Why did Cleopatra not play Rock'n'Roll?
The ancient Egyptians had drums and string instruments. So, theoretically, they were able to produce Rock'n'Roll sounds and rhythms.
Why took it thousands of years until Rock music became popular?
Is there an aesthetical link between the sounds of the industrial era and the sounds of Rock music? Can Rock only work in an industrial environment? Or is that pure coincidence?
Does our contemporary music automatically imitate the sound of our contemporary environment? When we live in forests, will our music always sound like a forest?
After the introduction of Rock'n'Roll, which was a huge step in musical history, there was another leap: Sterile computer music. Computers introduced trivial beeping sounds for alerts and indications. Ugly stuff. Some decades later the humans got used to these sterile sounds, developped romantic stories around these beeps, so they lost their sterility and could be integrated in emotional music.
Sounds that initially seem ugly become beautiful after some decades just because the humans get used to it?
Do new musical sounds indicate that we have accepted a new environment?
When the baroque era started, for example, it was a new way of life, a new environment, new dressing fashion, new talking style, new body attitude. The music reflected it. -- Similarly, computer music reflects glitter and aluminum costumes. Rock reflects Jeans, leather, motors and machines. But ... isn't Rock music more than that? I think Rock music is a way of life, and it implies a special humour and a great freedom. That must be compatible with some other eras at various places worldwide in the past 10,000 years.
(I think Beethoven was one the first famous Rock'n'Rollers.)
Why took it thousands of years until Rock music became popular?
Is there an aesthetical link between the sounds of the industrial era and the sounds of Rock music? Can Rock only work in an industrial environment? Or is that pure coincidence?
Does our contemporary music automatically imitate the sound of our contemporary environment? When we live in forests, will our music always sound like a forest?
After the introduction of Rock'n'Roll, which was a huge step in musical history, there was another leap: Sterile computer music. Computers introduced trivial beeping sounds for alerts and indications. Ugly stuff. Some decades later the humans got used to these sterile sounds, developped romantic stories around these beeps, so they lost their sterility and could be integrated in emotional music.
Sounds that initially seem ugly become beautiful after some decades just because the humans get used to it?
Do new musical sounds indicate that we have accepted a new environment?
When the baroque era started, for example, it was a new way of life, a new environment, new dressing fashion, new talking style, new body attitude. The music reflected it. -- Similarly, computer music reflects glitter and aluminum costumes. Rock reflects Jeans, leather, motors and machines. But ... isn't Rock music more than that? I think Rock music is a way of life, and it implies a special humour and a great freedom. That must be compatible with some other eras at various places worldwide in the past 10,000 years.
(I think Beethoven was one the first famous Rock'n'Rollers.)
Comments (46)
Well, is the pentatonic scale really necessary? There are a lot of rock music styles that include non-pentatonic scales. But they feel like ... fusion, not like "pure" Rock'n'Roll. On the other hand, what can be "pure" anyway? Nothing. -- Panta rhei. -- Nevertheless, I also mentioned a certain way of life, a certain humour and freedom. It's about a certain feeling. The feeling I'm talking about cannot be expressed by the scale of those ancient flutes. The only remaining elements which may approach Rock'n'Roll are the Egyptian sounds; I mean their drums per se and their string instruments per se. I think that's not enough.
Had to invent the Fender amp first, and they didn't have electronics. Nor, for that matter, Levi's jeans.
Quoting Quk
Roll Over Beethoven
Re Beethoven's Rock'n'Roll elements: I'm thinking of his 6. and 7. symphony, among others. (And his powerful yet lovely urge for freedom, accompanied by a big "wall of sound". No Fender amps, no Marshalls, no VOX AC 30s required for that. And ... did he wear a white wig? No, just natural wild hair, haha.)
I think this is true for music and the visual arts. Yes, ugliness may reside in something being unfamiliar but how do we compare this to something that remains ugly? I'm not big on essentialist categories like beauty and ugliness.
Personally I've never developed a taste for rock music.
What counts as rock in your book? It's an umbrella term like 'crime' or 'transport'. I'd struggle to hear Beethoven in this vein. A 'big wall of sound' and 'freedom' are exceptionally amorphous concepts and apply in a range of domains. You could be talking Mahler's Second or Chopin's Revolutionary Etude.
