Rock Music History

Rock music emerged during the mid 1950s to become the major popular musical form of young audiences in the United States and Western Europe. It stylistic scope is too broad to be encompassed by any single definition; the only feature common to all rock music is a heavy on the beat.

Rock 'n Roll 1950-62

The primary source of rock 'n roll was Rhythm and Blues, an idiom popular among black audiences that combined elements of urban Blues (in the structure, vocal style, and use of simplified guitar), gospel music (in the piano accompaniments and vocal harmonizing), and Jazz (in saxophone solos), Rhythm and blues began to gain a wider audience during the late 1940s, and in 1951 the disc jockey who played an important role in attracting white teenagers to the music, substituted the term "rock 'n roll," previously use a sexual reference in lyrics. Bill Halley's Rock Around the Clock" (1955) was the first important break through the white rock 'n roll. What appealed to the postwar white audience was rock 'n roll's driving dance rhythms. Its direct, adolescent-level message, and its suggestion of youthful rebellion.

Rock 'n roll's first superstar was Elvis Presley. With his country and western background, Presley led the way for other "rockabilly" (rock plus hillbilly) artists; with his spasmodic hip gyrations, he introduced a sexual suggestiveness that outraged conservative adults; with this legion of teenage fans, he became the archetype of the rock star as culture hero.

Other popular figures also made significant contributions to the style; Chuck Berry nourished the music's roots, Jerry Lee Lewis expanded its country branch, and Little Richard provided frantic showmanship. By the late 1950s, however, a malaise had set in; the music had become formula-ridden, sentimental, and often as in love-death ballads like "Teen Angel" distinctly maudlin.

Organ

The largest and most complex of all musical instruments, the conventional, or pipe, organ produces its sound when air, actuated by a keyboard, is blown through pipes of graduated sizes. (Electric and electronic organs substitute electromechanical or electronic devices to produce an organ sound, and may surpass the pipe organ in the variety of sound, and may surpass the pipe organ in the variety of sounds they can create.)

Mechanism

The pipes may be of the flue type, in which the air column inside the pipe is set into vibration by a stream of air passing over a sharp edge at the base of the pipe; or they may be of the reed type, activated by a beating reed, consisting of a slightly curved metal tongue vibrating in a slit in a metal tube (the shallot) set into the base of the pipe. The pipes are made in various cylindrical and conical shapes to produce distinctive timbers, or tone colors. Each rank, or set of pipes, consist of a series of pipes of one tonal design, gradated in size to produce all the pitches within the instrument's compass. In addition to sets of pipes at normal or "8-foot" pitch (so named because the pipe for the lowest note in such a rank, C is approximately 8 feet long), there are sets of pipes constructed at 16-foot, 4-foot, 2-foot, and 1-foot pitches that sound, respectively, an octave below, or one, two, or some ranks built at pitches other than the octave, for example, the quaint (5 1/3 feet), the twelfth (2 2/3 feet), the tierce (1 3/5 feet).

The feet of the pipes are set into a channeled box, the "wind chest." A system of valve in the wind chest (the pallets), controlled through the action by keyboard, admit air from the wind supply to sound the pipes. The wind supply may consist of manually or mechanically driven bellows or an electric blower. Linkage between the valves in the wind chest and the keyboard may be mechanical, peumatic, electrical, or a combination thereof.

The organ is played by one or more keyboards, each of which usually controls one division of pipe work, or more than one division through coupling, located on its own wind chest. In addition to manuals (keyboards played by the fingers of the hands) an organ usually has a keyboard for feet, or pedal board. A thin batten called a slider passes under each rank of pipes. Controlled by stop knob located near keyboards, sliders govern the number of ranks, or stop, in use at any one time.

Clavichord

The clavichord is the simplest of the keyed stringed instruments. Contained in a shallow, rectangular box, its strings are suspended over a shallow bridge and extend past left dampers. Pressing a key raised a thin brass tangent, or blade, that activates the string, dividing it into two sections; one is free to vibrate, and the other is damped. The pitch is a determined by the length of the string from the end that is free to vibrate to the blade of the tangent. When the key is released, the string is stopped by the damper. Because of the short distance of the stroke, and the location of its point of contact, the tone is soft and lovely. The instrument is capable of some variation in dynamics (soft and loud) and of vibrato effects) and of vibrato effect (rapid and minute fluctuation in pitch).

