MIDTERM (10/14/19)

When applied to music, the term "dynamics" refers to change in:

A musical ensemble

The "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel's The Messiah features the following:

With regard to Handel's "Hallelujah Chorus", is fair to say that the opening repeated statement of "Hallelujah" in the voice parts is more of an example of musical variety than musical unity.

Two of the most obvious musical elements that composers use to achieve variety are dynamics and timbre.

The constant use of variety is enough to sustain a listener's interest and make a music piece pleasing and memorable.

Great performers possess outstanding technique but may not have deep musical understanding.

A distinction between composer and performer in European Western music started in the 20th century

An ensemble can be comprised of as few as 2 or as many as 100 musicians or more.

The degree to which the listener feels moved by or connected to the music is determined by the performer's technical skill.

The performer's messages, emotions, images, memories, and/or thoughts are contained in the music score.

An understanding of form enhances and improves one's appreciation of music

Structure is important because it helps our minds begin to develop expectations about what will happen next in a piece of music.

Based on the information in the text, it is fair to say that being able to identify where musical material repeats is critical to determining its form

The term étude refers to pieces that are used to teach a particular technical skill to performers.

According to the text, A-B-A form can be thought of as:

The Étude Op. 10 No. 12 in C minor by Frédéric Chopin is nicknamed Revolutionary because it started a major upheaval in Paris in 1820.

Ternary form is one of the most common forms for all styles of music

In the Étude Op. 10 No. 12 in C minor by Frédéric Chopin, the chords played by the right hand represent the accompaniment.

According to the text, Igor Stravinsky did not believe expression to be the primary purpose of music.

Which instrument is not the name of a type of African talking drum:

Musical associations remained fixed in time.

Absolutists derive pleasure from listening for the way that the different elements of music relate to each other, independently of any extra-musical connotations.

Musical connotation is reinforced by the use of certain instruments.

Evidence of the healing power of music has only been collected recently.

Select the culture whose mythology is filled with references to the healing power of music:

Music only affects our feelings and thoughts.

Music was clinically approved as a medical treatment in 1924.

Leonard B. Meyer refers to the connection between music and its function as a musical:

The first major symphony to include a detailed story was composed by:

The Concerts spirituels were founded by musicians of the Paris opera to lend legitimacy to the playing of instrumental music during religious festivals.

A referential listener is a person that is mainly concerned with judging the quality of the performance of a piece of music.

Which of the following is NOT true of the perceptive listener?

What do we call music that is not associated with a particular story, image, object, or event?

This is a short excerpt from J.S. Bach's Air from the Suite No. 3 in D major. Listening to that excerpt, a casual listener would be more inclined to do which of the following?

Which movement from Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique includes a ranz des vaches:

Referential listeners are the most common type of listeners.

A referential listener is a person that relates to music mainly through extra-musical connections or associations.

he critical listener combines the characteristics of all types of listeners.

According to the text, all critics agree that jazz is a subcategory of art music.

Composers of art music create works that are passed on from generation to generation by listening, remembering, and imitating.

Which of the following statements is inconsistent with most art music in the Western classical tradition?

Folk music belongs to the community even though it may have been written by an individual.

According to the text, the folk song Dark Eyes reflects the Romanian national character.

According to the text, it is a simple task to define the category of folk music

It is common to think of art music as superior to other kinds of music.

In jazz, performers have wide, creative freedom, even when they are playing from a score.

What are the short segments played by the piano alone?

Music notation can be thought of as a:

Which of the two following statements is true?

Just as there are quarter notes, there are quarter rests.

Rhythm is created by the combination of duration and _________.

In the Western music tradition, a note symbol (i.e., its shape) indicates both duration and pitch.

A note's duration is indicated by

One of the main purposes of music notation is to preserve the oral tradition of almost every type of society.

A rest symbol indicates:

Music notation is:

In the Western music tradition, a note symbol (i.e., its shape) indicates pitch.

A long string, if plucked really hard, will vibrate faster and thereby produce a higher pitch than a shorter string.

The audible frequency spectrum in humans ranges between:

The frequency of the lowest sound that the normal human ear can perceive ranges between 16 and 20 Hertz.

The pitch of a sound is a person's absolute perception of how high or low that sound is.

It is very important to recognize that pitch is a relative concept.

Our ears can perceive the entire range of possible sounds.

The basic unit of frequency is the:

Which of the following determines the precise pitch of a sound?

f you take any pitch on the keyboard, the next occurrence of the same letter name going towards the right (up) will vibrate:

The pitch letter names correspond to:

The interval between any two adjacent C's on the keyboard is called a/an

Black keys have the same letter names as white keys, but they are qualified as being either:

The black key to the right of the F on this keyboard can be called F sharp or G

The "sandwich" key on the piano keyboard is always D.

The letter name for white keys on the keyboard is fixed regardless of the musical context of a given composition.

The black key to the right of G is called G

The name of the white key to the immediate left of the group of two black keys on the keyboard is:

According to the text, there are always ____ keys from a letter name to its next occurrence up or down the keyboard.

