What was rock and roll music like?

Answer 1

In the earliest Rock and Roll styles of the late 1940s to early 1950s, a piano was normally the lead instrument in the band. The occasional saxophone sometimes led but it wasn't very often. From the middle to late 1950s the piano and saxophone fell out of style and they were gradually replaced by a guitar. Rock and Roll was usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead and one rhythm), a string bass (added after the mid 1950s), an electric Bass Guitar and a drum kit (to provide a rhythm/beat).

The central and linking instrument of Rock and Roll was the Electric Guitar. Charlie Christian was the first person to perform using the amplified (electric) guitar as a solo instrument, but many musicians since him, such as Aaron Thibeaux Walker, Les Paul, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, and Carlos Santana have used it in their shows. You take some music music, a finger-popping and stomping beat, a guitar solo that sounds so sweet, you know that It Will Stand!

Answer 2

Rock 'n' Roll started in the 1950s as a spinoff of R&B (rhythm and blues). R&B was a popular style within the black community, but soon started gaining crossover sales among white young people. To reach a larger audience, enterprising music producers started making "covers" of R&B songs using white artists (Jerry Lee Lewis and Bill Haley, for example). In particular, they removed some of the more risqué lyrics to make the songs more acceptable to white audiences.

Rock 'n' Roll in the 1950s is noted for the 4/4 time signature, a strong backbeat and a swing eighth-note rhythm between beats--all taken directly from R&B. The bouncy rhythmic effect helped establish the term "rock and roll", although "rocking and rolling" had been a frequent double-entendre in blues lyrics for many years.

Rock 'n' Roll, like R&B, used formulaic song structures; usually alternating verse and chorus, with an instrumental solo between the second and third verses. Most songs featured a single lead vocalist. Instrumental breaks often featured improvised solos, a technique borrowed from jazz. Chord progressions and melodies were generally based on established blues patterns.

Rock 'n' Roll in the 1950s differed from later Rock Music in several respects:

• Drums were not used as aggressively in the '50s. Drum kits tended to be small and not very powerful.
• Acoustic instruments, particularly piano and saxophone were prominently featured.
• Heavily amplified and distorted guitars were not used until the mid-1960s; the guitar sound in the '50s was much "cleaner".
• Effects were generally limited to reverb and echo, although those were sometimes applied heavily. Wah-wah pedals, phasers, flangers and fuzz boxes had not been invented.
• Some songs were arranged for multiple vocalists in close harmony--a holdover from the Big Band era. That style gradually disappeared in the '60s.
• Lyrics tended to stay close to a few common themes, which have always been successful in popular songs: love, dancing, heartbreak and loss. It was not until the 1960s, partly in response to the Vietnam War, that rock music incorporated protest songs. (Protest songs existed in the 1950s, but were mainly confined to folk music). Social norms in the 1950s were very conservative and Rock 'n' Roll could not push the boundaries too hard and remain commercially viable. There was a lot of voluntary censorship by record producers. Rock music lyrics in the 1960s began to express themes of rebellion, non-conformity and social alienation which would not have been possible in the 1950s.

Answer 3

Chuga chuga chuga ding ding!