Spooky Music History
Which famous piece of music features skeletons dancing at midnight?
Danse macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns.
Which composer wrote In the Hall of the Mountain King, featuring music that gets faster and louder as the trolls chase Peer Gynt?
Edvard Grieg
A ghost wants to play a melody very quietly. Which musical dynamic marking should it use?
Piano (p)
A ghost wants to play the flute without producing a clear musical pitch. What kind of sound should it make?
Air sound (breath tone)
Your team has 10 seconds to name THREE musical instruments that could create a spooky Halloween soundtrack.
Any three valid instruments
Which famous medieval Latin chant about the Day of Judgment has been quoted by composers to suggest death and the supernatural?
Dies irae
Which French composer wrote The Sorcerer's Apprentice, about a young apprentice whose magical broom gets completely out of control?
Paul Dukas
A haunted melody moves entirely by half steps, creating a creeping, unsettling sound. What is this type of movement called?
Chromatic movement
A flutist wants to imitate the rattling sound of a skeleton by rapidly rolling the tongue while playing. What is this technique called?
Flutter tonguing
A skeleton has lost its rhythm! Clap a four-beat rhythm using at least one pair of eighth notes and one quarter rest.
Any correctly performed four-beat rhythm meeting both conditions.
Which Russian composer wrote Night on Bald Mountain, inspired by a gathering of witches and supernatural spirits?
Modest Mussorgsky
Which composer wrote The Erlking (Erlkönig), a terrifying song about a father riding through the night with his child, who sees a supernatural figure?
Franz Schubert
A composer wants the music to sound increasingly terrifying by gradually getting louder. What musical instruction should appear in the score?
Crescendo
A haunted flute produces two or more pitches at the same time. What is this unusual technique called?
Multiphonics
The conductor of the Haunted Orchestra has disappeared! Name THREE things a conductor communicates to musicians without speaking.
Tempo, dynamics, entrances, phrasing, articulation, or musical character.
In the final movement of Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, what terrifying gathering does the protagonist imagine attending?
A witches' sabbath
Which Russian composer wrote the opera The Queen of Spades, featuring a ghost who reveals the secret of three playing cards?
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
A vampire is composing a spooky melody in a minor key. What is the name of the minor scale that raises both the 6th and 7th notes when ascending?
Melodic minor scale
A ghost wants to make a flute note slide eerily upward or downward in pitch without moving through separate notes. What is this effect called?
Pitch bend
A vampire wants a dramatic musical entrance. Your team must perform a five-second spooky musical effect using ONLY your flutes. Include at least TWO different sounds.
Creative performance challenge (perform together)
Which historical musical interval acquired the nickname diabolus in musica, meaning 'the devil in music'?
The tritone
Which composer wrote the opera The Turn of the Screw, a chilling ghost story involving two children and a governess?
Benjamin Britten
A composer writes a melody in 4/4 containing a dotted quarter note, two eighth notes, and a half note. The measure is too long. By how many beats?
Half a beat
A flute-playing monster wants to create a sharp, percussive sound by sealing the embouchure hole with its lips and forcefully articulating into the instrument. What is this extended technique called?
Tongue ram
The ghosts have scrambled the musical instructions! Your team must explain how to transform a cheerful children's melody into something terrifying WITHOUT changing its pitches. Name FOUR different musical changes.
Examples: slower tempo, extreme dynamics, altered articulation, different rhythm, unusual tone color, dramatic pauses, or changes in register when feasible without changing pitch classes.