The clavichord was developed in the late 14th century by adding a key mechanism to the monochord, an instrument with one or more strings that produced different pitches by the use of movable bridge.

Clarinet

The clarinet is a wind instrument consisting of cylindrical wood (or occasionally metal) pipe with a bell-shaped opening at one end and a mouthpiece at the other end, to which a reed is attached. Generically, the clarinet is any member of the woodwind family, whose enclosed air column is achieved by a single reed, as opposed to the double-reed instruments of the principal treble woodwind of the concert band and is used extensively in solo, chamber, and popular music.

The clarinet is a transposing instrument. Its part in the score is written at a pitch different from the one actually sounded. The immediate ancestor of the clarinet was the chalumeau, a short, cylindrical pipe with seven finger holes and a reed cut in its upper side, but without a bell-shaped opening. The clarinet was invented when Johann C. Denner doubled the length of the chalumeau and added two keys, making possible the clarino, the upper of trumpetlike, register. Early clarinets was made in many more size than are produced today. The number of different sizes needed was reduced in the early 19th century by adding more keys to the instrument. The B-flat clarinet is most common today; next is the clarinet is A. The B-flat clarinet is about 60 cm (23.6 in) long and has a range of more than three octaves.

Since the end of the 19th century, a D clarinet and a bass clarinet in B-flat have been used in large orchestras. Concert bands commonly use a small E-flat clarinet, pitched a fourth above the B-flat clarinet; an alto clarinet in E-flat, pitched a fifth lower than the B-flat clarinet; and a bass clarinet, pitched an octave lower than the standard instrument, these constitute the clarinet choir, A double-bass, or contrabass, clarinet is pitched two octaves lower than the standard B-flat clarinet.

Oboe

The oboe is a soprano-range, double-reed wood-wind instrument. About 0.5 meter (2 feet) long, its wooden tube has a conical bore flaring at the end into a bell. Although the modern oboe's range extends from B-flat below middle C to the A nearly three octaves higher, its finest register sounds between D above middle C and the D two octaves above, where its pungent and penetrating quality pervades in all dynamics.

The immediate ancestor of the oboe was the loud piercing treble SHAWM, an outdoor instrument. In order to satisfy the baroque need for refined expression, a French Instrument maker a woodwind performance. The most important change was the abandonment of the shawm's lip rest. Attached to a staple, a longer, narrower reed could be held further forward where, controlled between the lips, a beautiful tone could be produced, with wide dynamic range.
This was the instrument used by Bach so effectively, particularly for obligatos to vocal solos. Only the necessity for more chromatic flexibility forced changes in the sweet-toned baroque instrument. By the time Beethoven had written his Ninth Symphony (1824), Joseph Sellner German-style oboe, with its comparatively wider upper bore and its warm and sensuous tone, is essentially Selner's oboe with mechanical improvements.

The French oboe, developed by the Triebert family between 1810 and 1878, now predominates in Western music, except in Vienna and some Vienneses-influenced areas.

Saxophone

The family of saxophone patented in 1846 by Adolphe Sax combines the single reed of the clarinet with the bore and fingering patterns of the oboe, producing the tonal qualities of neither. The instruments fit well into bands, for their sound blends well with brass and woodwind instruments, their application to the orchestra has been more limited, because saxophones tend to dominate the varied tonal characteristics of that ensemble. Saxophones are made in eight sizes and pitch levels, spanning the entire spectrum of wind-instrument pitches. The most common are the alto and tenor saxophones. They have been effectively used in jazz bands and popular dance orchestras. Numerous jazz performers have risen to fame with the instrument, and composers, beginning in 19^th-century France, have employed it in their solo or ensemble composition.

