http://www.ronthemusicmaker.org/rock.htm

An Analysis Of Rock Music - by L. Ron Hubbard

The following is an analysis of rock music. There are probably as many opinions about what is rock as there are tastes in music and you are perfectly at liberty to disagree with any of the following as it is simply a summary of what makes rock rock and you may be a devotee of rock or abhor it. But we are not dealing with taste here or preference, we are simply dealing with a very generalized analysis of a type of music.


History

The origins of rock are differently assigned by different experts on the subject. They do seem to agree that it originated as a genre in the mid-50s.

Rock seems to be a joining of at least two streams of music: One stream comes from the West Virginia Hills in the form of ballads. West Virginia music however traces directly back to the “buskers” – the street singers of England who covered themselves with buttons and were prominent in central London 200 or 300 years ago. The bulk of the songs you find in West Virginia originate as busker songs with the difference that the buskers sang the melodies much prettier in that they introduced minors. By the time the Scots and English with that music settled in the hills of West Virginia, their treatment of the same melodies which had been in minor chords took on the form of major chords.

The other stream would seem to be from New Orleans where jazz had gained a beachhead in America. Jazz actually comes from Africa on the route of the slave trade through Martinique and then to New Orleans. This music flowed up the Mississippi, often taking on the tinge of spirituals.

These two streams, possibly colored by others, arrived at centers of music, one of which was Nashville.

Rock is not a pure genre in the sense that it mushes together several real genres. But I can assure you that rock has been on the track almost as long as there has been music.


Surveys

The following survey was recently conducted on the music-buying public. While the percentages which were the top percentage of the answers would not seem to be a majority of percentages, the other percents of answers were miniscule and one would have to assume that this is a dominant opinion as follows.

1. Q. What musical direction would you like to see rock and roll take next?
A. Back to basics, old rock and roll, early 50/60s. (16.7%)

2. Q. How do you feel rock and roll today could be improved?
A. Less hard rock, away from punk. (30.0%)

3. Q. What makes rock different from other types of music?
A. Beat, rhythm. (31.7%)

4. Q. Why is the beat such an important part of rock and roll?
A. Makes you dance, move. (35.0%)

5. Q. Why do you think so many rock songs are about love?
A. Everybody can relate to it. (48.3%)

6. Q. What does rock and roll do for you?
A. Makes me feel good, puts me in a good mood. (30.0%)

The above would seem to indicate that the music-buying public at least has some agreement on what rock is and actually, it is not too bad a description.


Charts

A rather long-term study of charts indicates that record sales of rock are overpoweringly greater than that of any other type of music. It has the lion’s share of sales.

At the same time this is occurring, the music industry is going downhill on a toboggan slide. It reportedly is really in the doldrums. A review of the charts of bestsellers at this time reveals a few groups and a review of their cassettes does not, hold your hat, reflect very much adherence to the genre. It is an oddity about these top of the chart groups that these days they seem to appear and disappear, the bulk of them, with considerable speed. One could rationalize this by saying that public taste is fickle but this is countered, on analysis, by the fact that the records of old rock stars continue to sell, and heavily. In other words one could assume that these very modern groups have begun to depend upon freak impact or appearance rather than on music or adherence to the genre. Of course this is open to a great deal of analysis and other opinion but the survey quoted above would seem to agree as 30% of the music buyers in question 2, demonstrated dissatisfaction. And the number of bankruptcies in the music business seem to agree with it also.


Stars

One could go into a lengthy discussion of various rock stars but it would begin to lead back to the Beatles and Presley and their records are hot sellers even today.

But this point can be made concerning the beginning of careers of the real stars of rock. It has been observed that the real giant stars burst into huge, long-lasting fame at an exact point in their careers: They used orchestral backup. And the Beatles were actually playing and recording classical backed up by an orchestra even though you see the four of them out there in front. Their producer, George Martin, was a classical man, who also did most of the arranging. (He was called the “fifth Beatle.”) From this a point can be concluded: That rock stars and rock groups who back up with an orchestral have lasting duration. This is a new observation arrived at by somebody who is a student of this sort of thing and it seems to check out. Three or four electric guitars are not the background which make lasting rock stars. Thus one can conclude that successful rock employs not just a twanging gimmick or two but a whole, well-skilled orchestra as backup. This is true of singers and music in other fields: You should hear the orchestral backup in terms of numbers and arrangements of Rudy Vallee, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, etc. Since the focal point of the public is on some star, this tends to get overlooked but it is not basically overlooked by the public.

The point here is that three or four guys with electric instruments get beat out every time by somebody with full orchestral backup.

Choral also enters into this scene. The Presley use of choral was amazing and today choral is extensively used in rock backup. This is, actually, the spiritual stream which seems to have entered into modern rock.

One can conclude that successful and lasting rock music has (a) heavy and numerous orchestral backup which sometimes includes choral and (b) is well arranged.


An Analysis

A study of the rock genre as it is modernly and even historically performed, shows that it lacks in the aggregate the following (with exceptions here and there which exceptions have actually made stars).

1. Melody,
2. Articulation,
3. Plan,
4. Arrangement (aside from a few spectacular pieces),
5. Message,
6. Trained voices and
7. Expert instrumentalists.

Where some pieces included one or more of these, it has been successful.

What rock has is:

a. Physiological impact,
b. Chords,
c. Beat, and
d. A feeling of excitement (or hysteria).

And it is to be commented on that current rock even lacks one or more of the (a) to (d).

Reviewing some of the more all-time successful pieces demonstrates that they did have some of 1 to 7 and had (a) to (d).

