Easy Music Trivia Questions

34 easy music trivia questions with answers

1. How many strings does a standard guitar have?

   Answer: Six A bass guitar normally has four.

2. Which instrument has 88 keys?

   Answer: Piano That covers a range of seven octaves and a little more.

3. Which band released the album Abbey Road?

   Answer: The Beatles It was the last album the group recorded together, in 1969.

4. Who is known as the King of Pop?

   Answer: Michael Jackson Elvis Presley is the one called the King of Rock and Roll.

5. Which instrument is played by blowing across a hole while holding it sideways?

   Answer: Flute It is the only common woodwind that uses no reed.

6. How many lines are there in a standard musical staff?

   Answer: Five Notes sit both on the lines and in the four spaces between them.

7. Which country did the band ABBA come from?

   Answer: Sweden The name is built from the four members' initials.

8. What does the word 'forte' mean in music?

   Answer: Loud It is marked f in a score; piano, marked p, means the opposite.

9. Which brass instrument uses a sliding tube instead of valves?

   Answer: Trombone The slide lets a player glide smoothly between pitches.

10. Which is the largest and lowest string instrument in an orchestra?

    Answer: The double bass Jazz players usually pluck it rather than use a bow.

11. In a choir, which is the lowest voice part?

    Answer: Bass The usual four parts run soprano, alto, tenor and bass.

12. Which musical instruction tells a player to get gradually louder?

    Answer: Crescendo Diminuendo is the instruction to fade back down.

13. Opera as an art form began in which country?

    Answer: Italy The earliest surviving operas were written in Florence around 1600.

14. Which band recorded the album The Dark Side of the Moon?

    Answer: Pink Floyd It was released in 1973 and stayed on the charts for years.

15. The musical The Sound of Music is set in which country?

    Answer: Austria The 1965 film version starring Julie Andrews was shot largely in and around Salzburg.

16. Who composed the music for the stage musical Cats?

    Answer: Andrew Lloyd Webber Cats is based on poems by T. S. Eliot and opened in London in 1981.

17. The musical Hamilton tells the story of a founding father of which country?

    Answer: United States Lin-Manuel Miranda based the show on Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton.

18. How many strings does a violin have?

    Answer: Four The strings are tuned a fifth apart: G, D, A and E.

19. The trumpet and the tuba belong to which family of instruments?

    Answer: Brass Brass instruments produce sound from the player's vibrating lips, whatever metal they are made of.

20. What is the person who leads an orchestra with a baton called?

    Answer: A conductor The concertmaster is the leading first violinist, not the person holding the baton.

21. Which singer is known as the Queen of Soul?

    Answer: Aretha Franklin Franklin became the first woman inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

22. Which country does the singer Shakira come from?

    Answer: Colombia She was born in Barranquilla and recorded in Spanish for a decade before her first English-language album.

23. What is the name of Elvis Presley's home in Memphis, now a museum?

    Answer: Graceland Graceland opened to visitors in 1982, five years after Presley's death.

24. Hip hop emerged in the 1970s in which US city?

    Answer: New York City It grew out of block parties in the Bronx, where DJs extended the instrumental breaks of funk records.

25. Which Italian word in a score tells a musician to play softly?

    Answer: Piano The keyboard instrument took its name from the marking, as a shortening of pianoforte.

26. The harp belongs to which family of instruments?

    Answer: Strings A concert harp has around 47 strings and seven pedals that change their pitch.

27. Which Irish rock band is fronted by Bono?

    Answer: U2 U2 formed in Dublin in 1976 while its members were still at school.

28. Adele's album 21, released in 2011, is named after what?

    Answer: Her age when she wrote it All of Adele's studio albums carry the age she was while writing them.

29. Taylor Swift's album 1989 is named after what?

    Answer: Her birth year Swift was born in December 1989 and released the album in 2014.

30. The musical Wicked tells the back story of characters from which classic tale?

    Answer: The Wizard of Oz Wicked is based on Gregory Maguire's 1995 novel and opened on Broadway in 2003.

31. Which pop musician wrote the songs for the 1994 film The Lion King with lyricist Tim Rice?

    Answer: Elton John John and Rice won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the film.

32. Which instrument was Jimi Hendrix famous for playing?

    Answer: Electric guitar Hendrix played a right-handed Stratocaster turned over and restrung for his left hand.

33. Which woodwind instrument traditionally gives the orchestra its tuning note?

    Answer: Oboe The oboe's stable, penetrating tone made it the traditional source of the A the other players tune to.

34. What does it mean to sing 'a cappella'?

    Answer: Without instrumental accompaniment The Italian phrase refers to church-style singing done without instruments.