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79 free Music Theory trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 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.
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Q 01How many lines does a standard musical staff have?
Five
Plainchant staves had four lines, and guitar tablature uses six, one per string.
Q 02The mnemonic 'Every Good Boy Does Fine' names the lines of which clef?
Treble
The spaces spell FACE. Bass-clef readers get 'Good Boys Do Fine Always' and 'All Cows Eat Grass' instead.
Q 03Which orchestral instrument is the main user of the alto clef?
Viola
Cello, bassoon and trombone use the tenor clef for high passages, but the alto clef is essentially viola territory.
Q 04Middle C sits one ledger line below which set of five lines?
The treble staff
Seen from below, it is one ledger line above the bass staff, which is why it is called 'middle'.
Q 05In scientific pitch notation, middle C is written how?
C4
The A used for tuning, at 440 Hz, is A4 in the same system.
Q 06By what fraction does a single dot lengthen a note?
One half
A second dot adds half of the first dot's value, so a double-dotted note is one and three-quarters times its plain length.
Q 07What do British musicians call the whole note?
Semibreve
Minim is the half note, crotchet the quarter and quaver the eighth. Americans and Britons still talk past each other here.
Q 08Around 1250, who invented distinct note shapes to show different durations?
Franco of Cologne
Before that, chant notation showed pitch shape but not rhythm. Vitry's Ars nova treatise of 1320 later allowed both 2:1 and 3:1 ratios between values.
Q 09The lower number of a time signature is always what kind of number?
A power of 2
It names the note value being counted: 2 for the half note, 4 for the quarter, 8 for the eighth. Irrational meters are the rare exception.
Q 10Which of these time signatures is a compound meter?
6/8
Compound meters group the beat into threes, so 6/8 is felt as two dotted-quarter beats, not six eighths.
Q 11The Dave Brubeck Quartet's 'Take Five' is written in which time signature?
5/4
The same group also played 'Unsquare Dance' in 7/4 and 'Blue Rondo à la Turk' in 9/8 grouped 2+2+2+3.
Q 12A key signature with a single sharp indicates which key?
G major
That sharp is always F-sharp, and the same signature also serves E minor.
Q 13What is the interval pattern of a major scale?
W W H W W W H
Start it on any note and you get a major scale; the sharps or flats needed to keep the pattern become that key's signature.
Q 14The first known circle-of-fifths diagram appears in a 1677 treatise called what?
Q 21Playing only white keys from D up to D gives which mode?
Dorian
The same white keys from E to E produce the modern Phrygian, and from B to B the seldom-used Locrian.
Q 22Which mode is a major scale with its fourth degree raised by a half step?
Lydian
It corresponds to the fifth Gregorian church mode on F, though medieval singers usually flattened the B and turned it back into plain F major.
Q 23Every triad built from the notes of a whole-tone scale has which quality?
Augmented
With no leading tone and every step the same size, no note stands out, which is why film composers reach for it to suggest dreams.
Grammatika
Its author, Mykola Dyletsky, presented theory as a composer's tool. Heinichen drew his own 'Musical Circle' independently in 1711.
Q 15Which key is the relative minor of C major?
A
They share an empty key signature; a frequent G-sharp is the tell that a tune is really in the minor.
Q 16How many semitones make up a perfect fifth?
Seven
Five semitones make a perfect fourth. Stack a fourth on a fifth and you have an octave.
Q 17In just tuning, the perfect fifth has which frequency ratio?
3:2
The octave is 2:1 and the fourth 4:3, so the fifth is the next-simplest ratio and the easiest interval to tune by ear.
Q 18The tuning system named after Pythagoras actually dates back to which civilisation?
Ancient Mesopotamia
It stacks pure 3:2 fifths, and modern theory writers pinned it on the Greek philosopher long after the fact.
Q 19How many cents wide is a tritone in equal temperament?
600
It splits the 1,200-cent octave exactly in half, which is why it is its own inversion.
Q 20What does the Latin tag 'diabolus in musica' mean?
The devil in music
The original phrase, 'mi contra fa', was aimed at a clashing minor second, and only later became attached to the tritone.
Q 24In C major, on which note is the key's only diminished triad built?
B
B–D–F sits on the seventh degree, so it is also called the leading-tone triad and functions like a dominant.
Q 25When a chart just says 'seventh chord' with no qualifier, which type is usually meant?
Dominant
That is a major triad with a minor seventh on top. The seventh began life as a passing decoration before it was allowed to be part of the chord.
Q 26The IV–I progression heard at the end of many hymns is nicknamed what?
Amen cadence
Its formal name is the plagal cadence. Theorists count four main cadence types: authentic, half, plagal and deceptive.
Q 27A cadence in which V resolves to a chord other than the tonic, usually vi, is called what?
Deceptive
It is also called interrupted or false. The finale of Mahler's Ninth opens with a whole string of them.
Q 28Ending a minor-key piece on a major tonic chord is known as what?
Picardy third
Bach does it at the end of Jesu, meine Freude. Philosopher Peter Kivy called it 'absolute music's happy ending'.
Q 29A Neapolitan chord is a major chord built on which altered scale degree?
Flat second
It usually appears in first inversion in minor keys, hence the label 'Neapolitan sixth'.
Q 30Spelled with different note names, Wagner's Tristan chord turns out to be which everyday chord?
Half-diminished seventh
The notes F, B, D-sharp and G-sharp are ordinary; what unsettled listeners in 1865 was their refusal to belong to any key.