage.

True

The form of the typical piano rag was based on that of a march.

True

Vernon and Irene Castle chose __________________ to accompany their incredibly popular dance routines.

James Reese Europe

One of the first white bands to offer syncopated dance music was ___________________.

Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra

___________________ was one of the top Black Dance Orchestras from the early modern era.

The Fletcher Henderson Orchestra

The Virginia Minstrels were a group of four entertainers, singing and playing the instruments associated with minstrel shows.

True

The interlocutor of a minstrel show spoke with a resonant voice and proper diction, and controlled the pacing of the show.

True

The march and the concert band played a seminal role in the development of ragtime, syncopated music, and jazz.

True

The orchestral rags of James Europe were less syncopated than those of Scott Joplin.

True

The parlor song is a song written with the intention of being performed in one's home.

True

The revue was a loosely jointed show that linked a string of songs together with comedy and dance.

True

Which of the following instruments would NOT be commonly found in a rhythm section?

flute

George M. Cohan was unique in the development of musical theater in that __________________________________.

he wrote, performed, directed, and produced his own musicals

From our text: What blues did for the heart and soul, jazz did for the _______________.

spirit

In the 1890s and 1900s, the most popular rhythm for dances was ______________________.

the waltz

In the chorus of a song in verse/chorus form, the lyrics are set to a different melody.

False

Music from the nineteenth century illustrates the way city folks and their rural counterparts came together and cooperated.

False

Music in the nineteenth century emphasized rhythm over melody.

False

Ragtime was initially hailed as a highly popular new music style.

False

Rhythm is the general term which is vaguely used to denote successions of single notes which are musically effective.

False

The rhythm section became a fixture in popular music during the 1950s.

False

The technique of pizzicato on the string bass is rare classical music but common in popular music.

False

The terms measure and beat refer to the same thing and are used interchangeably.

False

The text states that American popular music acquired a distinct identity only when it began to synthesize European and New England musical traditions.

False

The two outlets for minstrel show songs in the middle of the nineteenth century were the stage and recordings.

False

Network radio was born by which company?

National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

___________________ is considered the birthplace of jazz.

New Orleans

According to the textbook, the first foxtrot song, created by Vernon and Irene Castle, was called _______________________

"Memphis Blues" by W. C. Handy

The classic blues form consists of __________________.

12 bars

In a blues song, the typical chord progression is as follows: I-IV-vi-V.

False

A typical Sousa march has _________________.

ABA (according to my teacher, but I put modular form)

In 1922, Louis Armstrong left home and went to find fame and fortune in ____________________.

Chicago

_________________ was responsible for mainstreaming the blues and was one of the first black performers to succeed as a mainstream popular singer: Correct Answer

Ethel Waters

A bar is type of harmony used in typical twelve-bar blues.

False

A riff typically contains no more than three notes.

False

A torch song typically was sung by a woman, usually one who was black.

False

Albums were more common in the modern era than single recordings.

False

Bessie Smith would be considered a famous rural (or country) blues artist.

False

Collective improvisation allows each member of a jazz group to individually present a solo.

False

Today, we know quite a bit about the early music of African slaves because of the widespread use of instruments, drums, and songs they performed.

False

Until its eventual appeal, Prohibition and the ban on alcoholic beverages resulted a lull in the ability of jazz musicians to find work.

False

________________ produced his first follies in 1907 and eventually became the financial backer of Show Boat.

Florenz Ziegfeld

Bing Crosby is known as an innovator in which of the following areas?

He perfected how to use the microphone to sing in a style that was conversational.

Blues songs tend to follow a simple chord progression using:

I, IV, and V chords

The writer of the musical score for Show Boat was _____________________.

Jerome Kern

The two stock characters of the early minstrel show were __________________.

Jim Crow and Zip Coon

The Hot Five and Hot Seven were small band combos led by _____________________.

Louis Armstrong

____________________, the first great recorded trumpet soloist of jazz music, was also an innovative vocalist, a great entertainer, and a recording and film star.

Louis Armstrong

Which of the following statements accurately describes the relationship between urban European popular music and West African music in the first part of the nineteenth century?

The two share a number of common traits.

Cohan was known for being a one-man entertainment industry, writing songs, lyrics, directing, performing, and producing.

True

In the early days of radio, each station generated its own programming, rather than using broadcasting network playlists like today..

True

Jean Goldkette's band offered a jazzier sound than that of the dance orchestra of Paul Whiteman.

True

Louis Armstrong and Joe "King" Oliver both played the cornet.

True

Prior to 1910, most popular songs (particularly those used in social dancing) utilized dance rhythms but were not sung.

True

Sound recording technology began with a conical horn and evolved into microphones, which were able to convert sound into electrical impulses.

True

Stephen Foster was instrumental in developing a genuinely American popular music.

True

Stephen Foster wrote songs for both minstrel shows and the parlor.

True

Which of the following performers won the DMC Online DJ Championship in 2015?

Vekked

The man most responsible for bringing the blues into print, thereby disseminating many of its conventions was ___________________.

W.C. Handy

An emphasized note, chord, or non-pitched sound is called a(n):

accent

The term syncopation is defined as:

an accent that does not line up with the beat

Tin Pan Alley refers to __________________.

an area in New York that housed the music publishing business

The ___________________, a popular dance, was borrowed and adapted from a black folk dance.

animal dance

The regular measure of time heard in popular music is called the:

beat

Chords that appear not in a random pattern but rather in particular sequences are called:

chord progressions

The Cotton Club was a popular ___________________.

club in Harlem

In the late nineteenth century, before radio, TV, or other forms of mass communication, which of the following touring ensembles was a primary source of entertainment?

concert bands

James Reese Europe was a popular _____________________________.

dance orchestra leader

The verse of a song features _____ lyrics set to _____ melody.

different; the same

The Jim Crow laws enacted following Plessy v. Ferguson ______________________.

dissolved the legal distinction between black and Creole

Melody is a general term which is vaguely used to denote successions of single notes which are musically:

effective

Chuck Berry's instrument was the:

electric guitar

The black-faced comedic foils for the interlocutor in a minstrel show are known as _______________.

endmen

In a minstrel show, the interlocutor ____________________.

monitored the mood and response of the audience

The rhythm section of the dance orchestras of the 1920s included all of the following except _________________________.

one wind instrument

Lil Hardin played the ___________________ in King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band.

piano

In the twentieth century, _____ was the dominant element.

rhythm

Which of these features most clearly defines swing?

rhythmic play over a four-beat rhythm

In the 1800s, the music of Stephen Foster became most readily available to the widest possible audience as a result of ________________.

the availability of sheet music

The core of the early jazz scene moved from New Orleans to Chicago in 1918 as a result of _______________________.

the closing of Storyville

Ragtime was important because it was ____________________________

the first African American music that looked on paper the way it sounded in performance

John Philip Sousa was a composer and bandleader whose concert bands displayed tremendous musicianship and precision. One particular style of music for which he is best known is ___________________________.

the march

A song plugger worked for ___________________.

the music publisher

At the end of the nineteenth century, the minstrel show was slowly fading from popularity. For the next twenty years it was replaced with a breezy, loosely jointed show filled with song and dance as well as a skimpy plot line to hold it all together. This new form of stage entertainment was known as ______________________.

the revue

Which of the following instruments would be considered a front-line instrument in a New Orleans jazz band?

trombone

Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" shifts between a _____ and a _____ rhythm.

two-beat; four-beat

Louis Armstrong was not only influential as a jazz trumpet player, but his contemporaries also found him to be very influential as a __________________.

vocalist

Collective improvisation is ________________________

when multiple performers simultaneously make up music together as they play