Music Theory Quiz

This is a test of real music theory knowledge, and not a test of whether you know all the latest rad guitarists or can name the hits of the hip-hop artists in your iPod. My motivation for creating this quiz was that 99% of all the other "music" quizzes here are just that: pop culture quizzes, and not _music_quizzes.

This is not an easy quiz to take "cold" if you don't happen to be either a professional musician or a current music student. but you can take heart from that fact that, if you have a sincere interest in music, most people can learn all of the fundamentals on which this test is based in 6-months to a year -- one or two good community college music classes will do it.

Created by: Farsnworth Swargleheimer
  1. An interval is:
  2. A chord is:
  3. Common practice harmony recognizes _____ major and minor keys.
  4. 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8 are known as
  5. Common practice harmony recognizes ____ major and minor key signatures.
  6. If a passage written in quarter notes is counted out in eighth notes, we have:
  7. In Scientific Pitch Notation, "middle C" is referred to as
  8. An anacrusis is
  9. "Common Time" refers to a time signature of
  10. An augmented major triad in root position contains
  11. If you invert a Major 9th, you get
  12. G - Bb - C - E is
  13. In common practice harmonic analysis, "4-3" would refer to
  14. A dot placed after a note
  15. The ____ clef places Middle C on the ____ line of the staff.
  16. Which formula represents a Plagal Cadence?
  17. The classical sonata has ____ movements (typically).
  18. The instrumentation of an orchestra usually consists of:
  19. A jig or gigue is generally in ____ time.
  20. "Timbre" refers to the
  21. The difference between "consonance" and "dissonance" is largely a matter of
  22. The "range" of an instrument usually refers to
  23. Gregorian chants are:
  24. In scoring a piece for cello, flute, violin, and piano, the staff for the ____ would be placed at the top of the page.
  25. Rhythmic figures that sustain the duration of notes across the usual regular subdivisions of a measure or a beat are called:
  26. Whether a scale or a chord is major or minor is determined by
  27. A series of notes which express a more or less complete, brief musical idea are usually referred to as
  28. The key of F-major is said to be the ________ of the key of D-minor.
  29. "Tempo" refers to
  30. A stylized long letter "F" in musical score, stands for "_____" which means "______".
  31. "Accelerato" means
  32. Given the same time signature and tempo, a double-dotted quarter note will sound ______ two dotted eighth notes tied together.
  33. A diatonic scale started on the ___ scale degree will give a scale that is in the ________ mode.
  34. A chord in root position spelled ( Eb - G - Bb - Db - F - Ab - C ) is an example of a(n)
  35. Common practice harmony is also referred to as ______ harmony.
  36. The juxtaposing of rhythmically independent melodic lines so that they play out particular harmonic formulae is called ______ .
  37. Examining a piece of music to determine details of its harmonic and melodic construction is called ______ .
  38. Notes with the same letter name, which occur in different octaves are referred to as
  39. The standard audio frequency around which most modern European and American instruments and ensembles are designed is
  40. Typical piano tuning, in which the pitch distance is exactly the same between any two adjacent semitones, is called

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