Music is one of the easiest ways to make a quiz more engaging. A few seconds of a familiar song gets people talking, singing along, or shouting out the answer before you've finished asking the question.
You don't need complicated equipment either. Whether you want to play a short clip, identify an artist, recognize a movie soundtrack or build an entire music round, there are three straightforward ways to get music into your quiz.
Start with YouTube
Most hosts don't have a folder of audio files sitting on a laptop. Music lives on streaming services now, and a playlist isn't something you can upload. If that describes you, YouTube is the path of least resistance: paste a link and you're done.
It also solves the thing that trips people up. You rarely want a whole song, and with a YouTube link you can set a start and end point so the question plays only the section you need. No editing software, no downloads, no files to manage.
For example:
🎬 Play the first few seconds of a music video Question: Who is the artist?
Or:
🎬 Show the music video without revealing the artist Question: Which song is this?
This is also the option to reach for when you want players to see something as well as hear it.
What about Spotify?
It's the first thing most people think of, so it's worth answering directly: you can't put a Spotify track into a quiz question. Streaming services don't hand out the audio file, and a playlist link isn't something a quiz can play at the right moment on the right question.
That isn't as much of a problem as it sounds, because a playlist and a music round want different things anyway. A playlist plays songs from the beginning. A music round wants eight seconds from the middle of one, then a different eight seconds from somewhere else, each attached to a specific question and triggered when you're ready.
You've got two ways round it:
- Find the song on YouTube and use that instead. It's the same track, it takes one link, and you can trim it to the part you want.
- Keep Spotify open on the side and play from it yourself while the question sits on screen. That's the third option below, and plenty of hosts run their music round exactly this way.
A Spotify playlist is still a good place to plan a round. It just isn't the thing you build the round in.
Uploading an MP3 gives you more control
If you do have the audio file, uploading an MP3 puts exactly the audio you want on the question. That matters most when you plan to alter the sound, because a slowed-down, reversed or vocals-removed clip has to be prepared as a file before it goes anywhere near your quiz.
🎵 Play the first 10 seconds of a song Question: Which song is this?
A. Don't Stop Me Now B. Livin' on a Prayer C. Sweet Child o' Mine D. Take on Me
You can also use a less obvious part of the song. The chorus might be instantly recognizable, while a verse, guitar riff, drum intro or bridge can make the same question considerably harder.
Trim it before you upload
Uploaded audio plays in full, so any trimming happens on your own machine first. Two simple tools:
- Audacity is a free desktop audio editor with a lot of control.
- MP3 Cutter is a browser-based tool for quick cuts.
Trimming isn't only about tidiness. A ten-second clip is a few hundred kilobytes, while a full four-minute track at high quality can run to eight or nine megabytes, and QuizLinq accepts MP3 files up to 5 MB. Cut the song down to the part you're actually playing and the limit never comes up.
You don't have to put the music in the quiz at all
There's a third option that hosts often overlook: play the music separately.
If you're running a music round at a party you may already have music playing from a phone, laptop, DJ setup or record player. You can ask the questions in QuizLinq and control the music yourself, which is the practical answer when you want to use a playlist, a mix, vinyl or a streaming service that isn't going to fit inside a quiz question.
Question: Which artist released this song?
🎵 Play the song from your music player.
Players don't need to know where the music is coming from. They just need to hear it and answer.
Use the answer reveal to play the real thing
Every question can carry one piece of media, and the answer reveal can carry a different one. In a music round, that second slot is where a lot of the fun lives.
The pattern is always the same: the question plays the version they have to work for, and the reveal plays the version that gives it away.
- Question: ten seconds from the middle of the song. Reveal: the intro everybody knows.
- Question: audio only. Reveal: the album cover.
- Question: a short clip. Reveal: the full music video.
If you leave the answer media empty, the question's media is shown again at the reveal, which is exactly right when the clip itself is the answer.
This becomes far more useful once you start altering the audio. The question plays the reversed or slowed-down version, the reveal plays the original, and the room gets to hear how obvious it was all along.
Music questions don't always need music
It sounds obvious, but some of the best music quiz questions don't require you to play a song at all. You can ask about artists, albums, release dates, record sales, chart positions, lyrics, music videos, movie soundtracks, one-hit wonders, or who was in which band.
Which band released the album Rumours?
You can also combine a factual question with audio:
🎵 Play a song Question: How many copies of this song were sold?
For questions where the answer is a number, a Numerical question is especially good. Rather than demanding the exact figure, you can give the points to whoever guesses closest, which turns an unanswerable piece of trivia into something everyone can have a go at.
How long should your music clips be?
There's no magic number, but short clips are usually more effective than playing a whole song:
- 3 to 5 seconds for very recognizable songs
- 5 to 10 seconds for a normal identification question
- 10 to 15 seconds when you want to give players more time
- Longer when the music itself is the experience
Clip length is also a difficulty dial. Play the obvious intro and the answer comes immediately; start halfway through the song and suddenly everyone has to think. If you're using a deliberately strange version of a song, a few seconds is often enough to create the mystery.
Then decide what you're actually asking
Once you have your audio, two questions are left, and both change the round more than the song does.
The first is what to do with the sound. You can slow it down, speed it up, reverse it, shift the pitch, strip out the vocals or isolate the drums, and turn a straightforward "which song is this?" into something much more interesting. That's the subject of Slow It Down, Reverse It, Strip the Vocals: Creative Music Quiz Audio Tricks.
The second is how players answer. The same clip becomes a completely different question depending on the format you choose, which is covered in Same Song, Five Different Questions: Choosing Your Music Quiz Format.
Whichever route you take, the mechanics are the same: a YouTube link or an MP3 on the question, something different on the reveal, and any question type you like. All of it is in QuizLinq Free.