After yesterday’s post, how about something to cleanse the palate? Here’s a music quiz.
This is an experiment. I’m trying out a plugin, the third that I’ve tried, the first two proving unsatisfactory.
I wanted a Free plugin to make quizzes. Not that I have anything against people making money, but I’m not looking for anything heavy duty, just something light and carefree.
So I tried “Quiz and Survey Master” which is supposedly the top-rated one and which has a free component. I even made a quiz in it. But then couldn’t get it to work and discovered that tech support for the free version is not very, uh, robust. So scratch that.
Then I tried “Quiz Maker” only to discover that it was a total bait and switch. Yes, it was free. Unless you actually wanted to do something with it.
So I then went to “HD Quiz” which really does seem to be free. Happily, I had made a copy of all the questions and answers I had used for the QSM quiz, so making a quiz and polishing it off in HDQ was pretty straightforward. Alas, it doesn’t seem to have a preview mode, so I need to go live to get it out.
So here it is.
I hope it works.
And let me know what you think. Should I have more quizzes?
Results
#1. "Dream a Little Dream of Me" was a hit for the Mamas & the Papas with Cass Elliot on lead vocals in 1968. Who was the first person to record that song?
“Dream a Little Dream of Me” is a 1931 song with music by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt and lyrics by Gus Kahn. It was recorded by Ozzie Nelson and his Orchestra, with vocals by Nelson, on February 16, 1931, for Brunswick Records.
#2. Nick Lucas introduced the song and topped the charts with "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" in 1929. Who recorded it in 1968 and made it his signature song?
Tiny Tim recorded it on his album “God Bless Tiny Tim”. Tim’s version went all the way to number 17 in the United States that year, and became his signature song; he continued to perform it for the rest of his career.
#3. Paul McCartney composed the melody to "Yesterday" in a dream, and initially wrote some dummy lyrics until he could think of something better. His first lyric for the opening three notes was--?
The original opening words were “Scrambled eggs/Oh my baby how I love your legs/Not as much as I love scrambled eggs”.
#4. Stephen Sondheim didn't have a hit song until Judy Collins's version of "Send In the Clowns" hit the charts, but famously critical about how his music is performed, Sondheim was not happy with her arrangement as it took too many liberties with his music.
Sondheim was fine with her arrangement which was done by Jonathan Tunick who had done the orchestrations for A Little Night Music where the song originated, but he had been annoyed by Frank Sinatra’s version where the arranger changed one chord. Sondheim wanted his music performed the way he wrote it, but if you were going to take liberties, he wanted you to take a lot of liberties, not simply change a single chord.
#5. Beethoven was persuaded to add the title "Moonlight" to his Piano Sonata Opus 27 No. 2 by--
Beethoven never gave it a title, and most of the titles by which we know many of his works were given by others, often after his death. Ludwig Rellstab is credited (or blamed) with naming the Moonlight Sonata, and it’s considered by many to be a singularly inappropriate name as the music is more in the character of a funeral cortege.
#6. In the song "American Pie" the phrase "the day the music died" refers to--
The plane crash in 1959 that killed early rock and roll stars Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens, ending the era of early rock and roll. So both “a plane crash in 1959” and “the death of Buddy Holly” are correct.
#7. In The Music Man Professor Harold Hill says, "And you'll feel something akin to the electric thrill I once enjoyed when Gilmore, Pat Conway, the great Creatore, W.C. Handy, and ______ all came to town on the very same history day!" Name the missing person.
#8. "Alexander's Ragtime Band" made Irving Berlin famous. Which of these statements is true?
All of the statements are true.
#9. "Sing, Sing, Sing (With a Swing)" is a 1936 song with music and lyrics by Louis Prima, but it was most famously record by whom?
On July 6, 1937, “Sing, Sing, Sing” was recorded in Hollywood with Benny Goodman on clarinet; Gene Krupa on drums; Harry James, Ziggy Elman, and Chris Griffin on trumpets; Red Ballard and Murray McEachern on trombones; Hymie Schertzer and George Koenig on alto saxophones; Art Rollini and Vido Musso on tenor saxophone; Jess Stacy on piano; Allan Reuss on guitar; and Harry Goodman on bass. The song was arranged by Jimmy Mundy. Unlike most big band arrangements of that era, limited in length to three minutes so that they could be recorded on one side of a standard 10-inch 78-rpm record, the version which Goodman’s band recorded was an extended work. The 1937 recording lasted 8 minutes and 43 seconds, and it took up both sides of a 12-inch 78. — from WikiPedia