When I think of rock, I mostly think of white musicians appropriating Black music; along with a lot of posturing and conceit.
Short answer: In my book, Rock is the opposite to Mahler and Chopin.
Quoting Tom Storm
Can you provide some key indicators or is thsi just how it 'feels' to you personally?
To say Mahler is the opposite of rock means your idea of a big wall of sound and freedom needs some clarification, because thats exactly what Mahlers 2nd is about and evokes. Same goes for the Revolutionary Étude, which is loud as hell and all about freedom.
If these works dont meet your criteria, thats fine, but help us understand the thinking.
Before I describe the details: Where should I start? What's your technical background? Are you familiar with music-theoretical terms like "pentatonic scale", "swing rhythm" etc. and sound-engineering terms like "compression", "loudness" etc. pp.? If you're asking for details, there are so many factors. Where should I start?
Probably in the 1950's, with American radio.
Someone told an early 20th century composer, Arnold Schoenberg, maybe, that they didn't like all of the dissonance and noise of contemporary music. He told them they were born in the wrong century.
Per Karl Marx, the state of production (industry, the economy, etc.) has a strong influence on culture--music, for instance. I'm not knowledgeable about how, exactly, the instruments that were played in 1600 were modified or newly invented over the course of the following 400 years, but they were. Just compare an 1750 piano with a 1950 piano. The Saxophone was invented in 1846. Consider that the first musical recording was in 1888--pretty primitive. Then came 78 rpm record; 33 rpm records; stereo records; audio tape recordings; CD recordings; etc. The first radio broadcast of music was 1906. The quality of radio broadcasts continuously improved.
All the changes that have arisen since the late 19th century industries has made huge changes in how we experience music, and yes, in the music itself.
What Cleopatra didn't have, among other things, was electricity. It would be difficult for any rock and roll band in the last 75 years to create the sound we associate with rock and roll without amplification of instruments and voices. It takes more than a drum and simple harp to do rock and roll.
There is something to the idea that rock and roll also requires sex and drugs. The ancient world had both, but, you know, without a disco ball, a few electric guitars, drum sets, microphones, huge base speakers and powerful amplifiers and all, it just doesn't work.
Ha! Yes, this and people like Ike Turner.
Quoting Quk
How about you start with what you already began?
You said this, explain:
Quoting Quk Why?
Quoting Quk
Why? Explain. For instance, how do you delineate the difference between the climax in Beethoven compared to Mahler?
No need for references to sound engineering or musical terms but if you feel you need to do so go ahead.
legend has it that a DJ (name escapes me) starting using 'rocking and rolling' (predictably sailor's slang) in place of Rythm and Blues, which is was associated with (ahem) colored folk. (Well, it was the fifties.)
You might rummage through popular music of the 20th century to look for the antecedents of Rock and Roll. It didn't just burst on the scene without precedents. That doesn't take anything away from its genius or originality. Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms all had antecedents, too. "There is nothing new under the sun!" Nothing totally new, anyway, 99% of the time.
When I was a young man in the 1960s (or a boy in the 1950s) I didn't especially like rock and roll. Now, pushing 80, I very much enjoy listening to music from that era (not all of it, of course). And I still like Chopin, Mozart, Bach, Praetorius, et al.
The crucial technological changes took place in jazz shortly before rock n roll: amplification to allow guitars to be heard over the other instruments, and microphones for recording, which had the effect of changing the way singers sang.
But does this result in sounds that are reminiscent of the technology itself? With amplification, sort of sometimes, particularly when rock n roll developed into rock in the mid to late 60s (with lots of distortion and feedback). With singing, not really. To my ears, the softer, more subtle, more intimate singing of the era of recording, with all the timbral complexity and diversity, is a lot less ugly than operatic singing, which is relatively one-dimensional and usually quite offensive (again, to my ears).
So with singing at least, the technology actually emphasized the humanity of the voice.
Rock is the child of blues and jazz, and these in turn needed slavery and poverty. There were plenty of both in Ancient Egypt.
