THE SCIENCE OF ROCK ‘N ROLL MOODLE VERSION Instructional design and text by Cindy Higgins as an informal learning accompaniment to the exhibit The Science of Rock ‘n’ Roll that debuted at Union Station in Kansas City.
THE SCIENCE OF ROCK ‘N ROLL MOODLE VERSION
CONTENT Incorporating and
MODULE 1: BACK-STAGE PASS
building from the
Music is the art of organizing sound in such a way that it
Science of Rock ‘n’
expresses emotions, thoughts and ideas. But music is also science, which is what you will find as your explore through the
Roll exhibit, the
decades.
website text in this
1Your backstage pass
publication looks at
You’ve been granted a coveted,
the history of rock
all-access, backstage pass to the
from the perspective
world of rock ‘n’ roll. On your behind-the-scenes tour at The Science of Rock ‘n’ Roll
of science and technology. It’s about
exhibit, you will experience the
the “how” of rock and
scientific innovations that have
roll rather than the
made this musical genre so powerful.
“who, when, where,
After all, rock ‘n’ roll is a little bit
and why.”
of everything: it’s personal, biological, electronic, creative, mathematic, high-tech, and so
The eight modules
much more.
include numerous
2What is rock 'n’ roll?
YouTube concert
Rock ‘n’ roll is an outlet for self-expression, artistry, and freedom. It has the power to influence governments, mobilize the masses, and break down barriers like nothing else. And it’s science — a lot of science! rock ‘n’ roll mixes science, technology, engineering, and mathematics with the passion of
videos and weblinks for additional information.
art and music to create the tunes that make us all rock.
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In case you missed the exhibit Here's a quick look!
And, in this news show, you can see some of the interactive activities.
3Your journey through time Starting with the “Rockin’ 1950s,” you will learn about changes in music technology and engineering and the effects they have had both on rock ‘n’ roll and society as a whole. For example, a combination of accidental science, lack of money, and pure luck are behind several big moments in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. One of the first rock records ever made was the result of a car ride on a bumpy road! The song “Rocket 88” is often called the first rock ‘n’ roll records because of its crackling, fuzzy guitar sound. That sound came from an amplifier hitting the roof of the car and smashing a speaker cone during a rough ride to the
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studio in 1951. With no money or time to fix it, the group made do with what they had.
The Science of Sound Gallery at The Science of Rock ‘N’ Roll explains how DJs and turntablists advanced rock using old technology repurposed in a new ways. In the 1970s, because of a lack of equipment, taking small pieces of songs from other people’s albums (called “sampling”) became an important part of early Hip Hop music. In poor areas of New York City, it was hard to find traditional instruments like guitars, keyboards, and drum kits. For Hip Hop pioneers like Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaata, old vinyl records, two turntables, and a microphone became the instruments themselves and not just a way to listen to someone else’s music. Musicians who could afford it replaced their old-fashioned, analog, record players with new, “high-tech,” digital technology. Thrown out as useless and outdated, that equipment was given new life as tools of rock in their own right. Eventually, some of these “low-tech” musicians, like Run D.M.C and the Beastie Boys, made their way into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
4Look way back at rock and roll Although most people say rock ‘n roll began in the 1950s, it actually began years before then. How? Run through this show-arama to find out!
And the science of rock and roll began decades before. In fact, it kicks off in the previous century with Thomas Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877. Edison never meant for the phonograph to be used to play music but other inventors, like Emile Berliner and Eldridge Johnson, thought it was a great idea! Edison’s phonographs with wax cylinders, similar to the one in the photograph below, were soon replaced by gramophones with flat discs, like the Victrola.
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This 1897 photograph shows a man, two women, and two children gathered around an Edison phonograph, listening to music, under a portrait of Edison himself. For a brief period of time, Edison made “talking dolls” with small phonographs inside. While experimenting with a hard-pointed instrument shaped like a large needle on a tinfoil cylinder, Thomas Edison spoke into the machine. To his surprise, his experiment worked!
Q In this first known recording, what did Edison say? A. . .Mary had a little lamb. Hear an early recording from the 1920s.
Records made from bugs? Before long, people were listening to their favorite songs on record players. After flat, round records replaced cylinders on phonographs, records were the only way people could listen to their favorite songs at home, besides the radio, for over 70 years. Most of those early records were 10 inches wide. Up until the 1940s, the main ingredient used to make records was shellac, which comes from the female lac bug from the Malay Peninsula. During World War II, Japan took control of that area and cut off the shellac supply. American record makers had to come up with something to replace the shellac. While experimenting with different kinds of plastic, Columbia Records invented vinyl records in 1944. The first vinyl record, introduced in 1948, was 12 inches wide and went around on the turntable 33 1/3 times per minute, which meant it had an rpm (revolution per minute) of 33 1/3. Other record sizes soon followed. RCA made a 7-inch record with an rpm of 45. It spun around the turntable on the record player 45 times per minute. The longer-playing, 12inch records were usually used for “good” music, like jazz, musicals, and classical music. In the 1950s, jukeboxes began using 7-inch records instead of 10-inch records, and the 45 rpm records started to become popular for rock ‘n’ roll music. By 1955, most record players at home could play records at three different speeds: 45 rpm for the 7-inch records, 78 rpm for the 10-records, and 33 1/3 rpm for the 12-inch records. And, what is old is new in the case of shellac. Music archivists maintain 10-inch wide, 78 rpm
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shellac disks remain the one way to preserve sound for hundreds even thousands of years. Read National Public Radio's Shellac, the Sound of the Future to find out why.
MODULE 2: ROCKIN' 1950S As rock ‘n roll caught public attention, technologies to support it flourished. New advancements such as electric instruments, amplifiers, recording devices, and speakers helped amp up the rock ‘n roll music craze.
1Rocket 88 Rocket 88, written by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats.
You may have heard of jalopies, You heard the noise they make, Let me introduce you to my Rocket '88. Yes it's great, just won't wait, Everybody likes my Rocket '88. Gals will ride in style, Movin' all along. V-8 motor and this modern design, My convertible top and the gals don't mind sportin' with me, ridin' all around town for joy. Blow your horn, Rocket, blow your horn Step in my Rocket and-don't be late, We're pullin' out about a half-past-eight. Goin' on the corner and havin' some fun, Takin' my Rocket on a long, hot run. Ooh, goin' out, Oozin' and cruisin' and havin' fun Now that you've ridden in my Rocket '88, I 'll be around every night about eight. You know it's great, don't be late, Everybody likes my Rocket '88. Gals will ride in style, Movin' all along.
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2Alan “Moondog” Freed rock ‘n’ roll radio show A dog bays. A chugga-chugga rhythm begins. The dog howls again. A liquid metronome begins ticking…From the near distance, a voice, casual, conversational, materializes. The volume increases as he asks, “All ready to rock? Atta boy. We’re gonna have a ball. Saturday night again…” Then, facing the microphone full-on, with the rhythm and the dog still going behind him, the announcer speaks, at a quickening clip: “Hello, everybody. How y’all? This is Alan Freed, the old King of the Moondoggers, and a hearty welcome to all our thousands of friends in northern Ohio, Ontario, Canada, western New York, western Pennsylvania, West Virginia.* . . . It’s the Alan Freed show, and, here in 1953, he is 32, and he is a disc jockey in Cleveland. Freed, selfproclaimed “The King of the rock ‘’n’ rollers,” would take that show to New York City and quickly spread the phrase "rock 'n’ roll." Freed also is credited with helping sponsor the first rock 'n’ roll concert.
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3Jukeboxes Jukeboxes got their name from the “juke joints” – rowdy bars where they became popular. At one point in the 1940s, three-quarters of all records produced in the U.S. found their home in a jukebox.
4Take the music wherever
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5Changing guitars Invented in the 1930, electric guitars, which use pickup to convert string vibration into electrical impulses along the line of electromagnetic induction, evolved during the 1950s to become a major component of rock 'n roll. See guitars from the Science of Rock exhibit in this following short video.
