exam one

Question 1

simple vs. compound meter

Answer 1

simple: beat is divided into 2 parts
compound: Meter where the beat is divided into three (3) parts

Question 2

tonic (scale degree)

Answer 2

Describes a set of hierarchical relationships between pitches, oriented around a stable “home base” (tonic)

Question 3

improvisation

Answer 3

a tune created on the spot

Question 4

book musical

Answer 4

Unlike revue shows, this form of theater centered around a plot but still used acting, singing, and dancing

Question 5

contrafact

Answer 5

A jazz composition that uses a preexisting harmonic (chord) progression but features a new, different melody

Question 6

crooning

Answer 6

Singing style characterized by humming or singing in a soft, velvety tone

Question 7

syncopation

Answer 7

The displacement of an expected accent or strong sound on a normally weak part of the beat

Question 8

cover version

Answer 8

a new recording of a song that was already made by another artist or composer

Question 9

plugging

Answer 9

Practice of going to music stores/businesses to promote work and drum up interest

Question 10

scatting

Answer 10

singing (often improvising) using nonsense syllables

Question 11

slumming

Answer 11

white audience comes to black and tan clubs to see them perform

Question 12

revue (show)

Answer 12

theatrical productions without a strong central plot

Question 13

open vs. closed endings

Answer 13

open: unstable end of phrase
closed: ends on stable note like 1 or 5

Question 14

bottleneck technique

Answer 14

using the bottleneck of a glass to play the chords of a guitar, gives it a metallic sound, used in country blues and hillbilly music

Question 15

Stephen Foster

Answer 15

American popular song composer popularized by rise of sheet music and cheaper pianos, parlor songs, “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair”

Question 16

Charles K. Harris

Answer 16

ballads, “After the Ball”

Question 17

John Philip Sousa

Answer 17

“March King” famous for his military marches, march music

Question 18

Scott Joplin

Answer 18

ragtime, “Maple Leaf Rag,” added syncopation to marches, St. Louis

Question 19

Louis Armstrong

Answer 19

from NOLA, King Oliver’s Jazz Band, improv, appeared on film and radio, “Basin Street Blues,” call and response with trumpet and trombone

Question 20

James Reese Europe

Answer 20

African American band leader and ragtime composer

Question 21

Paul Whiteman

Answer 21

Highly influential white bandleader who brought a more “classicized” version of jazz to the concert hall

Question 22

Duke Ellington

Answer 22

Successful African American jazz band leader/pianist famous for a “jungle” sound in black-and-tan clubs

Question 23

Jelly Roll Morton

Answer 23

jazz, improv, Red Hot Peppers

Question 24

Don Azpiazú

Answer 24

combined Cuban rhythm with jazz

Question 25

James P. Johnson

Answer 25

ragtime to jazz, pianist

Question 26

Fats Waller

Answer 26

jazz, NY based pianist, syncopation, laid back, "Ain't Misbehaving"

Question 27

George Gershwin

Answer 27

Influential composer of Tin Pan Alley and symphonic jazz

Question 28

Eubie Blake

Answer 28

ragtime into jazz, pianist, "The Charleston Rag"

Question 29

Cole Porter

Answer 29

tin pan alley, early broadway hits, 1920s, "Anything Goes," and "Lets Do It, Lets Fall in Love"

Question 30

Irving Berlin

Answer 30

Prolific Jewish Tin Pan Alley composer whose works like “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” and “Blue Skies” made it on stage and film, tin pan alley

Question 31

Richard Rogers

Answer 31

tin pan alley, Rogers and Hammerstein, "Oklahoma," and "The King And I," and "The Sound of Music"

Question 32

Blind Lemon Jefferson

Answer 32

country blues, East Texas, "That Black Snake Moan," guitar as extension of voice, traveling street musician and recording star

Question 33

W.C. Handy

Answer 33

father of the blues that formed his own dance band, "Memphis Blues" and "St. Louis Blues"

Question 34

Charley Patton

Answer 34

Mississippi delta blues, "Tom Rushen Blues," gritty voice, doesn't enunciate, rough, growly, threw around guitar and used it as percussion

Question 35

Robert Johnson

Answer 35

Mississippi delta blues, bottleneck technique, plucked guitar, rural, messier, rough around the edges, "Cross Road Blues"

