Music Rhythm Quiz
Questions: 16 · 10 minutes
1. A metronome clicks once per beat, and a drummer plays two evenly spaced notes between one click and the next. What is the drummer doing?
Subdividing the beat
Changing the time signature
Adding a pickup measure
Holding a fermata
2. What does a rest tell a performer to do?
Repeat the previous note at a softer volume
Hold the previous note for the rest of the measure
Pause the underlying beat
Remain silent for a specified duration while the beat continues
3. A melody repeatedly emphasizes notes between the main beats instead of on them. Which rhythmic idea does this demonstrate?
Rubato
A rest
Syncopation
A downbeat
4. A musician counts one complete measure in 3/4 time. How many quarter-note beats should the measure contain?
One
Three
Four
Two
5. Two notes of the same pitch are connected by a tie. How should they be performed?
As one continuous sound lasting for their combined values
As two separate notes with a brief silence between them
As two separate notes with equal accents
As a gradual slide from the first note to the second
6. In a sung phrase, one lyric syllable is stretched across several different notes. What is this setting called?
Syncopation
Melisma
Ostinato
Anacrusis
7. In 4/4 time, two ordinary eighth notes have the same total duration as which note?
A half note
A dotted quarter note
A whole note
A quarter note
8. A performer divides one beat into three equal notes rather than the usual two equal eighth notes. What figure is being played?
A dotted rhythm
A tie
A triplet
A whole-note subdivision
9. A song begins with a few notes before the first complete strong measure. What is this opening called?
An ostinato
A coda
A pickup, or anacrusis
A break
10. In a common 4/4 rock groove, the snare strongly accents beats 2 and 4. What is this pattern commonly called?
A polyrhythm
A backbeat
A triplet fill
A pickup rhythm
11. A drummer plays the same written pattern after the tempo increases from 60 to 120 beats per minute. What happens to the real-time duration of each beat?
It becomes twice as long.
It remains unchanged because the written notes are the same.
It becomes half as long.
It becomes four times as long.
12. A piece in 6/8 has its eighth notes grouped in the usual compound-meter pattern. How is one measure most commonly felt?
As two main beats, each divided into three eighth notes
As three main beats, each divided into two eighth notes
As six main beats, each divided into two eighth notes
As four main beats with unequal subdivisions
13. In 4/4 time, how long does a quarter note normally last?
Half of one beat
One beat
Two beats
Four beats
14. In a meter where a quarter note receives one beat, how many beats does a dotted quarter note receive?
Three-quarters of a beat
One beat
Two beats
One and a half beats
15. A drummer counts “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and” evenly in 4/4. Which note value is represented by each spoken count and each “and”?
Eighth notes
Sixteenth notes
Quarter notes
Half notes
16. Which statement best distinguishes rhythm from the beat?
Rhythm and beat are two names for exactly the same musical feature.
Rhythm is the speed of the music, while the beat is its loudness pattern.
The beat describes note length, while rhythm describes whether notes are high or low.
The beat is the steady underlying pulse, while rhythm is the pattern of sounds and silences placed around it.