So back to this: How do you know that there wasn't Rock in Thebes? Perhaps it was played in the back streets. Very little of the music from way back survives - you can hear recreations of it on line, but these are somewhat dubious.
Perhaps what was missing was the equivalent of Elvis and Bill Haley - white men to rip of the traditional music of the Nubians and turn a profit.
You're right, it is subjective, my father enjoyed opera and thought the range and texture of singing was so much more refined and relatable than the 'screaming banalities' of rock music. I guess it's what we're used to. It's certainly the case that more people can participate in rock, no matter how idiosyncratic and odd their voice might be.
If we are talking about ancient Egypt then I wonder if the blues is a more apposite comparison. Did the pyramid builders sing away like the slaves of the old South?
Rock music does have a lot of screaming banality, but I wouldn't say that exemplifies microphone singing. Think instead of Billie Holiday (soft and emotionally expressive), Bing Crosby (relaxed, conversational), Leonard Cohen (you get the idea).
The differences are real, not merely in the ear of the beholder.
But there's a danger of seeing a linear progression here. People still sing in taverns.
I have no issue with that. I was quoting my dad who was echoing you on opera. I think the invention of the mic ushered in unparalleled vocal nuance and creativity. My dad heard many gradients of subtlety in the better operas and performances. I am not personally an opera fan although I consider Strauss last songs to be exceptional. But were back to personal taste.
Cool. I just wanted to emphasize the objective element of technological affordance (I won't say determinism) and the co-evolution of technology and music. Not everyone goes along with it!
To put personal taste in perspective we could (a) identify the equivalent changes---less obviously technological, perhaps more social---that led to operatic singing, demonstrating that no type of music is orginary; and (b) at the same time notice that in all styles and eras of music there are gradients of subtlety. A personal preference for one style might tempt one to claim that its gradients of subtlety are finer than those of others.
On music technology - I've learned to use Apple Logic Pro to produce and master songs, not that any of them have ever received commercial attention. But it's not hard to discern the presence of such digital music workstation technology in today's music, because of its crystalline precision and sound separation - all the layers clearly defined and balanced. Plus the ability to utilise any kind of instrumental sounds and vocal effects without even leaving your desk.
One angle: if we agree that truth is in self-expression, then the singing in popular music is, or can be, much more truthful, because it is not at the whim of a composer and doesn't have to satisfy the particular requirements forced upon it by large concert halls and huge orchestras; thus there is greater vocal individuality and directness of expression enabled by a technology which, nevertheless, is used to produce commodities.
If you even listen to music from the early Renaissance, you can notice the very obvious difference to later classical music of Bach and Mozart. Music has gone through quite many revolutions when we come to Rock'N'Roll from the Egyptian times.
A friend's sister was a jazz singer here in Australia. One Christmas, about twenty years ago, we were listening to some of her recordings. My friend said to me, "You realize if it wasn't for the microphone she wouldn't have a career. It helped create an art form." Id never thought about it until then.
Nuh.
Here's the start:
a queer black woman in the 1940s named Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Exactly. You're way ahead of me because I hadn't really thought about it till quite recently.
And oh, just wait until you have AI making music. Now it's just sound generators, but I'm sure it will be composing, writing the lyrics, the whole show. Want to have a philharmonic orchestra playing in the back, no problem! Put Freddie Mercury -type to sing? Of course, change it to Madonna with a push of a button. :vomit:
AI made music pushed up in the charts by bots. Yeah, who needs humans at all with music?
The video you posted is from 1964. This one is closer to the start; it's from 1941:
Check out this doco
And arguably something already vanishing, a product of a particular moment in history. I've seen a number of people observe how the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and even 90s had very distinct styles, new musical genres, etc. This seems to have stopped in the 00s. Today some kids dress like hippies, some in the 90s goth style, some as 80s punk rockers, etc. Certainly, styles still come and go, but fast fashion has made them so rapid and so multitudinous that they no longer have the global reach they once did.
It's a sort of balkanization of taste. It's the same with other forms of media. People used to watch the same shows because that's what was broadcast, read the same books, play the same video games. The internet, social media, and technological advances that have massively lowered the barriers to entry for producing media (e.g. single video game developers) have led to an acceleration of multiplicity. When Trent Reznor was a one man band with Nine Inch Nails in 1989, it was somewhat unique (at least for a chart topper); not so much anymore.
