How to Make Your Own Music Pub Quiz

Een muziek-pubquiz - Hoe maak je die zelf?

A family get-together, a night in with your mates, a night out at the pub – or even a work bash – a solid pub quiz can really help make it a night to remember. And it doesn’t have to be hard work! If you’ve ever been to a good pub quiz then you’ll already know that it’s always about bringing the laughs. The only technical stuff you need to know is how to piece everything together. Here, we gain the wisdom of one of the experts: Guestblogger, Gerjon, who offers some tips and tricks to help ensure that your music pub-quiz is a hit.

What’s a Music Pub Quiz?

Your average music pub quiz gathers together friends, family, colleagues or even complete strangers, puts a drink in their hands and puts their music knowledge to the test. In teams of five people or less, you simply answer questions about music, whether it’s music trivia, naming that song or artist from a music snippet or photo, or recognising different genres – the questions can be as easy or as hard as the quizmaster wants them to be. A good quizmaster will arrange the night into different rounds and cover a spectrum of genres and subjects to make sure that everyone in the room is bound to know the answer to at least one or two questions. As always, the team with the most points at the end of all the rounds is the winner and have the right to call themselves music-masterminds!

What Kind of Music Pub Quizzes Are There?

A music pub quiz can be really simple and stick to just one type of question or can be a mix of many different types of questions. Some quizzes have a theme that focuses on one specific category of music while others mix it up, so there’s really nothing stopping you from covering everything… except choice overload.

#1. Sticking to One Kind of Question

Quizzes where you simply play your contestants a bunch of music fragments and challenge them to name the artist or the song – or both – is maybe the real music fan’s favourite. You can make up a whole quiz using this format, maybe by splitting it up into different rounds, each focusing on a different kind of music or music from a specific decade. You could also have a round or do the whole quiz using nothing but covers or instrumental versions of songs, making things a bit harder – or easier (depending on when you were born) and cover every demographic in the room. Something that you really want to do to make a successful quiz.

#2. Sticking to One Theme/Genre

If you have a good idea of where your contestants’ musical interests lie and/or their age range, then you could build your quiz around a specific kind of music or a specific decade of music and give it a specific theme. Maybe all of your questions focus on the ‘80s, the noughties, folk music, black metal, or ‘50s rock ‘n roll. Having a theme can be great, and you can even warn your contestants ahead of time so they can do a little studying and preparation. Having a theme also makes it easier to write your quiz because it means you can search for more specific questions or trivia and be certain that you’re putting together something that everyone’s going to enjoy.

#3. Every Round is Different

As a seasoned quizmaster, my personal preference is to make every round different. This way you can use snippets of music and photos and cover simple questions like name that artist, band or song or more deep-diving music trivia. Because this kind of quiz pretty much covers everything and really challenges your contestants’ music knowledge and, since all pub quizzes are played in teams, this kind of quiz makes sure that every team member will be given the chance to flex their brain-muscles. After all, if you’re looking at a pub full of different people, you’re also looking at a pub full of a broad spectrum of different music tastes and knowledge.

The Most Important Bit

…is that your pub quiz is fun!

Een muziek-pubquiz - Hoe maak je die zelf?

What Kind of Rounds?

How do you put together a fun quiz made up of different rounds? Here are some classic rounds you can use to start piecing everything together:

Round #1. The Snippet Round

This round will probably be the most common simply because it’s usually the most fun. The contestants hear a short fragment of a song and are asked to note down the name of the band or artist and the song title.

Round #2. The Questions Round

In this round, we really get into it, asking questions about artists, bands, songs, musical instruments, record companies, music awards and so on. You can go as nuts as you want here just as long as your questions are linked to music.

Round #3. The Photo Round

For the photo round, you’ll need around ten photos and, again, the options are limitless. For example, you could show the teams photos of musical instruments, artists, album covers, or show a photo of the location where some momentous musical event took place and ask them to name the location or the year of the event. You can also mix things up or stick to a specific theme.

Round #4. The List Round

Here you can get the teams to puzzle over a top-10 list, like the top-10 songs of 2022 or the best-selling artists or albums of all time. Mix up the list and hand it out to each team or read it out loud and get your contestants to put the list in the correct order.

Een muziek-pubquiz - Hoe maak je die zelf?

The 3 Most Common Music Quiz Errors

#1. Playing the Title of a Song in a Music Snippet

You’re sitting at the ready as the quizmaster plays back a snippet of a song. You immediately recognise the intro and not only the artist but the title hits you in a flash. The moment you start scribbling the answer down, the singer wails the answer to the question over the pub speakers and every other team scrabbles for the pen to get the answer down before anyone notices what’s happened… Frustrating? Yes. Possibly pointless? Certainly. Well, the answer is usually in the question. However, if you are quizmaster for the night, it’s surely only polite to select music fragments that don’t include the title of the song.

#2. Asking Crazy-Hard Questions or Using Obscure Music Snippets

When making a music quiz, it makes sense to call on your own music knowledge. But it’s also worth remembering that not everyone knows what you know. If too many of your contestants have no idea what the answers to your questions are then your quiz will quickly end up being… just no fun. Here’s a tip: make sure that around 50% of the questions in each round are questions that everyone can answer; make around 30% a little more difficult so the teams are forced to consult each other a little bit; and fill the final 20% with questions for the real music buffs.

#3. Too Many Questions About One Thing

Unless your quiz has a specific theme, then your questions should cover an array of different genres. Everyone in the room comes with different musical knowledge and interests so, if you’re asking a billion questions about the same sort of music, you run the risk of leaving a lot of your audience out of the game.

Make Your Own Quiz or Just Go to One?

A lot of hours and hard work goes into making a good quiz and, to make it really good, a bit of experience also comes in handy. Like anything, the more pub quizzes you make, the better you’ll get. So get stuck in, have a laugh and get twisting the brains of your friends, your family and your work-mates!

Did you enjoy putting together your own quiz? What kind of pub quiz do you think is the most fun? Let us know in the comments.