GACE Music History Exam Questions
and Answers 100% Pass
Enheduanna - ✔✔Earliest known composer (2300B.C.E) wrote hymns to gods, from Ur
First musical notation - ✔✔Babylonians, based on intervals in diatonic scales
aulos - ✔✔double flute, greek
kithara - ✔✔large lyre
Plato - ✔✔wrote Republic and Timaes (429-347BCE) greek music theory
Aristotle - ✔✔wrote Politics
Pythagoras - ✔✔numbers key to universe, discovered 4th, 5th and octaves consonance
related to numbers
cantillation - ✔✔chanting of sacred texts
Gregorian chant - ✔✔named after Pope Gregory I, no evidence that he played in role in
composing or standardizing chant, inspired by holy spirit,
neumes - ✔✔earliest notation of chants, wrote melodic contour above syllables
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, Guido of Arezzo - ✔✔(991-1033) suggested arrangement of lines and spaces to notate
pitch aka the staff, also invented first solfege system
Boethius - ✔✔(408-524) most revered authority on music in Middle Ages, wrote "The
Fundamentals of Music"
Proper of the Mass - ✔✔texts for Mass that vary from day to day, called by function
Ordinary of the Mass - ✔✔texts of the mass do not change, melodies may vary, called
by initial words, Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei
Office - ✔✔regular prayers/psalms sung throughout the dan and night, most
important: Matins, Lauds, and Vespers
ways to perform chant - ✔✔responsorial, antiphonal, direct
responsorial - ✔✔soloist alternates with choir/congregation
antiphonal - ✔✔two groups of the choir alternate
text settings - ✔✔syllabic, neumatic, melismatic
syllabic - ✔✔each syllable has a single note
neumatic - ✔✔syllables have one to six notes
melismatic - ✔✔long melodic passages on a single syllable
strophic - ✔✔same melody for multiple verses
Brittie Donald, All Rights Reserved © 2025 2
and Answers 100% Pass
Enheduanna - ✔✔Earliest known composer (2300B.C.E) wrote hymns to gods, from Ur
First musical notation - ✔✔Babylonians, based on intervals in diatonic scales
aulos - ✔✔double flute, greek
kithara - ✔✔large lyre
Plato - ✔✔wrote Republic and Timaes (429-347BCE) greek music theory
Aristotle - ✔✔wrote Politics
Pythagoras - ✔✔numbers key to universe, discovered 4th, 5th and octaves consonance
related to numbers
cantillation - ✔✔chanting of sacred texts
Gregorian chant - ✔✔named after Pope Gregory I, no evidence that he played in role in
composing or standardizing chant, inspired by holy spirit,
neumes - ✔✔earliest notation of chants, wrote melodic contour above syllables
Brittie Donald, All Rights Reserved © 2025 1
, Guido of Arezzo - ✔✔(991-1033) suggested arrangement of lines and spaces to notate
pitch aka the staff, also invented first solfege system
Boethius - ✔✔(408-524) most revered authority on music in Middle Ages, wrote "The
Fundamentals of Music"
Proper of the Mass - ✔✔texts for Mass that vary from day to day, called by function
Ordinary of the Mass - ✔✔texts of the mass do not change, melodies may vary, called
by initial words, Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei
Office - ✔✔regular prayers/psalms sung throughout the dan and night, most
important: Matins, Lauds, and Vespers
ways to perform chant - ✔✔responsorial, antiphonal, direct
responsorial - ✔✔soloist alternates with choir/congregation
antiphonal - ✔✔two groups of the choir alternate
text settings - ✔✔syllabic, neumatic, melismatic
syllabic - ✔✔each syllable has a single note
neumatic - ✔✔syllables have one to six notes
melismatic - ✔✔long melodic passages on a single syllable
strophic - ✔✔same melody for multiple verses
Brittie Donald, All Rights Reserved © 2025 2
