Rock Music
Dear Students,
In August , we started off our studies on Rock Music, one of the genres covered in the Popular Music Genres Workshop and Curriculum. It is a very exciting music genre and as some of you might have heard, I did a live podcast episode on Rock Music, on our Instagram page, as it is known as one of the pillars of the many genres of Popular Music today.
If you have yet to watch the podcast episode mentioned above, I would strongly encourage you to do so in the link below.
Some beginnings of Rock’n Roll were noted in the 1940’s however the genre got its place in its’ full light in the 1960’s the U.K. and U.S.A. where its’ genre was fully immersed.
The genre started off in the U.S. formerly known as Rock’n Roll and many found that the music sounded rather aggressive, or for some, fun, but it certainly carried a name that sounds rather energetic, as if something exciting was about to happen.
One of the associations for the term “Rock” came from the 19th century, where gospel singers started using the term “rocked” when they wanted to imply “being shaken” in a spiritual context however, by the early 1900s, black Americans had started using the word as a slang for dance music such as R&B.
When it comes to major influences, musicians or key artists of this genre, there are certainly many to be given credit to however the legends that are associated with the genre and its formation are definitely The King of Rock ’n Roll himself Elvis Presley and the Pioneer and Father of Rock ’n Roll that is the great Chuck Berry.
“It certainly carried a name that sounds rather energetic, as if something exciting was about to happen.”
On one side of the world, in Europe and particularly the U.K. , Rock Music was revolving mainly around the concept of bands.
So, bands were actually a representation of Rock Music. Why?
The genre of Rock was known for gathering people to create music together, being able to express themselves to encourage the world towards social changes and revolutionising against what did not seem right.
“Of course, bands today consist of all kinds of musicians however bands during the early age of Rock were almost like a benchmark for the style of music.”
The counter culture in Europe and the U.K. developed the sub-genre known as Progressive Rock which is my personal favourite aspect of this genre.
If we take a look at the musical structure of this genre, the theory and harmony used in rock songs always portrays the influence of classical music and without much analysing of the music, we can hear them clearly.
This is because most of the musicians were from Europe and were band members of the most notable, Progressive Rock bands who were classically trained, so naturally they imposed those influences on Progressive Rock.
One of the reasons why some rock songs are very lengthy as well and go up to 15 minutes for example, is exactly due to their music background and influence of which is Classical music.
Here below are also some of the top artists of my list of Rock Music, for you to listen to and get familiar with as well!
If you wish to know more about Rock Music and how it has developed, as well as how it can help you become a more versatile singer and more, please do join The Popular Music Genres course by simply signing up below!