KEYSET

Old college threads.
Locked

I would be interested in playing this...

April 5th at 6 ET
4
33%
At some other time
1
8%
I wouldn't but want to answer the poll anyway
7
58%
 
Total votes: 12

User avatar
modernhemalurgist
Lulu
Posts: 41
Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2019 10:03 am

KEYSET

Post by modernhemalurgist »

I have written 20 academic music tossups of varying difficulty and quality, in which every answerline is a major or minor key. I intend to read this packet in the main discord, tentatively at 6 ET on Monday, 4/5. If this is something that you'd be interested in playing, let me know with the poll if this time works for you. (Excessive) details are below.

Packet Name
Kindly Evaluating Your Sense of Exact Tonality (KEYSET). Alternative backronym suggestions are welcome.

Format
The packet consists of 20 tossups, each 6-8 lines TNR, with no powermarks. Every answerline is one of the twenty-four major and minor keys in traditional Western art music, and no answerline is repeated (yes, I understand what that does to the answer space). All clues will be consistent in the enharmonic spelling of a key, but equivalent spellings will be accepted.

Distribution
The questions clue primarily from (what I consider) memorable pieces written in certain keys, as opposed to either score analysis or music theory clues. Works clued will not in general be particularly significant for having been written in the given key, but the goal is that anyone who has played or otherwise studied a clued piece will be able to convert the tossup. A consequence of the focus on classical tonalities is that all music clued will be from Western common practice, dating between 1700-1950, with more than half from the 19th century. I also emphasize solo literature (especially piano) over chamber and orchestral works, but not to their exclusion. Everything will be instrumental or instrumental-adjacent (e.g. lieder and choral symphonies are fair game).

Difficulty
While it is hard to assess difficulty with such a gimmicked answer space, I would say that questions are more-or-less uniformly distributed between Regionals (3 dots) and Nationals+ (>4 dots). A minority of clued pieces are canon-expansionary, which will generally be early in the question. Close to half the giveaways are fill-in-the-blank (i.e. pieces widely known as Piece X in Key Y), which aim to be gettable to most music players. Most of the other half are pieces known widely enough that top music players will have at least seen the score before.

Rationality
I recognize that naming keys is already not a popular type of question in quiz bowl. I don't expect this packet to change that attitude (if anything it will confirm it), but I do think that knowing keys of commonly tossed up works is extremely helpful to a music player, since in the limit it can make score clues reduce the answer space by up to 95%. I hope this packet will help with that kind of thinking.
Last edited by modernhemalurgist on Fri Mar 26, 2021 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jeremy Cummings
WUSTL 2020 - Present
University of Alabama 2017 - 2020
User avatar
modernhemalurgist
Lulu
Posts: 41
Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2019 10:03 am

Re: KEYSET

Post by modernhemalurgist »

It looks like we have enough thumbs up to go with 6 ET on 4/5, in the #packet channel on the quizbowl discord.
Jeremy Cummings
WUSTL 2020 - Present
University of Alabama 2017 - 2020
User avatar
entropy
Wakka
Posts: 107
Joined: Sun Feb 11, 2018 5:03 pm

Re: KEYSET

Post by entropy »

will the packet be posted here/on the archive?

nevermind, i found it. sorry for the redundant post.
karan
utexas
Locked