Re: [ARSCLIST] The waltz (was Which U.S. orchestra recorded first and Arthur Fiedler)

[Joseph Conway <Jconway@xxxxxxxxxx>]

O boy, I hope I don't regret replying to this but I am seeing some
nonsense in the opinions on this thread.  

Regarding Rock and Roll rhythms: Lots of rock and roll has the strong
beats on 2 and 4, sometimes it's on the 1 and 3 but almost always there
is the rhythm of 2 and 4 meaning some instrument is strongly accenting
that.  And of course, all rock and roll has its basis in black music as
it stewed in the American experience. 

As far as drummers not being competent - they invented the feel in the
sense that it grew out of blues and gospel and that derivative music
that was played in the clubs became rock and roll. The temp got cranked
up and the downbeats took over. I do not buy this drummers-not-competent
thing at all!  They weren't trying to play Benny Goodman or Glenn Miller
you know.  Those drummers were playing exactly what they intended to
play.  We may as well say the Ray Charles couldn't play piano well
because he wasn't playing Beethoven sonatas.

 

Joe Conway
Technical Director
Naropa University Audio Archive
-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of steven c
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 9:39 PM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] The waltz (was Which U.S. orchestra recorded
first and Arthur Fiedler)

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven Smolian" <smolians@xxxxxxxxx>
> In addition, much is taken for granted.  Has anyone seen sheet music
for 
> rock that has a hard accent over the second beat?
> 
Actually, all the rock I've heard...back to when it was still called
"rock'n'roll"...has the accent on the third beat! Rock'n'roll started
out with the shuffle rhythm of its "swing" ancestor...then about
1958/59 Chuck Berry's backup band started playing old swing tunes
("Route 66, "Down the Road a Piece") with a very tricky rhythm
which sounded like straight 4/4 but still had a swing feel to it.

My assumption has always been that the rock'n'roll drummers of
that period simply weren't competent enough to master that, and
instead went to the "one-two-THREE-four" that backed up rock
from that point until much later. Contemporary pop music uses
a "funk" dance rhythm that is lifted from Black artists, most
notably James Brown...which, if carefully analyzed, turns out
to be based on the old tango rhythm.

Anybody out there in Radio-Land make any sense of this?

Steven C. Barr