How Does Rock And Roll Affect Popular Culture?

Origins of Rock and Roll
Research Project

World Music in the Global Village
345-101-MQ sec. 00029

22/04/13

The musical ethnography being studied is the origins of Rock and Roll. Rock and Roll evolved from blues in America and started in the 1920’s but only became popular in the 1950’s. Rock mainly uses a fast paste beat of drums, electric guitar, bass guitar and acoustic guitar. Some famous Rock musicians such as Elvis Presley were in the early stages of when Rock was popular. He in fact covered blues songs but added more of an upbeat twist to it. Another famous rock band is The Beatles, they were around the 1960’s and this was when there was the Youth Rebellion which was the young adults was upset with the war
Economy: In order for a band to share their music, they need to rent a hall space, stage, buy or improve their equipment. Nowadays, customers are not buying CD’s which affects the music industry because that band may not make a profit nor will their publisher and everyone involved. They either get their music for free online which leads bands having to come up with a different way to make income. This relates to how popular culture of music is decreasing the amount of people listening to Rock because now that everyone has to listen to the norm, Rock bands are struggling with having their talented work known. The origins of Rock which was in the 1940’s-1950’s, there was immigration of African-Americans where they went to Chicago, this affected the economy and they wish for a more peaceful life than what was happening in the south. This affected music because it eventually created another genre and many were inspired by the African-American blues music.
9. Regionalism: All music depends on the region; it affects music because certain areas can be affected by war and poverty, etc. In the 1960’s, the Youth Rebellion was really well known to adolescents frustration on how to live their life and also their intolerance to the war in Vietnam. Rock and Roll musicians felt the same way as well so their music was affected by making songs about peace and no war. This was a chance for musicians to reach out to others so that they could get fans to agree with their
I only realized after taking this class that music is essentially important for the human race. This project allowed me to understand a certain culture of music and how there are many diverse genres; rock can vary depending on how the band feels. For instance, the band being studied, Medusa enjoys incorporating old style of Rock, blues and the new style of hard core Rock into their songs. It helped me understand that popular culture music can decrease the amount of people listening to Rock, now that technology has helped music advance it also has the older generation keeping Rock alive; many are preventing Rock from being forgotten as if it were a language potentially being extinct. There are many different beliefs incorporating music, many believe music is a language, celebration, expression and certain cultures could do sacrifices while making music to their god. I learned a lot about Rock that I never knew before and also I had no idea that Rock evolved from the blues so history was involved with this research