Messages with the tag: trivia

Posts with this tag are either trivia questions (with answers available interactively) or otherwise related to our TriviaPark.com site.

November 14, 2011

Broken Globe

Categories: Fun — Tags: ,

There’s already a Shakespeare quiz at TriviaPark.com, so today’s question may have to fit in somewhere else. It concerns an event that to Will Shakespeare would have been both a drama and a tragedy. Find out more, as we play…

Guess the catastrophe

William Shakespeare’s professional home for most of his career was The Globe, a celebrated London theater that unfortunately did not outlast even him. It met its demise in 1613, three years before Shakespeare’s own death. How was The Globe destroyed?

  1. Collapsed: the upper stands gave way when a record crowd rioted during a dull show
  2. Demolished: to build a luxury villa, Rochester Hall, on the same site
  3. Incinerated: when cannon-fire used in Shakespeare’s Henry VIII ignited the straw roof
  4. Torn apart: by a Protestant mob outraged by supposed ‘code-words’ in certain plays

Answer

November 13, 2011

Rhythm fascination

Categories: Fun — Tags: , , ,

Today we come to the second-last question in the music theory quiz we’re putting together for TriviaPark.com and AheadWithMusic.com. Looking at the meter — the rhythmic pulse — of some common musical forms, we ask:

Who’s got the time?

Which of the following musical forms typically uses six-eight rhythm?

  1. A Baroque minuet
  2. A Celtic jig
  3. A Scott Joplin piano rag
  4. A Sousa march

Answer

November 9, 2011

Guido

Categories: Fun — Tags: , , ,

Today’s question is the eighth of the 10-question music theory quiz that’s currently under construction for TriviaPark.com and AheadWithMusic.com. We cast our minds back to the Italian city-state of Arezzo just about a millennium ago, and ask:

What did Guido do?

Guido d’Arezzo was an 11th-century Benedictine monk who is celebrated for an important contribution to the history of music. What did he do?

  1. Invented the clarinet
  2. Revolutionized musical notation
  3. Was the first to combine voice and instruments in the same work
  4. Wrote the melody that became the song Greensleeves

Answer

The microtone

Categories: Fun — Tags: , , ,

Today’s question is the seventh in a 10-question music theory quiz for TriviaPark.com and AheadWithMusic.com. If you have a taste for slightly out-of-the-way musical jargon, you may already know the answer to:

What is a microtone?

Which of the following definitions most accurately captures the meaning of the word ‘microtone’?

  1. A separation of pitch smaller than a semitone
  2. A short musical work stating a single melodic idea
  3. A sound too brief or too quiet to register fully with an audience
  4. A special microphone for recording tones

Answer

November 7, 2011

To the Manor appointed

Categories: Fun — Tags: ,

Whether England still swings like a pendulum do, as Roger Miller sang in the sixties, we don’t know, but it definitely marches to a different drummer. And that leads us to today’s new question for TriviaPark.com, which concerns a high-falutin’ and quintessentially English…

Job search

Every now and then someone applies for the post of ‘steward and bailiff of the Manor of Northstead’ in Yorkshire, England. Why would they do so?

  1. In order to get out of doing something else
  2. In order to join Mind Your Manors, a British reality TV show
  3. In order to qualify for membership in the House of Lords
  4. In order to set the decrepit Manor to rights at last

Answer

November 6, 2011

An instrument for Erik

Categories: Fun — Tags: , , ,

Carrying on today with question 6 of what will ultimately be a 10-question music theory quiz for TriviaPark.com and AheadWithMusic.com, we look at a delightful and enigmatic French composer, and ask:

What do you play Satie on?

The French composer Erik Satie (1866-1925) is well-known for the humorous and eccentric style of many of his compositions, which are chiefly for which instrument?

  1. Glockenspiel
  2. Piano
  3. Violin
  4. Voice

Answer

November 4, 2011

The concertmaster

Categories: Fun — Tags: , , ,

We finish the week half-way through our 10-question music theory quiz, now in preparation for TriviaPark.com and AheadWithMusic.com. Unlike some of the more technical questions in this quiz, today’s should fall within the general knowledge of many non-musicians, as we enquire about:

The concertmaster’s instrument

In every symphony orchestra there is one musician, second in rank only to the conductor, known as the concertmaster (or, in England, the leader). The concertmaster rank always belongs to the orchestra’s principal player of a particular instrument. Which one?

  1. Clarinet
  2. Oboe
  3. Piano
  4. Violin

Answer

November 2, 2011

The beautiful tongue

Categories: Fun — Tags: , , ,

Question 4 in our developing TriviaPark.com and AheadWithMusic.com music theory quiz concerns the use of the Italian language for expression markings and other musical terms. Fats Waller’s arrangement of the jazz standard Stardust is said to feature the tongue-in-cheek instruction tempo di sturb de neighbors, but our tone is a little more serious as we discuss:

Dying away

The Italian language has given us a widely-used lexicon for indicating expression in music. For example, the usual terms for ‘soft’ and ‘loud’ are the Italian words piano and forte. Sometimes Italian offers almost too much choice. The directions espirando, morendo and perdendosi all roughly mean ‘dying away’ — slowing down and fading out. Three of the words below also mean ‘dying away’. Which one is the exception?

  1. Calando
  2. Incalzando
  3. Mancando
  4. Smorzando

Answer

November 1, 2011

The grandest staff

Categories: Fun — Tags: , , ,

After yesterday’s excursion to the 1950s and Big Blue, now we’re back to facing the music quiz that’s currently in preparation for TriviaPark.com and AheadWithMusic.com. Today’s question, the third in the set, also includes a little physics. Specifically, we want to know:

How many lines can you hear?

An ordinary 5-line musical staff covers a musical interval of one octave and two notes (counting from its bottom line to the space just above, inclusive). How many lines would be required if the staff were to cover the entire range of human hearing (roughly 20 through 20,000 vibrations per second)?

  1. 36
  2. 54
  3. 80
  4. 128

Answer

Latest and greatest

Categories: Fun — Tags: ,

Although we’re currently concentrating on our first music education quiz for TriviaPark.com, concentration has never been our strongest point. For those of you who wouldn’t know which end of a treble clef to stir your coffee with, here’s a question in a quite different key.

It concerns the changing face of technology

In 1956, a new type of computer peripheral appeared on the market for the first time. What was the IBM 550?

  1. A disk drive
  2. A modem
  3. A printer
  4. A video display

Answer

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