CLEP Humanities : Understanding Terminology That Describes Twentieth-Century Music
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Example Questions
Example Question #15 : Music
The accordion is a traditional piece of ensembles in all of the following musical genres except which one?
French Chansons
Tejano
Klezmer
Bluegrass
Cajun
Bluegrass
Accordions have been used in a wide variety of traditional folk music around the world. Accordions, free reed instruments that can be played with either a keyboard or diatonic buttons, provide a multitonal and varied sound that can accompany a voice all on its own. One notable exception to the kind of folk music that features the accordion is bluegrass, a folk style developed in Appalachia that exclusively features string instruments such as the guitar, banjo, fiddle, dobro, and mandolin.
Example Question #16 : Music
The so-called "twelve-tone technique," which uses all twelve chromatic notes in a scale and abandons keys, was developed by the composer __________.
Sergei Prokofiev
Phillip Glass
Arnold Schoenberg
John Cage
Igor Stravinsky
Arnold Schoenberg
In the early twentieth century, many composers sought to go beyond the traditional eight note scale of Western music. The first composer to set out a system to use atonality in compositions was Arnold Schoenberg, who created a "twelve tone system" in the 1920s of chromatic tones that gave each note equal weight. The system was used heavily by composers after World War II.
Example Question #17 : Music
In a musical time signature, the top number indicates __________.
the number of beats in a measure
the length of each beat
the tempo the musician should play
which kind of notes should be played
the total number of notes in the piece
the number of beats in a measure
The time signature is two numbers, which are stacked one on top of the other and are placed at the beginning of a piece of music. The top number indicates how many beats are in each measure. The bottom number indicates how long each beat will last, with a four meaning a quarter more, and an eight an eighth note.
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