Interestingly, it's the very freedom to create and consume, the breaking down of barriers, that makes "everywhere becomes everywhere else." And this happens on the political stage too, e.g. the standardizations of the EU make different places similar. Huge influxes of immigrants make English increasingly common across city centers on the continent, and you even see a lot of English-language universities/programs. A sort of move to "monoculture through diversity" (although it might be called a sort of "anti-culture," since it isn't so much a "cultivation" that is occuring).
Of course, demographics have something to do with it too. The youth once made up the largest share of the population by far. Now they are the smallest. The youth were once themselves quite homogeneous, now they are the most likely to come from diffuse backgrounds. For the Baby Boomers in the US, the presidency came to their generation fairly early in life, and control of Congress shortly after. They kept it for 30+ years, becoming a huge supermajority after the Great Recession, when the average age of people in high office surged (cabinets also average about retirement age). And the share of society's wealth in the hands of the young has followed this trend. So, a more classical view might just be that money and political power drive the dominance of culture.
Another Mark Fisher fan. :up:
Let's pretend unique musical forms aren't dead (nor history either) and 1000 years later, people are listening to Drock music. Why aren't we listening to Drock music now? Is that equivalent to the question of the OP?
@Quk
You seem to be on the right track. I'd condense your ideas into saying music has established itself as a form of cultural expression and so it goes on. I wonder though how much variation there is before we've kind of tried everything. Things feels Mark Fisherish, like we have and Drock music is just a vain dream. But maybe it's a musical unknown unknown, a kind of sonic black swan we can hope for but never truly anticipate. Drock on...
Typical elements of Rock'n'Roll, in my opinion, and in short words:
(May partially occur in other styles as well.)
Rhythm:
4/4 measure at high tempo with syncopated eighth notes or with swinging triplets. On the quarter notes: Low drum sounds on 1 and 3, bright percussion sounds like snare drum or handclaps on 2 and 4 -- boom cha boom cha. Occassional "funky" syncopation accents on all percussion instruments, especially on the cymbals. bo-boom cha bo-boom-bo cha etc. There's a lot of swing in Beethoven's 6. symphony in the two Allegro movements, for example. Di-da-da, di-da-da, di-da-da ... swing, swing, swing ...
Melody:
Mainly pentatonic. The pentatonic scale sounds optimistic and forceful. There's no mourning minor chord and no sickly-sweet major chord. Some bluesy "blue" notes may appear, e.g. A+g or E+d etc. Chord progression is simple, mostly consisting of no more than three chords. Audiences can participate easily.
Sound:
Distortion is welcome in the voice and in the melody instruments. What do I mean by distortion? The voice of opera singers, for example, is never distorted. Their air pressure will never exceed the limit above which the clean sine wave of their oscillating voice chords would be clipped. Rock singers don't care about that limit; they often overdrive the air pressure to clip the sine curve, and this generates additional "screaming" overtones, and these overtones cause a psychoacoustical effect: The sound seems to be louder even though the amplitude is not neccessarily greater. Stradivari violins, for instance, are known for their intensive overtones, and that's why they can very well be heard as a solo instrument in large concert halls with an orchestra in the background. A sitar, for example, generates distortion as its strings cannot freely oscillate; so the string's sine wave will be clipped mechanically. Wind instruments too can be overdriven by high air pressure. Trumpets were found in the burial chamber of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. I guess they generate a lot of overtones; i.e. they probably sound like a single string of a Gibson Les Paul played through a stack of overdriven Marshall amps. In short: Distortion is welcome in Rock'n'Roll because it makes the music sound loud (even if it's not physically loud), and this loudness is part of the optimistic expression; see next point.
Rebellion:
That optimism has a goal: Get rid of the repression. Get rid of the unfair authorities. Abolish the monarchy, the slavery, racism, sexual constraints. We are strong. Participate. The future is bright if we are many and if we come together. Beethoven liked the French Revolution and the fall of the monarchy (but didn't like Napoleon later on). Elvis Presley was a rebel against sexual constraints. Rock'n'Roll is an optimistic movement; it supports those that get repressed. It's about the freedom of those repressed people, not about the freedom of the slavedrivers, kings or popes. Ike Turner wasn't a Rock'n'Roller; he was a wannabe king. Tina was a true Rock'n'Roller; her optimism was stronger than the violence she had to endure.
