Question/Answer Call and Response
Part of the band poses a musical "question", or a phrase that feels unfinished, and another part of the band "answers" (finishes) it. In the blues, the B section often has a question-and-answer pattern (dominant-to-tonic).
An example of this is the Christmas song Must Be Santa:
- CALL: Who laughs this way, ho ho ho?
- RESPONSE: Santa laughs this way, ho ho ho!
A similar question-and-answer exchange occurs in the movie Casablanca between Sam and the band in the song Knock On Wood:
- CALL: Who's got trouble?
- RESPONSE: We've got trouble!
- CALL: How much trouble?
- RESPONSE: Too much trouble!
Read more about this topic: Call And Response (music)
Famous quotes containing the words question, answer, call and/or response:
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—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I have placed slippers very carefully under my bed, only to have them crawl out during the night to a position where I will step into them the wrong way round when leaping out of bed to answer the telephone.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“The scholar might frequently emulate the propriety and emphasis of the farmer’s call to his team, and confess that if that were written it would surpass his labored sentences.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)