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144 free Music trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free music trivia questions with answers. Looking for music trivia categories all in one place? This quiz pulls 144 questions from across the whole spectrum of music — classical composers and orchestras, rock and pop hits, hip-hop and country, movie soundtracks, instruments and the stories behind famous songs — so it works whether you are prepping a pub-quiz music round or just testing yourself. Questions are mixed easy to hard and each comes with a short explanation after you answer, so you learn something even when you miss. Every answer has been checked against a real source. If you want to go deeper in one category, BrainPickle also has separate 80s music, 90s music, country music, classical music and music history quizzes.
30 of 144 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What title does a US symphony orchestra give its principal first violinist?
Concertmaster
Concertmaster, from the German Konzertmeister: the concertmaster marks the bowings so every violinist's bow moves in unison.
Q 02Which band released the album Nevermind in 1991?
Nirvana
Nirvana: Nevermind entered the Billboard 200 at a modest No. 144, yet it went on to reach No. 1.
Q 03Who is known as the Queen of Soul?
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin: at the 1998 Grammys she stood in at a moment's notice for an ailing Luciano Pavarotti and sang his opera aria.
Q 04Which key signature has no sharps or flats?
C major
C major: its half steps fall naturally between E and F and between B and C, so the scale needs only the piano's white keys.
Q 05What was Elvis Presley's first number-one hit on the Billboard pop chart?
Heartbreak Hotel
Heartbreak Hotel: its writers said a newspaper story about a lonely man's suicide note inspired it, though researchers have never found the article.
Q 06Which rapper's real name is Marshall Bruce Mathers III?
Eminem
Eminem: as a teenager he rapped under the name M&M, from his initials, and it evolved into Eminem.
Q 07What is each of an octave's 12 equal steps called?
Semitone
Semitone: the octave's name comes from the Latin for 'eighth', yet in Western music it spans twelve semitones.
Q 08Which 1969 Beatles album cover shows the four walking over a zebra crossing outside their London studio?
Abbey Road
Abbey Road: Iain Macmillan got the job through Yoko Ono, whose Indica gallery show he had photographed and where she met John Lennon.
Q 09Which music festival takes its name from the California desert valley where it is held?
Coachella
Coachella, held in Indio in the Coachella Valley, lost about $850,000 on its 1999 debut, and there was no festival in 2000.
Q 10Who composed the Four Seasons, a set of four violin concertos?
Antonio Vivaldi
Antonio Vivaldi wrote little instructions into the score: in Spring, the violas play a barking dog beside a sleeping goatherd.
Q 11Which country music legend is known as the Man in Black?
Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash explained it in his 1971 song Man in Black: he wore black on behalf of the poor and the imprisoned.
Q 12What does the musical term fortissimo mean?
Very loud
Very loud: Haydn slipped a sudden fortissimo chord into the soft theme of his Surprise Symphony, and it never fails to catch new listeners out.
Q 13Whose 1984 album Purple Rain doubled as a film soundtrack?
Prince
Prince: the album's lead single, When Doves Cry, hit No. 1 even though he had stripped out its bass line.
Q 21Which jazz musician, nicknamed Bird, helped invent bebop in the 1940s?
Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker told Paul Desmond that as a young man he practised 11 to 15 hours a day, for three to four years.
Q 22Which rock band is known for songs like Stairway to Heaven and Whole Lotta Love?
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin refused to release Stairway to Heaven as a single despite pressure from Atlantic Records, so radio got only promo copies.
Q 23What is a time signature of 3/4 commonly associated with?
Waltz
Waltz: because partners held each other in a close embrace, the dance shocked many people when it was first introduced.
Q 14What is the lowest-pitched instrument in a standard string quartet?
Cello
Cello is short for violoncello, Italian for 'little violone', a name that makes the big instrument sound small.
Q 15Which group's debut album, Straight Outta Compton, helped establish gangsta rap?
N.W.A
N.W.A: the album's anti-police track drew a warning letter from an FBI agent to their distributor, which only fed the group's notoriety.
Q 16Who composed The Marriage of Figaro to a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte?
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Beaumarchais's play had been banned for its frank take on class, and the opera made Austria's monarchy nervous.
Q 17Which 1960s girl group featured Diana Ross as lead singer?
The Supremes
The Supremes were mocked as the 'no-hit Supremes' around their label until Where Did Our Love Go reached No. 1 in 1964.
Q 18Which type of pickup do most electric guitars use?
Magnetic
Magnetic: its magnets partly magnetise the metal strings, so each vibrating string sends a tiny current through the pickup's coils.
Q 19Which singer-songwriter wrote and performed Blowin' in the Wind?
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan: Sam Cooke loved the song but wished a Black songwriter had written it, and it spurred him to write A Change Is Gonna Come.
Q 20The G-clef, which fixes G above middle C on the second line, is commonly known by what name?
Treble
Treble: guitar music uses it too, written higher than it sounds so that guitarists can avoid the bass clef.
Q 24Who first recorded I Will Always Love You, 19 years before Whitney Houston's cover?
Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton wrote it as a farewell to her mentor Porter Wagoner, and turned Elvis down when his side demanded a share of the publishing.
Q 25Which left-handed guitarist famously played a right-handed Fender Stratocaster flipped upside down?
Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix set a Stratocaster on fire on stage at the London Astoria in 1967.
Q 26What is the Italian musical term for gradually getting louder?
Crescendo
Crescendo: for the Beatles' A Day in the Life, orchestra players were told to climb from their instruments' lowest note to their highest.
Q 27Which British band released the concept album The Dark Side of the Moon?
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd: in the 1990s fans noticed the album seems to sync with The Wizard of Oz if started as the MGM lion roars.
Q 28In a drum kit, what is the large bass drum struck by a pedal-mounted beater commonly called?
Kick
Kick: William F. Ludwig's patented 1909 pedal let drummers strike the bass drum with a foot, so they could play sitting down.
Q 29Which Grammy Award goes to a single track, credited jointly to the performer, producer and engineers?
Record of the Year
Record of the Year went in 1992 to Unforgettable, a father-daughter duet made by dubbing Natalie Cole's voice over an old Nat King Cole recording.
Q 30What is the standard tuning of a guitar from lowest to highest string?
E-A-D-G-B-E
E-A-D-G-B-E: each string sits a fourth above the one below, except B, a major third above G, which is why B is tuned at the G string's fourth fret.