Maybe some ancient Egyptians played Rock'n'Roll already. I don't know. The thread title is just a symbolic picture. The main question is about the link between contemporary music and contemporary environments, and whether Rock'n'Roll can only be a product of our time.
Im not a music expert, but my assumption would be that later forms of music developed over time due to reactions to whatever music is currently in style. From what I remember the Romantic period was in contrast to Classical, which was in contrast with Baroque. I interpret that as people reacting in certain ways to what theyre hearing. I mean why does music change at all if not due to our stimulation/boredom/inspiration with the music were exposed to?
Also, I would assume that different musical styles need a foundation to build upon. It took various exceptional talents to expand musical ideas further and essentially establish new genres. So, rock may not have existed yet because blues didnt exist yet, and so on and so forth.
I like Fisher for some things, but I'd rather say that we are surfing on the waves of Zygmunt Bauman's "liquid modernity." We haven't entered a "post-modern period," we're just doing modernity turned up to 11.
Maybe the post-modern period will come with some AI singularity, or maybe it will be Deely's vision of a semiotic age, a return to realism (or maybe both?).
I'm not sure, technical and material limits seem to be fading away. We are able to make any sound wave that can be differentiated by the human ear. But AI will allow people to cycle through the possibility space way more rapidly than they could in the old days. Drock is already out there, potentially. It will now be extremely easy to actualize. You can even actualize the music videos to go along with the music easily.
The problem is that, because it is so easy to actualize Drock, and Brock, and Krock, and Zrock, it might simply come and go without market share, entertaining only a few ears. The sound waves will be actualized, but perhaps not the "movement" as a social force.
Here is the analogy I'd use: on a still pond, you can throw a few rocks in and get recognizable patterns of waves interacting. It's a good signal to noise ratio.
By contrast, the future, with AI media, is more like a pond in a torrential downpour. All surface tension is lost as billions of scattered drops hit the surface at all angles, making the effects of any one indiscernible. In such an environment, the only way to effect the overall ecosystem is to do something like hurl a meteor into the lake, or drive a large boat through the waters, or wait for the rains to pass.
As potential media becomes easier and easier to actualize, the actual space of media comes to resemble the potential space. What you get is the elevation of potency over actuality (already the hallmark of modern thought), but now this shift is becoming instantiated in the realm of entertainment media (which is itself the substrate for the realm of man's intellectual life). This brings forth the risk of what R. Scott Bakker calls the "semantic apocalypse." This risk is doubled if man begins to edit himself, his nature (through gene editing, cybernetics, tailored drug administration) such that we get a rupture in our shared cognitive ecology, a sort of divergent evolution.
The Logos might be envisioned as a sound wave, a song. But it is one of infinite amplitude and frequency, such that all waves cancel each other out in their antipode. The result is silence, but the pregnant silence of the Pleroma. It is intelligible act that must break this equilibrium, giving birth to something specific and historical through limitation. As the Kabbalahists say, God's first act had to be one of [I]withdrawal[/I] to make space for the world, a withdrawal of actuality into potency.
In the Age of Actualization, we each become like the librarians of Borges' "Library of Babel." A harrowing thought. Basically, I really don't like "AI slop." :rofl:
Maybe Blues music isn't really just 200 years young. Perhaps it already occured 20,000 or 100,000 years ago ...
Some birds sing pentatonic scales. I guess they've been singing it for millions of years.
Thanks for expanding on your idea. Its easier to follow with some texture.
I guess for me, rock 'n' roll is rooted in specific influences: a particular time, place, and sound. You can poetically argue that elements of rock existed earlier, but I think thats probably stretching it. What weve really seen is that human beings use music to self-soothe, mourn, and celebrate. It can also be an act of defiance and a statement of identity. No doubt, there are common threads across the centuries.
When it's music, this is extremely interesting.