The staff is a system of:

In the Western music tradition, a note symbol (i.e., its shape) indicates duration.

A note at the bottom of the staff has a higher pitch than a note at the top of the staff.

Certain noteheads can only be placed on staff lines.

In recent centuries, the standard in most Western music traditions has been imaginative forms of graphic notation.

In musical notation, pitch is indicated exclusively by:

Noteheads are placed on either lines or spaces on the staff to represent different pitches.

Each line and space on the staff represents a different:

A music notation system is a collection of _______ that people use to represent and interpret sounds.

Historically, tablature has been used for particular ______ instruments.

Ascending and descending intervals are calculated:

The descending interval between A and F is a:

Descending intervals are calculated differently from ascending ones.

When calculating intervals, both the start and end notes should be included in the count.

A fourth below D is A.

Which of the following is a true statement?

A fifth above E is

The interval between D and the next G above that D, is called a:

The two tones of an octave vibrate at the same frequency rate.

The distance between D and A (above that D) is a:

As a musical concept, dynamics covers only the overall loudness or softness of a piece of music.

Volume and dynamics are interchangeable terms.

Which of the following statements about dynamics is correct?

Aside from Carmina Burana (1937), Carl Orff is widely known for:

A pianist's skill in manipulating volume is usually referred to as the performer's

Composers started marking their scores with instructions about dynamics:

Among other factors, composers started writing dynamic markings in their scores because:

For the most part, pianists and harpsichordists don't have direct contact with the strings of their instruments. Therefore, they manipulate sound through a ____ mechanism.

The shape of the sound waves produced by a voice or instrument determines timbre.

What instrument category does the horn belong to?

If someone said that instruments that produce sounds by vibrating themselves are called aerophones, would that be a true or false statement?

The instrument in the musical example can sometimes be classified as an aerophone in the Hornsbostel-Sachs system.

According to the text, it can be argued that the human voice was the first instrument.

If someone said that instruments that produce sounds via vibrating columns of air are called aerophones, would that be a true or false statement?

The distinction between soprano and mezzo-soprano started around the middle of the 18th century.

The soprano register lies between the alto and tenor vocal ranges.

The English madrigal is characterized by:

A contralto has the lowest range of the male voices.

Which of the following operas is based on a story set in British India, where a British officer falls in love with the daughter of a Brahmin priest, with tragic consequences for her?

According to the text, there have been not yet been any female conductors

Where do the viola players sit?

In The Young Person's Guide, the theme is played more than eight times in order to give each instrument family a chance to play.

According to the text, keyboards make up the fifth family of instruments and occasionally appear with the orchestra.

How does a violinist control dynamics?

Which of the following string instrumental techniques consists of a quick back and forth movement or rocking of the finger that is in contact with the string with the intent of producing a fluctuation in pitch?

Which of the following is NOT a way to produce sound in string instruments?

The sound of string instruments is produced by a _____ stretched between two points.

Adolphe Sax invented the contrabass clarinet.

The four main orchestral woodwind instruments are:

Which of the following is not a member of the brass family?

Which of the following is a member of the brass family?

This instrument is called a:

According to the text, the modern horn is a straight tube measuring anywhere between 9 and 12 feet that ends in a widely flared bell.

According to the text, in a manner of speaking, the trombone may be considered a big trumpet.

The name trombone is derived from the Italian term for trumpet.

The four most common brass instruments in the traditional symphony orchestra are:

Timpani are capable of producing an actual pitch.

Which of the following instruments does NOT belong in the definite pitch group:

Orchestral percussion instruments are:

Castanets are traditionally played by shaking them.

The type of music event where a soloist plays by her/himself is called a __________.

Chopin continued to play organ concertos even after he lost his sight.

Keyboard instruments are sometimes part of the orchestra.

Although Chopin admired Italian bel canto, he didn't think of the piano as a singing instrument.

Jean-Phillippe Rameau was a towering figure in the development of:

Construction and sound production are the same among keyboard instruments.

When a harpsichordist depresses a key, a simple mechanism causes a __________ to __________ a string.

Upon its invention, the fortepiano eclipsed the popularity of the harpsichord:

The harpsichord is touch sensitive.

All harpsichords use one string per key to produce sound.

The piano was developed from the harpsichord.

There are only 88 keys on a piano, but there are over 200 strings.

The one-piece cast-iron frame, a crucial development in the history of the piano, was invented by:

The pedals are a crucial component of the piano. The function of the soft pedal is to reduce the amount and quality of the sound. On an upright piano, the soft pedal:

Please select the word pair that best completes the following sentence. The organ is a ____________instrument, whose tone is produced by wind flowing through ____________.

An organist can only control volume by using a pedal board.

The function of the organ's stops is to:

Ctesibius is credited with having invented the first organ in 1853.

An organ may have as many as five keyboards.

According to the text, there is no standard way to play a synthesizer.

The sound source of a the synthesizer is an oscillator.

The synthesizer has virtually no standard repertoire.

Synthesizers are a collection of elements configured and programmed by a performer to produce the desired musical effect.

A synthesizer is a musical instrument that produces sound by: