Q.1
Who 'tamed' the open-air hunting-horn by bringing it in off his patron's estate to form a part of the developing symphony orchestra?
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Franz Joseph Haydn
  • Ludwig van Beethoven
  • Jean-Baptiste Lully
Q.2
Which instrument, normally associated with marching bands and jazz, makes a soulful solo appearance in a piece called in Mussorgsky's ?
  • The clarinet
  • The tuba
  • The saxophone
  • The helicon
Q.3
Only one of the following instruments is blown with the mouth: which one?
  • Northumbrian pipes
  • Accordion
  • Cornet
  • Harmonium
Q.4
We don't usually, for one moment, consider the piano to be a wind instrument; usually it needs a player to sit and 'hit' it with whatever degree of artistry, and in the appropriate style. Yet sometimes a piano will, in a tenable manner of speaking, be played by means of wind and without a human anywhere near it: how come?
  • The wind, or a draft, may be blowing through the strings as with an 'aeolian harp'
  • The strings of the piano may be excited into vibration by other music nearby, such as a passing band
  • The player-piano ('reproducing') mechanism is powered pneumatically, with holes in the paper roll 'recognised' by an intake of air pressure, and the hammers then activated by a system of windblown bellows
  • The piano strings vibrate of their own accord when there is a shockwave in the air
Q.5
Which of these wind instruments is most likely to be the smallest?
  • Piccolo
  • Ocarina
  • Harmonica
  • Penny-whistle
Q.6
The lustrous gold colour and ringing timbre of brass instruments make them natural attention-catchers, from military signalling and bands to the jazz scene. Which metals are combined to produce brass?
  • Copper and zinc
  • Copper and silver
  • Copper and tin
  • Copper and nickel
Q.7
By a strange twist of language, the name of the first quite simple little woodwind instrument that many children ever learn to play is, in English, the same word we would now more naturally use for the machine on which their parents might seek to preserve the sound, and perhaps also the sight, of their performance. What is the linking term?
  • Flute
  • Recorder
  • Violin
  • Whistle
Q.8
Which of these instruments, technically, belongs least appropriately in the company of the others?
  • Oboe
  • Clarinet
  • Bassoon
  • Contrabassoon
Q.9
This is a small, portable 'folk' instrument whose sound may well instantly evoke the great outdoors: the cowboy wilds of the North American plains perhaps, or the trenches of the Great War, or the verandah of a colonial villa in the long-lost days of Empire. Despite its popularity it has had a tough time being accepted as a 'real, serious' instrument; in good hands (and lips) it can render many classics of the violin repertoire, other than perhaps the concertos, and indeed there are concertos for this instrument in its own right. Which is the instrument?
  • The flageolet
  • The harmonica
  • The penny-whistle
  • The fife
Q.10
The Leader of a typical orchestra is always a violinist, but which instrument (for its clarity of tone) is traditionally called to provide the tuning-note when they are all preparing to perform?
  • The trumpet
  • The flute
  • The oboe
  • The clarinet
0 h : 0 m : 1 s