The above however, as an analysis, gives you a key to what could become very successful rock. All you have to do is combine 1 to 7 with (a) to (d) and you should have it made.


Physiological Impact

This is accomplished by an accented beat or a surge in rhythmic fashion. It is an actual physical thud repeated.

It is to be remarked as an aside that the modern mixing engineer with his frail equipment uses what is called a limiter to keep from being blown off the board and he is actually killing the physiological impact. In other words on albums and so forth you don’t hear the surge to the degree that it is played and it is often not even played to that surge. Seldom being musicians, the sound engineers have not really worked out a way to handle this. It is actually quite simple: You just carry the level of the program 2 or 3 dB down from 0 on your VU meter or as low as even -7 dB and let the physiological impact of the drums, etc., shoot it up to 0. The rest of the program would fall below -4 or -7 or whatever and for the usual playback machines, could go as low as -15. In this way physiological impact would be preserved.


Chords

Most rock songs are composed just of chords such as you find in a guitar book. They take a chord progression and work with it. The probable reason they do this is that it is actually harder to put beat or impact into a melody. One can take chords and bang the guitars and drums at the same time and produce a surge. It requires a lot more expertise to do this with band instruments in melody. Their singers too, in most cases are not following any melody because they are introducing shouts and it is easiest to do this by just going up and down some chord progression. It would take a much more expert singer to throw real impact into melody. (The singing you hear on rock is really not part and parcel of rock at all -- there is no reason for somebody to sound like he is being lynched just to produce excitement. Presley rather pushed this into the scene heavily but it is not really part and parcel of rock at all. It takes a very skilled singer to sing with excitement and actually sing properly.)


Beat

The key to rock is really beat. The dictionary defines beat as, “Music. A regular pulsation; the basic unit of musical time. The measured sound of verse; rhythm.”

What makes actual rock rock is by accenting the beat. The definition of accent is, “Music. Emphasis or stress on a note or chord.”

In examining rhythm I recently invented what you could call “counter-rhythm” which would underlie the drum rhythm usually at lower pitch than the drums. This counter-rhythm would surge exactly in the same way as the rest of the beat.

This accent is repetitive. This is done usually by hitting the principal drum at the quarter note point being accented or by adding a bass at that point or some other such mechanism. A very expert drummer of course can change the volume of sound on the same drum.

It is with this surge that physiological impact is produced.


Excitement

The genre, rock, has an emotional target in most cases of excitement. Most modern rock groups, however, forget that they are dealing with sound and perform in an excited way while not really playing in an excited way. But the real stars could produce a feeling of excitement. They do this by various mechanisms but I assure you they haven’t actually really touched the mechanisms available. Presley rather set the pace and left his brand on rock singing but that doesn’t mean that everyone has to sing like Presley - a long way from it.

Excitement consists of the emotional response of something of great interest happening or about to happen but excitement can be produced simply by successions of notes and melodic sounds. In trying to do this singers lose articulation and who knows what they’re singing about. In other words, they are not well enough trained to sing excitedly and articulately and substitute for it getting strangled. It takes real skill to shout, for instance, and still have somebody understand what you’re shouting about and still shout melodiously. They manage it in opera. They managed it exceptionally well in light opera. But those guys had trained voices.


Summary

The conclusion of the analysis is that if one combined points 1 to 7 above with (a) to (d) above, one would really produce some stellar, popular music.

But it should be added that such music would have to be handled well from beginning to end. Proportionate sound would have to be known about and used in arranging, recording and mixing (this is the technique of “separation” -- as it is known in the recording industry. Without it one gets instruments wiped out and gets clashing and mushes.)

It is agreed that it takes real expertise to bring off all those points in a piece of music but it can be done.

An analysis of rock as it is being performed contemporarily shows that it is not being done.

Thus the door is wide open to a new era of popular music.

I won't even take the time to read this but I am sure it is full of shit. Scientologists are some seriously fucked up folks. Just for laughs, some friends and myself went to one of their offices and had a chat with the fellow who is in charge of fooling people into buying books. To make a long story short, he tested my stress level with a machine that was built by Hubbard electronics. It consisted of 2 metal leads and a watt meter hooked up to a dial to raise and lower the meter. The jackass tried to tell me that the machine was measuring my stress level. As he twiddled with the dial and said some shit the level went down . This clearly showed that he had all of the answers to alleviate my stress. If I bought Dianetics right then and there, for a special price mind you, I would be on my way to eternal bliss on the home planet with Dr. Hubbard himself.
Stupid me didn't even buy the book... Now I'm stuck here on this stupid planet with the rest of you.

P.S. Their "bible" has a nice pictorial collage in the centre of all of the famous Scientologists. Cuz if John Travolta and Tom Cruise are in than how can an unattractive, unsuccessful schmuck like me not buy into it?

if anything, that scares me from buying it, even moreso than I was.

This is the most obvious analyzation I've ever read. It's like me saying that when you stick your hands under running water, they get wet.

could you knock that down to like a 2 line overview. thanks.

Scientologists often come to my hospital because their headquaters is just down the road. They make all these outrageous demands: no talking while they are being operated on, no music in the operating room, no narcotics for pain. About six years ago a patient left the hosital AMA (against medical advice) so she drive 50 miles north to see her own scientologist doctor. She ended dying en route due to dehydration. A fellow co-worker was leaving the hospital driving past the headquaters and hit a scientologist with her car. Two men ran out of the building and dragged the guy inside. The Police game and they denied everything.

Crazy stuff.

fucking wackos

That's pretty much what I thought while reading it.