The interesting question is how much of the Zoomers and Generation Alpha, basically those born this Millennium, do listen to music of far before their time from the previous century. If/When that happens, musical genres of the past might quite well survive for ages. That might be one reason, because now days popular music isn't so interconnected to time and generation.
Another one good argument is that when making music has become more easier, there simply is too much supply. What then the record companies choose to promote is a lottery. For a musician or a band to get to a great sound stage and to get the music to be played on the radio (with limited shows early playing) was very limiting. When you don't have to have a musician playing an instrument, but a computer will do just fine, it has become perhaps too easy.
Then there's the factor of the technology of the synthesizers etc, which has played a crucial part to the music itself. This has been one factor that has changed popular music and rock, as you also mentioned. You can easily hear the difference from the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's even if you don't know much of the musical instruments and synthesizers used. Today you can have popular music, which is quite similar to the 80's style, but you can notice easily the better sounds (and computers) used.
Quoting Count Timothy von Icarus
Something "new" can indeed come, but the real question is if Rock and Pop music have already gotten to their Zenith and the classic hits will be listened for hundreds of years like we listen now to Mozart, Beethoven or Bach? We are as happy to listening to Bach as we are to Stravinski, even if there's centuries between them.
What if in the year 2100 or even 2200 people will vote Stairway to Heaven to be the best song of all time in Rock? And those Drock, Brock, etc. are simply fads or new genres while people still listen to "the oldies". How long will people be listening to Michael Jackson? I remember when the first radio stations come that just played 80's music and they have been for a while now. It may be that the core of those listeners are just Gen X'ers like me, but the real crucible comes for this argument when the generation that listened to this music genre at first dies of old age. We can already see it that there's not much if any popular music from the 1920's and 1930's played, but it's Beatles and the Rolling Stones are something that likely won't be forgotten. So Rock music from the 1960's and later will likely survive very long.
Quoting ABC Future Tense
In particular, 's graph needs some critical appraisal. Where is the data for boomers when they were twenty? What year is taken as the median for each "generation" - if it is 1960 for boomers, that would be odd; most boomers are considered to be older than that. And the difference between 1960 for boomers and 1992 for gen x is thirty two years, while that between 1992 and 2008 is half that.
Be more sceptical.
What if there were a group of folk, who are a subset of the Boomers, and who indeed have a vastly disproportionate share of "national wealth". The richest 1% control a substantial share of national wealth, sometimes exceeding 40%. And they tend to be older. More of them are counted as Boomers then as millennials.
The graph hides the fact that "national wealth" is disproportionally had by the ultra rich, peddling the distortion that blames Boomers.
The top 1% own about a third of the nation's wealth. If most of the top 5% are Boomers, that explains much of the disparity. It's not boomers per se, but the ultra wealthy, who have the disproportionate wealth.
Maybe, but theres no evidence of that. Even if it was around it still would have taken a specific creative spark to turn it into rock. Maybe no one had that creative spark at that time.
Nobody takes their wealth with them when they die.
Things like stock market crashes destroy wealth (which mainly wasn't there) and natural disasters and wars can destroy wealth literally.
Quoting Banno
The question was if popular music, especially rock music, will continue to be listened by future generations, but that the rock music will be the songs that actually have been already made and "The Great" rock musicians that are listened are the ones that we now put to be the "GOAT"s. Basically something that we have seen with "classical music".
As we cannot just wait for the next Century to start and look at the musical environment then, we can observe if there are differences in the small niche "generations" that we talk about now.
Coming back to the OP, perhaps it should be interesting to first talk about music in Antiquity and in the Bronze Age. Naturally the obvious issue are the limitations of the musical instruments themselves. But first question here should be: how close is Rock'N'Roll, or our current music today, to the music from three thousands years ago. Obviously we don't have recordings and we have only modern representations of those (which are influenced by modern music), yet what I find interesting is how close that music seems to be to ours. Now, if there indeed is a continuation (and likely there surely is), then we aren't far too off how ancient music sounded.
An interesting history of the oldest song we know about, which also shows the problem of interpretation of ancient songs:
So how close is this (interpretation) of an ancient Egyptian love song to a modern rock ballad? If the interpretation is close (and that's an if), then I would argue it's not so far from modern music played acoustically.