STYLISTIC FEATURES OF ROCK AND ROLL

Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll or rock 'n' roll) is a genre of popular music that
originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s,
primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music.
Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in country records of the 1930s,and in
blues records from the 1920s, rock and roll did not acquire its name until the 1950s.
The term "rock and roll" now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage:
as synonymous with rock music and as music that originated in the mid-1950s and later
developed "into the more encompassing international style known as rock music". For the
purpose of differentiation, this article uses the second definition.
In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or
saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or
supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s. The beat is essentially a blues rhythm
with an accentuated backbeat, the latter almost always provided by a snare drum. Classic
rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a
string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. Beyond simply
a musical style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television, influenced lifestyles,
fashion, attitudes, and language. It went on to spawn various sub-genres, often without the
Rock and roll has some definite musical patterns. The 1, 4, 5 chord progression was used
in almost three-fourths of the songs. Many of the songs had exactly the same
progressions. "Rock Around The Clock" and "Maybellene" were, chord-wise the same
song. "Tutti Frutti" uses the same chord progression one fourth lower. It would be difficult to
make an argument that these similarities occurred by chance. With some exceptions, Fats
Domino, Chuck Berry, and Buddy Holly, the artists that sang the songs chosen for this
survey did not write the songs. Professional songwriters, like Leiber and Stoller and Otis
Blackwell, are responsible for most of the music analyzed here. This repetition was on
purpose.
Early rock and roll was popular because it was music to rebel by, it was full of teenage
angst, and because Elvis shook like none before, but early rock and roll was also popular
because the music was, in terms of its structure, safe. Tannenbaum (1985) used the term
"safe" to describe the way people felt when watching familiar television reruns, but the
usage applies here. The music of early rock and roll made no large demands on the
listener. It was easy to quickly identify the latest rock and roll song. It sounded similar to all
the others, mainly because it was. The musical movements were familiar and the listener
was comfortable. The song's chord progression began with an upward movement in the
interval of a fourth or a sixth. The chord progression followed familiar movements and

resolved in the most harmonically pleasing fashion. Obviously this is painting with a broad
brush, but the results tend to back it up.
Early rock and roll was not quite a formula music because there was more to a rock and
roll record than just the music. First there were the lyrics, but more importantly, there was a
large performance aspect. A 1, 4, 5 chord progression and syncopated melody line could
be written, but if it was not performed correctly, it fell flat. Pat Boone's versions of Little
Richard music is a good example. The music was the same yet the performance aspect
was lacking. The music of early rock and roll might be thought of more as a skeletal
framework. Underneath, most early rock and roll songs were quite similar. That was what
grouped them together as being from the same genre. They sounded like rock and roll
records should sound and that sound was created through the use of the structures noted
above. What was added to the basic musical framework was what set the song apart. In
his discussion of Chuck Berry, Robert Christgau (1992: 62) summed up the results of this
study by writing, "repetition without tedium is the backbone of rock and roll."
Recommended listening
Bill Haley and His Comets
Buddy Holly
Chuck Berry
Eddie Cochran
Elvis Presley
Gene Vincent
Jerry Lee Lewis
Little Richard