Music Theory Trivia
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128 free Music Theory trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
72 free Music theory trivia questions with answers. Music theory has a reputation for being dry, but its history is full of arguments, accidents and outright myths, and that is what this quiz digs into. The early questions cover the ground any student meets in the first year: staff lines, clefs and their mnemonics, note values, time signatures, key signatures and the circle of fifths, intervals, modes, triads and seventh chords, cadences, and the Italian vocabulary of tempo, dynamics and articulation. From there it gets harder. Why is A tuned to 440 Hz, and which broadcaster hosted the meeting that decided it? Who actually calculated equal temperament first? Which composer wrote a marking of ten f's, and where did the 'devil in music' really come from? Expect questions on Guido of Arezzo, solfège, Pythagorean tuning, wolf fifths, the Tristan chord, MIDI and twelve-tone technique. It suits students revising for theory exams, working musicians and anyone who plays by ear and has always wondered what the terms mean. Every answer was checked against a reference source before publication, so the dates, ratios and names hold up.
30 of 128 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The mnemonic 'Every Good Boy Does Fine' names the lines of which clef?
Treble
Treble: the symbol is a stylised letter G that curls around the G line, which is why it is also called the G clef.
Q 02Which orchestral instrument is the main user of the alto clef?
Viola
Viola: the alto clef puts middle C on the centre line, which suits the instrument's middle range, while cellos, bassoons and trombones borrow the tenor clef for high passages.
Q 03What are the short extra lines that carry notes too high or low for the staff called?
Ledger lines
Ledger lines: instruments use different clefs partly to avoid them, because each clef keeps a part's usual range on the staff.
Q 04In scientific pitch notation, middle C is written how?
C4
C4: octave numbers tick up at every C, not at A as the alphabet suggests, so the B just below middle C is B3.
Q 05Which mark, written just after a note, makes it last half as long again?
A dot
A dot: it adds half the note's value, so a dotted half note fills a whole bar of waltz time, and a second dot adds half as much again.
Q 06What do British musicians call the whole note?
Semibreve
Semibreve: the name means half a breve, which was a short note in medieval music (Latin for 'short'), yet it is now the longest note in common use.
Q 07In the 13th century, Franco of Cologne codified a notation in which each note's shape shows what?
Its duration
Its duration: until then singers worked out long and short notes from context by learned rules, so his treatise let rhythm be read straight off the page.
Q 08The lower number of a time signature is normally what kind of number?
A power of 2
A power of 2: it names the note value being counted, and note values come from halving, so 2 means half notes, 4 quarters and 8 eighths.
Q 09Which of these time signatures is a compound meter?
6/8
6/8: compound meters split each beat into three, so its six eighth notes are felt as two big beats, not six.
Q 10Lalo Schifrin's theme for Mission: Impossible is written in which time signature?
5/4
5/4: Schifrin joked he wrote it 'for people from outer space who have five legs', and the 1996 film's remake by two members of U2 squared it into dance-friendly 4/4.
Q 11A key signature with a single sharp indicates which major key?
G major
G major: its scale needs F raised to F-sharp so that the last step up to G is a half step, and E minor borrows the same signature.
Q 12Which step pattern builds a major scale?
W W H W W W H
W W H W W W H: whole and half steps in that order, so on a piano's white keys from C the half steps fall where no black key sits, at E–F and B–C.
Q 13Which diagram arranges the twelve keys so neighbours differ by one sharp or flat?
Circle of fifths
Circle of fifths: each step clockwise lands a fifth higher and adds one sharp, and Mykola Dyletsky drew a version of it in a treatise of the 1670s.
Q 21Which mode is a major scale with its fourth degree raised by a half step?
Lydian
Lydian: on the white keys it runs F to F, but medieval chant so often flattened its fourth note, B, that the mode slid into what we now call F major.
Q 22Every triad built from the notes of a whole-tone scale has which quality?
Augmented
Augmented: every note sits a whole step from the next, so any triad stacks two major thirds, and that rootless blur is why film scores use the scale for dream sequences.
Q 23In C major, which three notes form the key's only diminished triad?
B, D and F
B, D and F: two minor thirds stacked on the scale's seventh note, the leading tone, which is why the chord pulls so strongly back to C.
Q 14Which key is the relative minor of C major?
A
A minor: a relative minor starts three half steps below its major and shares its key signature, so a stray G-sharp is the usual tell that a tune is really in the minor.
Q 15Which rock guitar chord is just a root and its fifth?
Power
Power: with no third the power chord is neither major nor minor, and the bare fifth stays crisp under heavy distortion where fuller chords turn muddy.
Q 16In just tuning, the perfect fifth has which frequency ratio?
3:2
3:2: the upper note vibrates three times for every two of the lower, the smooth blend violinists listen for when tuning, because the violin is tuned in fifths.
Q 17The tuning system named after Pythagoras was written down long before him in which civilisation?
Ancient Mesopotamia
Ancient Mesopotamia: its clay tablets tell musicians to tune by alternating fifths and fourths, and later writers credited the method to the Greek philosopher instead.
Q 18Which interval is nicknamed 'the devil in music'?
Tritone
Tritone: named for the three whole tones it spans, it runs all through Bernstein's West Side Story, where the song 'Maria' opens on its uneasy leap.
Q 19The first two notes of 'Here Comes the Bride' leap up by which interval?
Perfect fourth
Perfect fourth: ear-training students memorise that leap with this tune or the opening of 'Amazing Grace', a trick known as a reference song.
Q 20Playing only white keys from D up to D gives which mode?
Dorian
Dorian: Miles Davis built 'So What' on little else, staying on D Dorian for sixteen bars before sliding up a half step to E-flat Dorian.
Q 24When a chart just says 'seventh chord' with no qualifier, which type is usually meant?
Dominant
Dominant: chord symbols assume a major triad and a minor seventh unless told otherwise, so a bare D7 means D, F-sharp, A and C.
Q 25The chord progression IV–I is widely nicknamed which cadence?
Amen cadence
Amen cadence: hymns so often set their closing 'Amen' to those two chords that the name stuck, though its formal name is the plagal cadence.
Q 26A cadence in which V resolves to a chord other than the tonic, usually vi, is called what?
Deceptive
Deceptive: the chord that arrives shares two of the tonic's three notes, so the ear is fooled for a moment and the real ending is put off; it is also called an interrupted cadence.
Q 27Ending a minor-key piece on a major tonic chord is known as what?
Picardy third
Picardy third: a minor chord was long thought too dissonant to end on, which helped the habit take hold, and the Beatles close 'And I Love Her' with the same twist.
Q 28A Neapolitan chord is a major chord built on which altered scale degree?
Flat second
Flat second: in C that gives a D-flat major chord, usually played with F in the bass, and the sixth from that F up to D-flat is why it is called the Neapolitan sixth.
Q 29Spelled with different note names, Wagner's Tristan chord turns out to be which everyday chord?
Half-diminished seventh
Half-diminished seventh: respelled, its four notes make that common chord, but Wagner resolves it onto another dissonance, so the opera's key stays in doubt from the opening bars.
Q 30What does the dynamic marking pp stand for?
Pianissimo
Pianissimo: the Italian ending -issimo means 'very', so pp is 'very soft', and the suffix stacks, which is why a third p turns the word into pianississimo.