- Hi, and welcome to our true or false quiz,
in which I'm going to make ten statements
and all you have to do is to decide
whether they're true or false.
So you may just want to have a piece of paper handy,
and you can simply write numbers one to ten,
and then you can write T for true, F for false,
and see how many marks you get out of ten
in our slightly kind of random, general knowledge,
musical quiz.
Okay. Well, let's get going without further ado.
Statement number one.
Purcell was born in 1659.
The composer Henry Purcell was born in 1659.
True or false?
Statement number two.
The note D up to the note F is a major third.
So it's an interval statement, this one.
If I have D at the bottom, there's D,
and F at the top,
the statement is that D up to F is a major third.
True or false?
Statement number three.
The flute is the highest woodwind instrument.
True or false?
Statement number four.
BMW is a cataloguing system for the music of Bach.
True or false?
Statement number five.
The alto and tenor clefs are both also known as C clefs.
The alto and the tenor clefs are both
also known as C clefs.
True or false?
Statement number six.
The oboe is played using a double reed.
Statement number seven.
The scale of G-sharp minor
uses a double-sharp somewhere.
The scale of G-sharp minor
uses a double-sharp somewhere.
Statement number eight.
The composer Elgar was a keen cyclist.
The composer Edward Elgar was a keen cyclist.
True or false?
Statement number nine, about another composer, Finzi.
The composer, Finzi, owned a large number of pear trees.
Finzi owned a large number of pear trees.
True or false?
And statement number ten requires us to have a little look
at this tied note on the board.
And the statement is this,
that the sum total of this note
is eight and a quarter crotchet beats.
The sum total, all those values added together
to create one sounding note
is worth eight and a quarter crotchet beats.
True or false?
Well, now for the moment of truth.
How did you get on with our true or false quiz?
So you can give yourself a mark for each question
and see how many you got out of ten.
Let's go over them.
So statement number one,
Purcell was born in 1659, true.
So there's Purcell, born in 1659, absolutely true.
Statement number two,
D up to F is a major third.
That is false.
It's a third, D, E, F, is a third,
but D to F is a minor third.
So not a major third, but a minor third.
And if you're not so keen on intervals,
well, we've got plenty of video material out there
which you can have a look at to see
why that's a minor third and not a major third.
Statement number three,
the flute is the highest woodwind instrument.
Now, I bet this has caught one or two people,
the answer is false.
We tend to think, yeah, well,
flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon,
but don't forget that the woodwind instruments
have partner instruments.
So the oboe is partnered with the cor anglais,
the clarinet's partnered with the bass clarinet,
the bassoon's partnered with the contrabassoon
or the double bassoon.
But the flute is partnered with the piccolo,
and the piccolo plays higher than the flute.
So the highest sounding woodwind instrument
is actually the piccolo.
So the statement that the flute is the highest
is false.
Okay, statement number four,
BMW is a cataloguing system for the music of Bach.
Well, as I'm sure you probably realised,
this is false.
BMW is a very famous make of German car,
but the cataloguing system for Back is BWV.
So if you see BWV, you're talking about
a piece of music by Bach,
and if you see BMW, you're talking about a fast motor car.
So that statement was false.
Statement number five, the alto and tenor clefs
are both also known as C clefs,
that is true because the middle of the clef
tells you where the note C is.
In particular, it tell you where the note middle C is.
So the treble clef locates G for you,
so it's sometimes known as the G clef,
the bass clef locates F for you,
it's in the middle of those two dots after the clef,
so that's known as an F clef,
and the alto and the tenor clefs
locate middle C in the middle of the clef.
So that is true that they are known as C clefs.
Statement six, the oboe is played using a double reed.
Absolutely true.
So the oboe and the bassoon,
and their partners, the cor anglais and the double bassoon,
they play with double reeds.
The clarinet and its partner, the bass clarinet,
play with single reeds.
While of course, the flute and the piccolo
are played with no reeds at all.
So that was a true statement
about the oboe being played using a double reed.
Statement number seven,
the scale of G-sharp minor uses a double-sharp
is true.
Because when you write a minor scale,
so we might be talking about the harmonic minor scale
where you raise the seventh degree
by a semitone from the key signature,
you find in G-sharp minor, the seventh degree of the scale
is already F-sharp,
so when you raise that a semitone,
it becomes F-double-sharp.
So it's perfectly true to say
that the scale of G-sharp minor uses a double-sharp.
It's F-double-sharp.
Statement number eight, the composer Elgar
was a keen cyclist,
that's true.
He lived in the Malverns in the UK,
and evidently spent a lot of time
cycling around those Malvern hills.
He must have been quite a fit guy, actually.
And obviously, that was a great source
of inspiration to him in his writing,
as he was cycling around, thinking of musical ideas,
sometimes stopping to jot down things as he went.
So it's true that he was a keen cyclist.
Statement number nine, about another composer,
Finzi owned a large number of pear trees.
That is false, because Finzi
owned a large number of apple trees.
So there we are, slightly misleading statement.
So he was into lots of varieties of apple,
but not bothered about pear trees.
So there we are.
And statement number ten
was about the sum total of this,
does it come to eight and a quarter crotchet beats?
Let's do the maths.
Four, add three is seven,
add a quarter, so it's seven and a quarter,
add one, eight and quarter,
so that statement is absolutely true.
So you can now tot up and see
how many marks out of ten you've achieved
in our true or false quiz.