Question 36

Jimmie Rodgers

Answer 36

early country music, musically progressive, former railroad break man, yodeling, steel guitar, "Blue Yodel No. 2," and "Waiting for a Train"

Question 37

Bing Crosby

Answer 37

jazz, 1920s, radio career, Rhythm Boys, worked with Paul Whiteman, Louis Armstrong, "White Christmas," and "Pennies from Heaven"

Question 38

Carter Family

Answer 38

early country, family band, "Gospel Ship," happy but about dying (and going to heaven)

Question 39

Glenn Miller

Answer 39

swing, trombonist, Glenn Miller Orchestra, record sales and attendance because of live radio broadcasts, "In the Mood"

Question 40

Benny Goodman

Answer 40

king of swing, band leader, California, "Sing, Sing, Sing," and "Puttin on the Ritz"

Question 41

Count Basie

Answer 41

led Count Basie's band, Kansas City swing, "One O'clock Jump," 12 bar blues and loose rhythm

Question 42

Cab Calloway

Answer 42

swing, scat, "St. James Infirmary Blues," in cartoon, Boston to Chicago, worked with Armstrong, Crosby, Ellington

Question 43

Roy Acuff

Answer 43

early country, swing method, slow and drawn out vocals, strummed, bottleneck method, Hawaiian metallic sound

Question 44

minstrel show

Answer 44

Form of theater, or variety show, portraying African-American caricatures dancing, acting, or singing

Question 45

phonograph/records

Answer 45

Early playing/recording technology where sound vibrations are etched on tin/wax that is stretched over a rotating cylinder

Question 46

ragtime

Answer 46

Musical style associated with “river country,” characterized by steady oom-pah bass and syncopated, complex rhythms in melody

Question 47

Tin Pan Alley

Answer 47

Region of Lower Manhattan full of song publishers and composers with close ties to Broadway

Question 48

jazz

Answer 48

trumpet, syncopation, trombone slide, blues notes, mutes, scooped notes, glissando, bent notes, call and response, improv, hot and sweet and Latin, dance music, Louis Armstrong and Paul Whiteman and Duke Ellington, New Orleans, African American song traditions, Creole, the slave trade, Storyville, segregation

Question 49

race music/records

Answer 49

music by black people, for black people, early RNB (rhythm and blues), AA'B schema with vocal melismas and walking basslines

Question 50

blues (classic and country)

Answer 50

classic: pitch bends, somber, piano, St. Louis Blues, middle class, urban, professional singers, AAB and 12 bar, spread through migration and phonograph country: banjo, bottleneck, 12 bar and AAB, Mississippi delta, Texas, impoverished black people, phonographs helped spread

Question 51

swing

Answer 51

fluid-rocking, Harlem Renaissance, clubs and theaters, big bands (less improv), highly syncopated and swung rhythms, meant to pull people out of old Great Depression, spread African American culture, associated with damnation, people didn't understand quick popularity (but spread from agencies, radio, film, jukeboxes), Kansas City swing (closer to blues due to area, boogie-woogie projecting piano)

Question 52

“hillbilly” (country and western) music

Answer 52

midwest, mountain areas, rural, white, bottleneck method, yodeling, plucking method, fiddle, twang, rough, music about working class life, orally spread and via radio

Question 53

big band

Answer 53

swing era, bigger groups, multiple people playing instruments, playing the same part so less improv

Question 54

12-bar blues

Answer 54

12 bar blues harmonic schema, AA'B, 1 1 1 1, 4 4 1 1, 5 4 1 1

Question 55

meter

Answer 55

Organization of beats into consistent patterns of strong and weak pulses

Question 56

methods of transmission

Answer 56

radio (white), oral (hillbilly), phonograph (black), sheet music (older times, when people played piano)

Question 57

strophic form

Answer 57

song form that uses the same/similar music for each section of text, represented as AAAA or AA'A", aka "verse form"

Question 58

quaternary form

Answer 58

four part form, AABA, lyrically variant but musically invariant A, like strophic but contains a bridge that creates contrast with strophs

Question 59

verse and refrain

Answer 59

verse (freer form) and refrain (AABA), refrain comes after verse