Year 6
❤️ Cycle C ❤️
Genre: Popular Music
Style: Rock ‘n’ Roll
Composers:
The Beatles – ‘Twist & Shout’
Rock ‘n’ Roll emerged when African musical tradition merged with European instruments. Many former enslaved people and their descendants moved to large cities in the early 1900s. Black and white residents were living in closer proximity in larger numbers than ever before, and as a result heard each other’s music and even began to emulate each other’s fashions.
After WW2, radio stations made white and black forms of music available to both groups and the development of the gramophone record (now known as vinyl records) really helped to spread the word.
Early Rock and Roll was inspired by jazz so the instruments played were initially drums and double bass as the rhythm section, piano and saxophone. Then came the addition of the electric guitar. Rock musicians could play lead guitar (picked solos) and rhythm guitar (chords with strumming).The double bass was replaced by bass guitar by the late 1950s.
❤️Music Lesson❤️
featuring David Bowie
One of the most well-known Pop and Rock Stars of all time!
Did he let an eye injury stop him from following his dreams?
If you thought ABBA had some interesting costumes… you’re in for a surprise!
He was the first artist to ever have a digital song download available!
❤️Music Lesson❤️
featuring Elvis Presley
❤️PSHE & Music❤️
❤️Further Listening❤️
Have a listen to some other Rock musicians, composers and artists here.
Notice how rock music has evolved over the years.
Pink Floyd made a very interesting experimental album here. There are samples of people speaking, clock sounds, cash register and money sounds, electronic sounds, synthesisers, big guitar solos, beautiful harmonies, soaring female vocal solos, saxophones…
This is an example of what we can do with music. There are no rules. It’s all about how the music makes you feel.
Can you hear the melodic ostinato (bells and piano)? Check out the use of gong to create a crescendo before the dynamics drop half way through this song.
Nirvana came out of the 1980s scene and changed rock music forever. They made messy hair and ripped jeans fashionable. Their music was all at once heavy rock music, but with lots of heart and emotion. What Nirvana started was a new style called grunge.
Kurt Cobain (the lead singer and main songwriter) said that The Beatles were a big influence.
The drummer, Dave Grohl, went on to form Foo Fighters – one of the biggest rock bands in the world right now.
This was how much Kurt Cobain loved The Beatles – his band Nirvana created a music video mimicking the 1960 concert style!
In the 1990s there was an explosion of new rock styles. Here’s another one. This style, called shoegaze, as the band members often spent their performance looking at their guitar effects pedals at their feet. These pedals are used to create different sounds as the guitar player played. The shoegaze style has gone on to influence modern artists who like this washy sound where the vocals are ‘buried’ in a sea of guitar sounds.
Pavement are an indie rock band from the USA. After the crazy, over the top clothing styles of 1980s heavy metal, Pavement and other indie bands decided to tone it down. For the first time ever, rock bands looked quite geeky!
‘Cut Your Hair’ is taken from from the album ‘Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain’ out on Matador Records.
This song was originally released in 1991 and is a good example of heavy metal style rock music. Metallica are arguably the biggest rock or heavy metal band in the world and their live shows are quite spectacular.
The White Stripes were a two piece rock band in the 2000s. With just drums and electric guitar they managed to make music that was influence by blues music, grunge and heavy metal music and even soul music. The guitar riff from this song has been used on TV and in adverts. Rock music was continuing to evolve into a new century!
Tame Impala are a great example of how rock music has evolved. Nowadays, there are so many styles of rock music – it has become totally diverse. Tame Impala’s style has been influenced by electronic music, indie rock from the 1990s, shoegaze and grunge, even soul music like The Supremes!
Lesson Resources: