questions n answers 2025/2026
Tin Pan Alley - correct answer ✔✔describes music publishing industry in the first half of the
20th century
The Swing Era - correct answer ✔✔1935-1946; when Big Band Jazz was most popular in
America
Race Music - correct answer ✔✔catchall term to describe any records/songs by black artists,
including the blues and what would be later known as rhythm and blues
Benny Goodman - correct answer ✔✔First star of the swing era, bought blacks music to rise to
fame
Bing Crosby - correct answer ✔✔One of the 1st pop singers, most influential crooners (ballads).
Film and radio star.
Hillbilly Music - correct answer ✔✔Traditional old time music of the rural southern US, with
origins in English Folk. It is foundation of modern country music
English Folk Music - correct answer ✔✔Brought over from English immigrants
Cover - correct answer ✔✔New recording of a charting song that seeks to 'cover' up the original
song
,Acoustical Process - correct answer ✔✔Process used before 1925 in which acoustical horn
captured and transferred sound vibrations to a stylus that cut grooves onto a wax disc
Electrical Process - correct answer ✔✔The recording process in which microphones are used to
convert sound waves into an electrical signal
Album - correct answer ✔✔The 33-1/3 rpm; 12" LP (long playing) format introduced by
Columbia Records in 1948
Single - correct answer ✔✔The 45 rpm; 7" format introduced by RCA Victor in 1949
Major Labels - correct answer ✔✔The Largest Corporate Record Labels; Columbia, Decca,
Capitol, RCA Victor
Independent Labels - correct answer ✔✔The small startup labels that began emerging in large
numbers in the 1940's and 1950's; Chess, Atlantic, and Sun
Billboard Magazine - correct answer ✔✔Industry magazine that charts record sales, started in
1940; "Country and Western" and "Rhythm and Blues"; Hot 100 in '58
Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) - correct answer ✔✔industry trade group that
certifies record sales and designates them gold, platinum, and diamond records; 1952.
Gold - correct answer ✔✔Singles: 1 Million (Later Revised to 500,000)
Albums: 500,000
Platinum - correct answer ✔✔Albums: 1 Million Sales
,Diamond - correct answer ✔✔Albums: 10 Million Sales
DJ - correct answer ✔✔radio announcer who spins records interspersed with lively banter. Al
Jarvis of KWFB in L.A in 1932
The Moondog House Rock and Roll Party - correct answer ✔✔Alan Freed's show in 1951 in
Cleveland, R&B music for white teenagers
Top 40 - correct answer ✔✔radio format in which the top 40 selling songs are played in
repitition; developed by Todd Storz at KOWH in Omaha
Blues - correct answer ✔✔developed in Mississippi Delta and other Southern locales in the late
19th century; incorporates 12-bar verse, AAB lyric form, and tonalities from the blues scale
Work Song, Shout, Field Holler - correct answer ✔✔African song forms used to accompany work
and other aspects of everyday life that were adapted by slaves on plantations and Southern
work camps
Mississippi Delta - correct answer ✔✔250 mile long area of Mississippi stretching from
Memphis south to Vicksburg that is widely believed to be the birthplace of the Blues
Country Blues - correct answer ✔✔earliest form of blues, performed by solo male singers on a
guitar
AAB Lyric Form - correct answer ✔✔format for most blues poetry, in which each verse is
comprised of three lines, the second of which is repeated of the first.
Classic Blues - correct answer ✔✔early form of the blues from the 20's, sung by female vocalists
with small group backing. Depression finished off classic blues era around 1929
, Jazz - correct answer ✔✔music of individual expression whose main characteristics are improv
and swing rhythm
Gospel - correct answer ✔✔highly emotional evangelical vocal music that emerged from
spirituals and was highly influential to rhythm and blues
Melisma - correct answer ✔✔singing embellishment of a single syllable into several notes
[Christina Ag]
Rhythm and Blues - correct answer ✔✔Evolution of the blues that was more dance and
commercially oriented; R&B bands often included electric instruments. Replaced Jazz in 1946 as
most popular to dance to
Doo-wop - correct answer ✔✔The cappella group vocal style that incorporates high falsetto and
vocal leads, scat singing, spoken verse, etc. Most popular in 1950's
British Folk Tradition - correct answer ✔✔traditional folk music, including ballads, lyric, and
work songs of the British Isles. Brought over by British Immigrants
Bristol Sessions - correct answer ✔✔first important country music recordings made in Bristol,
TN in 1927 by Ralph Peer. Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family.
Grand Ole Opry - correct answer ✔✔radio program that began broadcasting in 1925 from WSM
in Nashville. Essentially made Nashville the center of country music industry. Longest
continuously running radio program in US
Cowboy Songs - correct answer ✔✔traditional country music and hillbilly songs used in
Hollywood films that were made to create a more commercial pop sound