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:
“The bourgeois stands like a question mark,
Speechless, like the hungry cur,
The ancient world stands there behind him,
A mongrel dog, afraid to stir.”
—Alexander Blok (1880–1921)
““If Washington were President now, he would have to learn our ways or lose his next election. Only fools and theorists imagine that our society can be handled with gloves or long poles. One must make one’s self a part of it. If virtue won’t answer our purpose, we must use vice, or our opponents will put us out of office, and this was as true in Washington’s day as it is now, and always will be.””
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“What I call a good patient is one who, having found a good physician, sticks to him till he dies.”
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809–1894)
“The reason can give nothing at all Like the response to desire.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)