The saxophone, a single-reed-musical instrument named for its 19^th-century inventor, Adolphe Sax, is a hybrid of the clarinet, oboe, and brass instruments. Although eight type are made, only four are widely used: the B-flat soprano, the E-flat alto, the B-flat tenor, and the E-flat Baritone. The saxophone is used in military bands, dance bands, and orchestras and is particularly important in jazz. Parts include mouthpiece (1), reed (2), neckpiece (3), crook (4), upper stack keys (5), lower stack keys (6), bell keys (7), and bell (8).

Cello and Banjo

Cello

The cello or violoncello, is the second largest member of the violin family of musical instruments. It is turned an octave below the viola and serves as both a melodic and a bass instrument in chamber and orchestral music. The body of the cello is approximately 76 cm (30 in) long and is much deeper than those of the violin and viola. The cellist is seated and supports the instrument between his or her calves, with its lower end raised off the floor by an end pin. The cello emerged in the 16^th century and was used primarily in figured-bass accompaniments for half of the 17^th century, after which its warm tone and wide range inspired a wealth of solo and chamber music. Don't interchange with cellophane because cellophane is a transparent packaging film based on the cellulose derived wood pulp.

Banjo

The banjo is plucked string instrument that has a long fretted neck piercing a circular frame over which a membrane is tightened with thumb screws, often containing a resonator over the open back. A descendant of the West African long-necked lute, it came to Americas with the slave trade. In the 19^th century a more highly developed banjo, popular especially in blackface minstrel shows, was exported to England. In the early 20^th century it became an important rhythmic instrument of the jazz band, and it is now cultivated as a folk instrument. The standard form is the finger-style banjo, originally gut-strung, its five strings plucked with bare fingers. A plectrum banjo with four metal strings is another type.

Harp

The harp is a stringed musical instrument consisting of a rigid, triangular frame within which are stretched a set of parallel strings. The strings run between the top, or neck, of the harp, and its resonator. Ancient and primitive harps lacked the third rigid member of contemporary frame harps, the pillar, which extends from the neck down to the lower end of the resonator. The strong structure provided by the pillar allows for an increased string tension that produces notes of a higher pitch than was possible with early harps. The instrument is played by tilting it back so that it rests against the player's shoulder, and plucking the strings from either side with the fingers of both hands.

The modern orchestral harp stands approximately 170 cm (5.5 ft) high and has the largest range in the orchestra: more than 5 ½ octaves (the lowest note is C-flat below the bass staff). At the base of the harp are seven pedals, one for each degree of the diatomic scale. These pedals mechanically connected through the pillar to two rows of rotating pronged discs placed under the strings on the neck, enable the player to raise the pitch of all of the strings for each degree of the scale either a semitone (pedal at half hitch activating discs in the first row) or a whole tone (pedal fully depressed activating discs in the second row); the instrument is thus totally chromatic (a sequence of notes proceeding by semitones). The harp is strung in gut or nylon in the upper and middle registers. The bass strings are of over spun wire.

The chromatic flexibility offered by the pedal harp, along with a growing thirst for orchestral color, made the harp increasingly appealing to 19th-century composers. The instrument became a regular member of the orchestra of Berlioz, Wagner, and Tchaikovksy.

Mandolin

The singing beggar in Indonesia often use this instrument to sing in public bus, in the train and now become going door to door. This situation may don't meet in your country. Some of them also have a good skill to play this music instrument. Now the singing beggar also play other instrument like Violin, they play this biola also very good.

The mandolin itself is the Neapolitan, a small lute about 60 cm (2 ft) long with deeply vaulted ribs and a table slanted downward at the lower end. It has four double rib-fastened metal strings suspended across a low bridge and a fretted neck to pegs inserted into a rectangular peg-box. A small flexible plectrum is used to vibrate the strings. A feature of mandolin playing is the constant reiteration of all long pitches, which counteracts its week sustaining power.

The mandolin emerged from medieval-Renaisance mandola possibly as early as the 15th century and enjoyed a vogue in concert music during the 18th century; Handel, Mozart, Vivaldi and Auber all composed for it. By 1900 it had become a popular folk instrument in Germany and America.

The mandolin has been used for vocal accompaniment as well as for classical composition since the 18th century. Development in Italy from the mandola, the modern mandolin ha sfour pairs of strings tuned to violin pitch and produced a clear, bright tone.