6Interactive timeline
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PAGE/SPOTLIGHT: BUDDY HOLLY
. Charles Hardin Holley, known as Buddy Holly, inspired his contemporaries and later musicians, notably The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan. He's also credited with creating the band design of two guitars, bass, and drums. His songs often had a vocal "hiccup" technique, used to emphasize certain words.
PAGE/SOUND INNOVATION: FIRST MASHUP Dick Goodman and Bill Buchanan combined sections of popular songs into "news reports" in what could be the first mash-ups. Flying Saucer (1956) shows their mixing mastery.
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QUIZ/JUST FOR FUN
Are you a 1950s quiz whiz? Which instrument became popularized during the 1950s and became an integral part of rock ‘n roll? What invention allowed teenagers to take their music when and where they wanted? Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm are said to have recorded the first rock 'n roll song, which was?
MODULE 3: PSYCHEDELIC 1960S Rock 'n’ roll was both witness to and participant in the social turbulence of the 1960s. The sounds and styles became unpredictable, encompassing everything from the British Invasion to electrified eight-bar blues to the white noise screech of psych-rock. Never before had music resulted in such fame. Never before had record sales been so high: the industry was booming.
1Decade of change
See posters from the exhibit in this short slide show. Chuck Sperry in Temporary Insanity quoted Chet Helms, saying "The modern poster
originated in belle epoque France. Contemporary accounts describe how avid collectors unceremoniously stripped opera and cafe posters from the walls, even before the glue could dry. I believe we experienced a parallel evolution some eighty years later in San Francisco.
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. . . Posters and handbills are a particularly democratic form of advertising and social expression. Posted in public places, they are available to virtually everyone at little or no cost. The parallels between the belle epoque poster and the psychedelic poster are obvious, but the 1960's posters were also rooted in the American free speech tradition of political and social pamphleteering.”
2Blimey! The British! Although some amazing music was being produced in the United Kingdom throughout the 1960s, very little made it onto British radio. Because commercial radio did not yet exist in the U.K. and because the BBC chose to ignore rock music fans tuned in to offshore stations to get their rock ‘n’ roll fix, offshore pirate stations like Radio Caroline broadcasted from boat anchored just outside the country’s territorial limits. These sea-based stations were declared illegal in 1967 by the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act. Television became an increasingly popular and effective way to spread rock’s influence. The best example was The Beatle’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964, which was seen by 73 million people. That evening, 60 percent of all TVs tuned on that night were tuned to the Ed Sullivan and the Beatles.
3Up close listening
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4Electric bass guitars The stand-up acoustic bass all but disappeared from rock ‘n' roll in the 1960s, replaced by electric bass guitars from many manufacturers. Their common ancestor was the Fender Precision Bass, which was introduced in 1951. Read and watch How Electric Guitars Work. You’ll learn the sound is produced by magnetic pickups and how a soundboard and a hollow body amplify each string's vibrations.
5All You Need is Love. . .and a satellite
6Sounding good on AM radio speakers As a result of the popularity of the transistor radio, many pop and rock record producers began recording music in response to this new technology. Instead of striving for what sounded good in a recording studio, musical recordings were tweaked so they sounded good coming out of a small AM radio speaker. This had a tremendous effect on the audio quality of rock recordings through the 1950s and 1960s. An excellent example is Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound” production method. While individual instruments were difficult to discern, the entire song seemed to leap off the radio.
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7Rockin' in the studio Phil Spector was one of the first producers to realize a recording studio could be an instrument in itself. Read about Spector and the Wall of Sound in The Ronettes 'Be My Baby.'
Sound Travel: Timeline
SPOTLIGHT: THE BEACH BOYS The Beach Boys contracted with Sunn Electronics to produce the first large, full-range sound system for outdoor concerts in 1963. See it in action at this 1964 concert with individual instrument sound displayed in the Little Deuce Coupe.
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SOUND INNOVATION: POWER CHORDS
You Really Got Me by the Kinks was one of the first songs to use power chords, a guitar chord technique that uses only two notes instead of the three or more notes played in a typical chord.
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MEMORY FLASHBACK! 1960S QUIZ
Which band used first-ever global satellite technology? In 1964, the first portable tape recorder was available for sale. Bill Hanley designs special speaker system that earned him the title “father of festival sound� for which 1969 festival? o
MODULE 4: JAMMIN' 1970S During the 1970s, sophisticated recording studios enabled artist, producers, and engineers to take advantage of new technology. The result was that many began to strive for sound beyond perfection. With 24-track recorders using reels of tape two inches wide at speeds up to 30 inches per second, artists were able to create very complicated, multilayered compositions that could only happen in a studio.
1There are no rules
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2Punk Rock Actually, we're not into music. We're into chaos. Steve Jones, Sex Pistols Punk rock developed between 1974 to 1976, an offshoot of 1960s garage rock. With stripped down instrumentation, punk rockers strived for authenticity, often shouting lyrics rather than singing and relying on power chords — a buzzsaw drone, deemed one critic. To sound "real," producers often relied on home tape recorders for a lo-fi, unmastered sound complete with background noise. Hear this style in the 1976 Anarchy in the UK by the Sex Pistols.
3Individuality in recording During the 1970s, each studio sounded different because of its unique acoustics, so artists began to choose studios based upon their unique inherent sound. Some studios were constructed in old churches, while others were built to be so quiet you could hear your own heartbeat. Others had stone floors, while some were designed to have natural reverb. There were some studios that had a reputation for just sounding good for no identifiable reason. Wayne Wadham, in his history of recording studios, wrote about this change:
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"By 1970, 16-track was gaining acceptance for rock production in the United States, though even the Beatles continued to use 8-track through most of Abbey Road and Let It Be in that
same year. The Ampex MM-1000 16-track package cost almost $35,000 and required a much more elaborate console than was previously available. Split designs became the standard, the main bank of faders used for mic/line inputs feeding the recorder, the monitor section off to the right used to provide cue mixes and other submixes for reverb chambers, and so on. Although Ampex and Scully announced 24-track models to come, there was little rush to buy them because of the noise build-up inherent with so many separate recorded signals. The real demand for 24 tracks came from clients-artists and producers who wanted the control and versatility, even at the expense of more noise and cost. The Dolby A system provided just enough noise reduction to bring 16 tracks of Eape noise back down to the noise level of a good 2-track machine, but the first systems were expensive-almost $2,000 a track! Not many studios could afford it, and not many artists wanted to pay the extra in rentals. By 1970, top studios were charging more than $100 per hour. Aside from refinements made in existing devices — quieter and more precise parametric equalizers, smoother compressors and better plate reverbs-few new tricks except mechanical flanging were added to the engineer's bag. First made popular on a single named "Itchycoo Park" by the Small Faces,[hear below] flanging was accomplished by playing two copies of a finished tape back on two machines and mixing their outputs. One copy was started a fraction of a second before the other, and drag was manually applied to the playback machine's feed reel, slowing its speed just enough to bring the two copies into, and then past, exact alignment. The dramatic swishing underwater effect of the resulting comb filter began appearing on every record and really established the commercial demand for a whole range of effects that are now available in various digital units."
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4Audio effects The use of sound effects, for example, the wah wah peddle that produced a sound similar to its name, blossomed in the 1970s. The following make up many of a musician's bag of sound effects tricks. Distortion is the sound of an amp cranked beyond where things sound clean, making everything fuzzy or even screeching. Reverb is an echo effect that can sound like playing in a cave or a cathedral or your bathroom. Delay is an echo effect that repeats the sound moments later, like playing in the Grand Canyon. Phasing takes two sources playing the same thing and brings them in and out of unison, resulting in some echo-y and reverb-like effects. Flanging give things a sweeping, whooshing effect. Chorus effect produces the sound of many instruments or voices all playing, like an orchestra or choir. Learn how effects pedals produce delay, reverb, wah-wah, tremelo, compressor, chorus, phaser, flanger and more in the How to Use a Guitar Effect Pedal series. About that wah wah pedal: The Band used it in the song "Up on Cripple Creek" to produce a jaw harp sound.
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5Desire for mobility In 1979, when the first Sony Walkman went on sale, it was a paperback-sized cassette player with revolutionary lightweight headphones. Not only did the Walkman give a tremendous boost to the popularity of the cassette tape, it introduced the idea of a gadget as culturally hip.
Sound Travel: Timeline
SPOTLIGHT: DONNA SUMMER One of the most influential songs of the 1970s was Donna Summer’s I Feel Love. Propelled by a series of synthesizer lines programmed by Italian produced Giorgio Moroder, the song foreshadowed the rise of techno-pop in the 1980s.
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SOUND INNOVATION: EMS VOCORDER Kraftwerk, an incredibly influential band from West German, had a global fan base with their minimalist, robotic, dehumanized, all-electronic approach to music. If Kraftwerk couldn’t find instruments that did what they wanted, they built their own. Kraftwerk was well-known for their use of the EMS vocoder, a synthesizer capable of turning speech into music-like sound.
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DATA DISCO TIME! 1970S SOUND CHECK QUIZ
The first Sony Walkman was the size of a _____________? An electronic instrument capable of producing a wide range of sounds and popularized in the 1970s was the______________? The EMS vocoder is a synthesizer capable of turning speech into music-like sound.
MODULE 5: SPANDEX 1980S The emergence of New Wave music from punk rock couples with the introduction of the video age from MTV's airplay commercially eclipsed guitar-oriented rock. Traditional rockers such as AC/DC, VanHalen, Bon Jovi, and Guns ’N Roses stuck with the basics: guitars, bass, and drums.
1Cassette vs. CD In the 1980s, the portable cassette player defined the music market, allowing cassettes to outsell records by mid-decade. Who doesn’t want a soundtrack for their everyday life – especially after a long day or during a workout? Sony unveiled the CDP-101, the first consumer compact disc player on October 1, 1982. The first CD to be manufactured in the United States was Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA. There was a short-lived reluctance to the new CD. Record companies were worried because the CD was susceptible to unauthorized copying, while record stores hesitated about adding new rows of expensive shelving. Even the Beatles were cautious about releasing any of their albums on compact disc. But after Beatles’ songs became available on CD in 1987, the CD got an unofficial stamp of approval and received a huge boost in popularity.
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2Discman
3I want my MTV! With the words “Ladies and gentlemen, Rock and Roll Music Television, or MTV,” was on the air. Launching about 12:01 a.m. on August 1, 1981, with a total library of about 250 videos, 130 of which were by Rod Stewart, MTV and the development of music videos quickly changed the music industry. Although record labels were initially hesitant to provide materials to the channel for free, they changed their minds once they realized how much the station boosted record sales. Because the young MTV was desperate for a constant supply of videos, producers of the show turned to the UK. They found many stylish acts that looked great on television. By importing these video clips, MTV set off a second British Invasion the extended well through the decade. Causing Duran Duran, the Human League, The Eurythimics, and many others to become video stars. MTV’s impact was almost immediate. Record stores found that they were selling out of music that was not receiving radio play but had been featured on MTV. Michael Jackson’s elaborate zombified music video for “Thriller” was released on November 30, 1982. Named one of the “Best Music Videos of All Time” by MTV, the album eventually became the biggest-selling album of all time. Estimates are that as many as 110 million copies have been sold worldwide. Although drum machines had been around for decades, the biggest breakthrough didn’t come until the early 1980s. The LM-I Drum Computer was the first device to use programmable samples of live drums. The LM-I can be heard on albums by Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, the Human League, Prince, and others.
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4The larger and louder – the cooler The Boombox, a large portable stereo with at least two built-in speakers, was first released by Phillips in 1969. By the 1980s, some of these radio-cassette units were the size of a suitcase and required up to 10 D-cell batteries to power the amplifier needed the handle the deep bass.
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5A sign of ?
Sound Travel: Timeline
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SPOTLIGHT: THE BEASTIE BOYS The distinctive sound of the 1980 Roland TR-808 and its affordability made this synthesizer very popular in dance and hip hop throughout the decade. The TR-808 generated many of the deep bass drum beats on the Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill.
SOUND INNOVATION: SYNTHPOP As the power of portable keyboard synthesizers increased, prices fell. New polyphonic designs allowed musicians to play chords instead of single notes. The 1981 Roland Jupiter 8 could play eight notes simultaneously, which was revolutionary for its time. Programming these keyboards became easier and the variety of possible effects increased exponentially. Although the new digital instruments were intriguing, the development of the Music Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) allowed keyboards, samplers, sequencers, and drum machines to talk to each other in a common language. This made radical advancements in sound and performance possible. A single musician could quickly construct and perform complex arrangements using MIDI-enabled gear. Born from the electronic synthesizer sound and readily available eyeliner, the synth-pop, or techno-pop, era was at its peak between 1981 and 1985. These musicians developed a sound and feel that was even more designed for dancing. North America saw a backlash against this music by the mid-1980s, inspiring more rootsy, guitar-based sounds from artists such as Tom Petty. In the UK, Indie Rock bands like the Smiths helped swing things back in favor of the guitar
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Early synthpop pioneers included British bands Human League that used monophonic synthesizers to produce music with a simple, austere sound.
BOOMBOX BRAIN POWER! SOUND OUT ON THE 1980S.
If you really liked someone, you might have given them a collection of songs intended to express your feelings known as a __________? The one-word name of a large portable stereo with at least two built-in speakers was the ____________? By 1986, [[1]] outsold [[2]].
MODULE 6: GRUNGE 1990S The introduction of the Internet was both one of the most revolutionary and one of the most disruptive innovations of the 20th century. Artists, producers, and industry people were able to connect in virtual way, spanning time and distance. Fans found that they could share music like never before.
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1Digitally distributed In the early 1990s, hard drive space on personal computers was a premium and extremely expensive. Since a single song could take up 20 percent or more of a typical hard drive and downloading a song over a dial-up modem took hours, record labels were not concerned about file trading. But in 1991, Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute introduced an algorithm capable of shrinking digital music files by 90 percent. The new file format, the MP3, allowed fans to download and share music files from all corners of the world. MP3-based player software programs such as Napster provided ways to obtain music files illegally.
2CD $ dissatisfaction
3First major act to webcast a performance . .the Rolling Stones during their Voodoo Lounge Tour in 1994.
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4Recording at home Personal computers and the Internet brought the recording studio into the homes of novice music producers across the world. New software made it easier for anyone with a computer to compose and record music. Beyond the capabilities of a mixtape, fans could not only download their favorite songs from the Internet, but also mix their own music as well. As more software was sold and distributed on the CDROM, more personal computers featured CD-ROM players and CD recorders. With the development of new MP3 encoding software, such as WinAmp, music fans could “rip� their favorite CDs to their hard drives and then burn their mixes to personalized discs. As CD recorders became cheaper, more people began making their own discs containing their favorite songs.
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Sound Travel: Timeline
SPOTLIGHT: CHER Auto-Tune, designed to make off key vocals sound perfect, also can create a warbling robotic vocal sound effect. The first hit single to use this effect was “Believe” by Cher in 1998. Some people still refer to this vocal treatment as “The Cher Effect.”
SOUND INNOVATION: MP3 SHARING In 1999, Tom Petty made his song “Free Girl Now” available on MP3.com as a free download. After receiving 150,000 downloads in just 48 hours, his record label reprimanded him, stating that “Warner Brothers Records does not endorse the dissemination of its copyright through any unsecured digitally distributed format.”
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The Beastie Boys, Limp Bizkit, and the Offspring also were reined in by their labels for online music sharing. Petty also is an example of rock stars performing at Super Bowl half-time shows. Hear The Heartbreakers at the 2008 Super Bowl.
NTER THE 1990S MINDGAME!
In one 1990s year, a 19 year-old college student shared his new program with 30 online friends. A few months later, it had 150,000 registered users. The name of this program was? Before the MP3 algorithm was discovered, in the 1990s a single song would use how much of a typical computer hard drive? Auto-Tune, designed to make off key vocals sound perfect, also can create a warbling robotic vocal sound effect. The first hit single to use this effect was “Believe” by Cher in 1998. Some people still refer to this vocal treatment as “The Cher Effect.”
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7THE NEW CENTURY: 2000 ON Not since the introduction of electricity had there been this much change and innovation to the science of music. The iPod, iTunes, ringtone, online video games, mobile phones, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, Twitter, BitTorent, and a dozen other inventions and tools had an immediate and transformative effect on how music was made distributed, and consumed.
1A society plugged in Compact disc sales fell as digital tracks soared. Income streams shifted. The sound of music changed again with the rise in a new brand of Indie rock culture. Pop music climbed. Fans shared music, trends, and ideas faster than ever before. The traditional cultural gatekeepers like the radio, record stores, magazines, and TV saw their influence erode as more people found music online – and on their own terms. The power over the music began to shift away from the record company and onto the consumer. Never before had fans had access to so much music with such broad styles and influences. Accessing music from anywhere on the planet was as easy as clicking a mouse or calling up a smartphone app. Fans found and shared new sounds in a way that exponentially increased the spread of music.
2Pirates attack the industry After reaching its peak in about 2000, music sales fell from $14.6 billion to less than $6 billion by 2010. The recording industry blamed this downturn on rampant piracy. Not going down without a fight, the music industry tried to protect itself from piracy through a variety of legal actions.
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The popularity of Napster peaked in February 2001 with 26.4 million users. The company was forced to shut down by a court order in July 2001. Fans found ways around the disappearance of Napster, such as the use of peer-to-peer file sharing programs and torrent sites. Record labels and rightsholders demanded Digital Rights Management (DRM) on media files to prevent unauthorized copying. However, DRM on music was soon to disappear.
3Metallica speaks out “With each project, we go through a grueling creative process to achieve music that we feel is representative of Metallica at that very moment in our lives. We take our craft – whether it be the music, the lyrics, or the photos and artwork – very seriously, as do most artists. It is therefore sickening to know that our art is being traded like a commodity rather than the art that it is. From a business standpoint, that is about piracy – A/K/A taking something that does not belong to you; and that is morally and legally wrong. The trading of such information – whether it is music, videos, photos, or whatever – is, in effect, trafficking in stolen goods.” Lars Ulrich, Metallica
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4Live from Metallica
5Myspace My space was launched in 2003 and soon became the leading community and social media platform. Bands were encouraged to post their music for free and connect with fans. View this 2013 U.S. News World Report article, Myspace carves out niche via music and easing
privacy worries: Still, it's unclear exactly where the site fits among its social media brethren, to see where Myspace, oh, that's New Myspace now, is today.
Sound Travel: Timeline
SPOTLIGHT: PHOENIX
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The French band Phoenix discusses how they create force majeure with editing and technology such as the million-dollar electronic board used in Thriller, which they bought for $17,000 on Ebay in this National Public Radio article and podcast “Phoenix on Sounding Like Robots and Staying Restless.”
SOUND NON-INNOVATION: FIBONACCI SEQUENCE In medieval Europe, when early piano-like keyboard instruments appeared, Leonardo de Pisa, the Italian mathematician better known as Fibonacci, wrote about a number pattern called the “Fibonacci Sequence.” In 1202, he used the sequence of numbers named for him to solve a word problem about reproducing rabbits in his book Liber Abaci. It turns out that his number sequence can be used for a lot of things besides counting rabbits. His Fibonacci Sequence relates to keyboards and rock ‘n roll music. Study this number pattern below. What comes next? Fill in the next ten numbers in the series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, _____ , _____ , _____ , _____ , _____ , _____ , _____ , _____ , _____ , _____ What rule did you use to find the numbers the next ten numbers? Now, an octave has eight notes, starting with its first note and counting up to the first note of the next octave (“octave” comes from the Latin word for “eight”). The first note of an octave’s scale is called its “root tone.” Counting two notes up from the root tone brings you to the “whole tone,” which is the third note. The whole tone and the fifth note in a scale are used to make chords. The dominant tone of this scale is the fifth note, which also happens to be the eighth note of all thirteen notes in the octave.
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Many composers found ways to use the patterns of the Fibonacci sequence in their masterpieces. Much research has been conducted to show connections of this number pattern to specific pieces of music by Mozart, Beethoven, Debussey, Bartók, and rock ‘n rollers. Do rock stars know about Fibonacci? Quite a bit! Read the opening lyrics of the song “Lateralus” by the band Tool. Count the number of syllables in each line and write the number on the space provided. ___ Black, ___ then, ___ white are, ___ all I see, ___ in my infancy, ___ red and yellow then came to be, ___ reaching out to me, ___ lets me see. ___ There is, ___ so, ___ much, ___ more and ___ beckons me, ___ to look through to these, ___ infinite possibilities. What do you notice about the syllable counts of each line? Experiment with the lyrics of your favorite song. Do they already fall into a pattern of Fibonacci numbers? If not, you might want to try rewriting or reorganizing them to fit a pattern like the one used by Tool.
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Lateralus, the third studio album by American rock band Tool, was released on 15 May 2001, and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. This video explains the Fibonacci Sequence used by Tool.
MODULE 8: ROCK ON. . .AND ON! Before you rock out of here.
1 Moodle Book: Rolling Stone magazine In 1967, Rolling Stone became the magazine that would chronicle the rock scene in all its dimensions through the decades. Here's a bit of its take on rock sound stand-outs.
How Nirvana made 'Nevermind': Inside the 1991 recording sessions that transformed rock for a generation March 5, 2013 10:00 AM ET
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Nirvana's second album shot up from the Northwest underground – the nascent grunge scene in Seattle – to blow hair metal off the map, kick Michael Jackson off the top of the Billboard album chart and turn the band into overnight stars. Though Nevermind's success would take a toll on Nirvana's tortured leader, Kurt Cobain, no album in recent history had such an overpowering impact on a generation – a nation of teens suddenly turned punk. Cobain's slashing riffs, corrosive singing and deviously oblique writing, rammed home by the Pixiesvia-Zeppelin might of bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Dave Grohl, put the warrior purity back in rock & roll. But as the sessions were about to get under way, neither the band nor producer Butch Vig knew just what they had on their hands. "The week before I flew to L.A. [to produce
Nevermind, Kurt sent a cassette, which was done on a boombox," said Vig. "It was really terrible sounding. You could barely make out anything. But I could hear the start to 'Smells Like Teen Spirit,' and I knew it was amazing." Vig, along with mixer Andy Wallace, made sure that Nevermind's brilliant songs didn't get lost in the same cheap production as on the band's first album, Bleach. Vig spent a little more than a month recording and mixing the album with Cobain, Novoselic and Grohl at Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, California. Read more
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How Crazy Horse jump-started Neil Young's Career: Inside the making of 1969's classic 'Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere' By Andy Greene April 23, 2013 11:00 AM ET Neil Young's future was very much in doubt when he began recording Everybody Knows This
Is Nowhere in January of 1969. His former Buffalo Springfield bandmates were forming successful new groups like Poco and Crosby, Stills and Nash, but Young was determined to make it on his own – even though his self-titled 1968 debut was pretty much dead on arrival and Young was playing tiny clubs in Michigan, Ontario and New York to pay the bills. Young had cut his debut with studio pros like drummer Earl Palmer and bassist Carol Kaye. But he felt the songs he was writing for his follow-up needed a needed a rougher, edgier touch. When he came across a band called the Rockets one day in Laurel Canyon, he knew he found his guys. Led by guitarist Danny Whitten, they were a former doo-wop group that had morphed into a psychedelic folk outfit. They weren't highly trained musicians, but they played with incredible intensity. Success had eluded them for years, and they jumped at the chance to play with someone as established as Neil Young, who promptly changed their name to Crazy Horse. Read more
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Dave Grohl on the Foo Fighters' Grammy success and going analog: 'I would rather bands sound like bands' By Steve Baltin February 15, 2012 4:10 PM ET When Rolling Stone spent some time with Grohl at various Grammy events over the weekend, he echoed those sentiments as he talked about the bare-bones recording of Wasting Light, which was recorded on analog equipment in a garage. "To me, the biggest advantage of going analog is the restrictions that it implies, which gets you to perform in a way that you’re actually being a human being," Grohl said. "We thought about heart and performance. And I would rather people not tune their vocals, I would rather people not grid their drums." Read more
2You want to be a singer in the band? Here's your chance! On this free karoke site, just click here to sing along with lyrics and background music.
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