MusicQuizzer (musicquizzer) is a Python program that can help you prepare for any test that involves listening to excerpts of music pieces and answering multiple choice questions about them.

Installation

Mac OS X

Get MacPorts, if you don’t have it.

From Terminal (/Applications/Utiliies/Terminal), do:

sudo port install python26
sudo port install py26-game

If you are having troubles with the latter command, try downloading the direct installer.

Next, download MusicQuizzer and uncompress it. Move the folder wherever you want (keep its contents intact!) and double-click on mac_osx.command to use the quizzer.

Windows

MusicQuizzer is written in Python, a language that does not come with Windows by default. Download the installer for Python 2.7.1 here. Use the default settings during installation.

Next, download and install pygame from here.

Finally, download MusicQuizzer and extract it wherever you want. To use, simply double-click on the musicquizzer file inside (do not move or delete any of the other files).

Linux (with apt-get)

You should be on at least Python 2.7 (check with python --version), assuming you keep your operating system up-to-date. Install the latest versions of pygame and tk with:

sudo apt-get install python-pygame python-tk

Then, download MusicQuizzer and execute the program with python musicquizzer.py from your terminal.

Usage

The first time you start the program, it will download all of the 25 necessary (default) music pieces to the pieces folder. This is a ~70 MB download.

MusicQuizzer will present you with an answer sheet, containing four or five multiple choice questions per piece (which are, of course, randomized every time you begin a new quiz). Press Start Quiz to begin listening to the excerpts. Each one is played for 30 seconds. You are then given five seconds of rest, followed by the next piece. After all excerpts have been played, you cannot re-listen to them. Press Submit Answers to “hand in” your quiz and view the results.

Modifying

The music pieces are located in pieces/, in .mp3 format. The file config.cfg contains the information for each excerpt, like so:

[10.mp3]
title: Der Erlkönig
composer: Franz Schubert
era: Romantic
genre: Lied
form: Through-composed
url: http://stuy.enschool.org/music/10_The_Erlking_Erlkonig.mp3

...and so-on. The section’s header is the name of the file in pieces/ (or whatever directory you have chosen), and the fields hold the information that MusicQuizzer will use to generate questions. The exception is the url field, which is the direct URL that MusicQuizzer will use to download the piece if it does not have a file with that name.

Feel free to rename any of the pieces, delete them, add totally new ones, or change their information. This program is designed to be customizable.

In the config file, you can also change the length of time each excerpt is played for, the time between each excerpt, and other things. If an attribute is not defined for a certain piece, the quizzer will not ask the question in that excerpt, but the question will remain for other pieces.