Music Quiz — 50 Questions with Answers

Which artist released 'Thriller', the best-selling album of all time?

Answer Michael Jackson

Thriller has held the record since 1982, and no album since has come close in the era of physical sales. Worldwide totals for it are estimates rather than counts, which is why you see different figures quoted with equal confidence.

The Beatles formed in which English city?

Answer Liverpool

Liverpool, though the band was largely forged elsewhere: long residencies in Hamburg had them playing many hours a night, which is where the tightness came from before anyone in Britain noticed.

Who was the lead singer of Queen?

Answer Freddie Mercury

Freddie Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar and raised partly in India. He also wrote Bohemian Rhapsody, which the record company wanted cut for being too long for radio.

Who is known as the 'King of Rock and Roll'?

Answer Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley. The title is about the moment rather than the invention — the music existed in Black American communities well before, and his role was to carry it to a mass white audience.

The group ABBA came from which country?

Answer Sweden

Sweden. They won Eurovision in 1974 with Waterloo, which is the standard example people give when arguing that the contest occasionally matters.

Who is the lead singer of the Rolling Stones?

Answer Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger. The band has been performing for over sixty years, which makes their touring career longer than most of their audience has been alive.

Which artist is often called the 'Queen of Pop'?

Answer Madonna

Madonna, and the nickname is as much about control as about sales — she owned her image and her contracts at a time when very few performers did.

Nirvana was the face of which rock movement?

Answer Grunge

Grunge. Nevermind arriving in 1991 is usually treated as the moment the mainstream turned, and the band spent much of what followed uncomfortable with being its face.

Bob Marley made which genre famous worldwide?

Answer Reggae

Reggae. He did not invent it, but he is the reason a genre from a small island became something people recognize everywhere, which is a different and rarer achievement.

The famous Woodstock festival took place in which year?

Answer 1969

1969, on a dairy farm in New York state — not in the town of Woodstock at all. Far more people arrived than tickets were sold for, so it became a free festival by accident.

Aretha Franklin earned which royal nickname?

Answer Queen of Soul

Queen of Soul. Her version of Respect is so definitive that people forget Otis Redding wrote and recorded it first — she rearranged it and changed what the song was about.

Ziggy Stardust was the alter ego of which artist?

Answer David Bowie

David Bowie. He retired the character on stage in 1973 without warning the band, announcing mid-concert that it was the last show they would ever do.

Stevie Wonder recorded for decades on which famous label?

Answer Motown

Motown, founded in Detroit in a house the label called Hitsville USA. The studio ran almost continuously, and the same small group of session players is on an extraordinary number of famous records.

Louis Armstrong was a master of which instrument?

Answer Trumpet

The trumpet, though his singing was equally influential — he is credited with popularizing scat, and the story that he started it after dropping the lyric sheet is repeated more often than it is verified.

Which songwriter won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2016?

Answer Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan, for having created new poetic expressions within the American song tradition. He did not respond for weeks, which the committee found trying and the public found entirely in character.

Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You' was originally written by whom?

Answer Dolly Parton

Dolly Parton, who wrote it in 1973 as a farewell to a business partner. She turned down an Elvis recording because his manager wanted half the publishing rights — a decision that later earned her a fortune.

Who was the drummer of the Beatles?

Answer Ringo Starr

Ringo Starr, who joined shortly before their first single and replaced Pete Best. He is also the only Beatle whose stage name was entirely invented — he was born Richard Starkey.

Jimi Hendrix revolutionized the playing of which instrument?

Answer Electric guitar

The electric guitar. Much of what he did was to treat feedback and distortion as musical material rather than as faults to be engineered out.

Luciano Pavarotti sang with which voice type?

Answer Tenor

Tenor. His fame outside opera came partly from a 1990 broadcast of a World Cup theme, which sold classical recordings in quantities the industry had never seen.

Ray Charles was famous at which instrument?

Answer Piano

Piano. He lost his sight in childhood and built a career mixing gospel phrasing with secular subjects, which was controversial at the time and became the template for soul.

How many strings does a standard guitar have?

Answer 6

Six on a standard guitar, tuned E A D G B E. Twelve-string versions double each course, which is why they sound like two guitars playing very slightly out of time.

How many keys does a full-size piano have?

Answer 88

Eighty-eight, fifty-two white and thirty-six black. The range stops there because beyond it the ear struggles to hear notes as pitch rather than as rattle or rumble.

What is the largest string instrument in an orchestra?

Answer Double bass

The double bass, which is played standing or on a high stool because it is too large to hold. It is also the only orchestral string instrument still commonly tuned in fourths rather than fifths.

Which of these is NOT a woodwind instrument?

Answer Trumpet

The trumpet is brass. Note that the family names are misleading: the saxophone is made of brass and counts as a woodwind, because the classification follows how the sound is made rather than the material.

How many strings does a violin have?

Answer 4

Four, tuned in fifths. A viola looks nearly identical to a casual eye but is tuned a fifth lower, which is why the two are so often confused across a concert hall.

