We have a winner! Answers to the quiz

You could find most of these just by Googling, but here are the questions:

1. What is a "tam-tam"?
2. How many strings on a mid-16th century lute?
3. On Sylvius Leopold Weiss' lute?
4. What is the order of instrumental solos on Archie Bell and the Drells' 1968 hit "Tighten Up"?
5. What is "automatic double-tracking"?
6. What does MIDI stand for?
7. How many cents in a semitone?
8. Who was Janáček's muse?
9. What solo instrument did Chopin write for other than the piano?
10. Who wrote the longest string quartet ever composed?

Answers:

1. A large, suspended gong.
2. Eleven: five doubled courses and one single.
3. The typical instrument would have 13 courses, all but one (or two) of which would be double, for a total of 25 strings. It was joked that a sixty-year-old Baroque lutenist had spent about twenty years tuning...
4. Drums, bass, guitar, organ.
5. A technique developed by the twenty-year-old engineer Ken Townsend to save time (around the time Revolver was being recorded). The Beatles had developed the technique of recording the lead vocal twice which gave it much more presence and intensity. This took up a lot of time so he developed a way of delaying the signal by microscopic amounts which gave the same final effect.
6. Musical Instrument Digital Interface (According to Wikipedia: "is a technical standard that describes a protocol, digital interface and connectors and allows a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers and other related devices to connect and communicate with one another.")
7. 100, duh!
8. Kamila Stösslová, whom he met when she was 26 and married and he was 63 (and also married, but separated). She was the inspiration for the late life burst of creativity that produced most of the pieces that he is famous for.
9. The cello.
10. Morton Feldman, about six hours duration.

If you got ten out of ten, then you might be eligible for a tenured position as professor of musicology somewhere.

Congratulations to Robin, who got seven out of ten with these answers:

1. A tam-tam is a large orchestral gong
2. I am going to guess 6 courses for 15 strings for that time period
3. and by Weiss, maybe 13 courses, so 25 strings
4.no idea
5.we used to do this in analogue recording, a second voice added to the original via tape delay
6. MIDI is musical instrument digital interface
7. 100
8. Kamila . . . . . cannot remember her last name
9. Voice?
10. Feldman

Chopin did write for the voice, but the question specified "instrument" and the only instrument he wrote solos for, other than the piano, was the cello. Here is the Cello Sonata in G minor, op. 65: