Rock Music

Write a short paragraph responding to each question

1. Click above to view and write a response to the documentary about Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Your response should contain both factual content and your personal response to the musical contributions of this amazing Black American Female musician.

4. Click on the three Fats Domino recordings/videos below to view, listen, and write a musical description/response to what you are seeing and hearing in each:

6. Listen and describe what you notice in each of the following five examples of the Rockabilly style. List music characteristics you notice in each.
a) Blue Suede Shoes – Carl Perkins
b) Ooby Dooby – Roy Orbison
c) Great Balls of Fire – Jerry Lee Lewis
d) Folsom Prison Blues – Johnny Cash
e) Honey Don’t – Carl Perkins

9. Songs by the 1960’s group The Beach Boys, such as Surfer Girl (and many others) owes its vocal harmonies to those of the 1950’s pop vocal group, The Four Freshmen. Click below to listen and describe the sounds you hear in this 1952 recording of It’s a Blue World by The Four Freshmen:

10. Listen to and describe each of the three Beach Boys selections below. List any musical characteristics and style influences you recognize as part of your response:
a) Fun, Fun, Fun
b) Surfer Girl
c) Surfin’ U.S.A.

12. Click below to listen, view, and describe a performance of the late Les Paul from the Iridium club in New York City on his 90th Birthday June 9, 2005.

17. Click below to listen, view, and describe the live television performance of That’ll Be The Day and Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly and the Crickets on The Ed Sullivan Show from 1957.


18. As a follow up to the above Buddy Holly performance, take a look at two cool videos of Paul McCartney (The Beatles) with Ronnie Wood (The Rolling Stones) from Wood’s own music interview program, The Ronnie Wood Show. What did you learn from these two videos?

21. Click below to listen, view, and describe a television performance of The Everly Brothers singing All I Have To Do Is Dream, and Cathy’s Clown.

22. Describe the music genre known as Doo-Wop. What are its musical roots? What particular species of warm-blooded vertebrae was exploited to the fullest in the numerous related names of the Doo-Wop groups? List three of these groups.

24. Briefly list the contributions, trials, and tribulations of Alan Freed as related to the development of rock and roll.

25. One long standing criticism of rock and roll music is that it uses very few chords for its harmony and is therefore inferior to music containing a richer harmonic structure. These critics claim that rock music’s harmonic poverty renders it incapable of sustaining interest for any significant period of time. The truth is that the three chords (I, IV, and V) comprising much of rock/pop music actually triple the number of chords used by 20th century composer Karlheinz Stockhausen in Stimmung . Listen to the excerpt of Stimmung. The composition is unique in that there are only five pitches drawn from a single chord. The composition is scored for two sopranos, one mezzo soprano, one tenor, one baritone and one bass voice. The music was composed in 1968. Stimmung is divided into 51 sections, each one introduces a new overtone motive that is repeated several times. Please comment (briefly describe your own feelings and response to this music). Does the absence of chord changes (harmonic movement) make this music less interesting?
27. Click below to listen and describe the musical and vocal activity in the classic 1955 recording of Tutti Frutti. Recount the events that led to the eventual recording of the song. List some of the characteristics comprising Little Richard’s “sound.” What makes him so unique?

28. Click below to view, listen, and describe what you see and hear as Little Richard performs Long Tall Sally.

30. Listen to and describe what you notice both musically and lyrically in the famous recording of American Pie by Don McLean (1971).

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