Who directs an orchestra from the podium?

Answer The conductor

The conductor, whose job is far more rehearsal than performance. What audiences see is the last stage of a process that mostly happened in a room days earlier.

Adolphe Sax, inventor of the saxophone, was born in which country?

Answer Belgium

Belgium. He patented the instrument in the 1840s, and it arrived too late for the standard orchestral repertoire — which is much of why it found its home in military bands and then in jazz.

On a drum kit, the hi-hat is a pair of what?

Answer Cymbals

A pair of cymbals, played by pedal or stick. It is the part of a drum kit that most defines a groove, because it usually marks the subdivisions everything else hangs on.

What is the highest female voice type?

Answer Soprano

Soprano. The voice types describe range and timbre rather than gender alone, which is why a countertenor can sing in a range most people associate with women's voices.

Bagpipes are most associated with which country?

Answer Scotland

Scotland, though bagpipes are far older and far more widespread — versions exist across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The Scottish association is about visibility rather than origin.

Who composed 'Für Elise'?

Answer Beethoven

Beethoven, though the piece was only published forty years after his death. Who Elise was has never been settled, and one theory is that the manuscript said Therese and was misread.

'The Four Seasons' is the famous work of which composer?

Answer Vivaldi

Vivaldi. He published sonnets alongside the music describing what each movement depicts, which makes it one of the earliest widely known examples of program music.

What was Mozart's first name?

Answer Wolfgang

Wolfgang. He was baptized with a much longer name and used Amadeus rarely, usually as a joke — the version we all use was popularized long after his death.

'The Blue Danube' waltz was written by whom?

Answer Johann Strauss II

Johann Strauss II, whose father of the same name was also a famous composer. It flopped at its premiere, which is a common enough fate for pieces that later become inescapable.

Johann Sebastian Bach was from which country?

Answer Germany

Germany. He was known in his lifetime more as an organist than a composer, and his music was largely out of fashion until a revival led by Mendelssohn nearly eighty years after his death.

Who composed the ballet 'Swan Lake'?

Answer Tchaikovsky

Tchaikovsky. The first production was considered a failure, and the version danced today came after his death — so the ballet everyone knows is not the one he saw performed.

Frédéric Chopin composed almost exclusively for which instrument?

Answer Piano

The piano, almost without exception. He was also one of the first major composers to make a living from teaching and salon performance rather than from a court or church post.

The 'Hallelujah' chorus comes from which Handel work?

Answer Messiah

Messiah, which Handel composed in about three weeks. The tradition of standing for the chorus is said to have started with a king doing so, though no contemporary account confirms it.

'Ode to Joy' is the finale of whose ninth symphony?

Answer Beethoven

Beethoven's ninth, written when he was profoundly deaf. The melody is now the anthem of the European Union, adopted without words so that no member language is favored.

Who composed the opera 'Carmen'?

Answer Bizet

Bizet, who died three months after the premiere at thirty-six. The opera was judged a failure in his lifetime and became one of the most performed works in the repertoire shortly afterward.

The musical alphabet runs from A to which letter?

Answer G

A to G, then it repeats. That seven-letter cycle is why the same note name recurs at every octave, and why sheet music can be read without naming every pitch separately.

In sheet music, 'forte' tells the player to play how?

Answer Loud

Loud. It is a relative instruction, not a measurement — forte means loud compared with the rest of this piece, which is why the same marking sounds different in a lullaby and a march.

How many lines does a musical staff have?

Answer 5

Five lines and four spaces. The count is a compromise: fewer lines would need more ledger lines above and below, and more would be hard for the eye to count at a glance.

Tempo is commonly measured in what?

Answer Beats per minute

Beats per minute. The metronome made this precise in the early nineteenth century, and before it composers relied on words like allegro, which describe character as much as speed.

The Grammy Award trophy is shaped like what?

Answer A gramophone

A gramophone, which is why the trophy looks like a piece of equipment nobody in the room has used. The award is voted on by industry members rather than by sales or critics.

What is the national anthem of the United States?

Answer The Star-Spangled Banner

The Star-Spangled Banner, whose melody comes from an eighteenth-century British social club song. It was written in 1814 and only made the official anthem in 1931.

Singing 'a cappella' means singing how?

Answer Without instruments

Without instruments. The phrase means in the chapel style, from a period when church music was expected to be sung unaccompanied.

The treble clef is also known as which clef?

Answer G clef

The G clef. The curl at its center circles the line that is G, which is what the symbol is actually for — it tells you where one note sits so you can work out the rest.

Karaoke was invented in which country?

Answer Japan

Japan, in the 1970s. The word means empty orchestra, which describes the idea exactly: the band is there and the singer is missing.

The do-re-mi system of naming notes is called what?

Answer Solfège

Solfège. The syllables come from the first lines of a medieval Latin hymn, where each phrase began one note higher than the last — a memory aid that outlived the hymn by a thousand years.