Wednesday, October 16, 2013

What Is Rock to Me?

I am sad to say that you and I have quite different beliefs as to what we consider to be rock. My beliefs stem from the fact that I have had no musical experience in my life, I have a terrible singing voice, I couldn't manage to learn the piano or the guitar, and I really don't know at all what goes into making a song. Our backgrounds most likely have a lot to do with what we think on the matter. But the odd thing is that your answer to "what is rock" was something that provokes rebellious ideas and impulses. Something that makes you want to punch out a car window. But that seems like something that should be my answer, an answer from a kid who has no musical knowledge, which is weird. See my answer is something more technical, more revolved around the instruments and how they're being played. See I can't classify rock as being something that makes me want to rebel because the music that makes me want to go destroy something is either dubstep or bass heavy rap (A$AP Ferg, Waka Flaka Flame, Jay-Z and Kanye to some extent), and I just can't call that rock. To me rock requires a unique kind of vocals, to stereotype it needs a male with a deep manly voice. I'm just going to forewarn you that my explanation is going to make very little sense, I really have know idea what I'm talking about technically speaking, to me it's usually just a feeling. But anyway, manly voice, if it doesn't have the voice then it needs an up tempo instrumental that USUALLY has a lot of electric guitar and drums. To show you an example, my attached clip is "Black Dog" by LZ, when the instruments first open up, that's what I'm talking about. We can classify Little Richard as rock because of his voice, although it's not entirely "manly," but also because of the up tempo instrumentals. For me rock absolutely has to have drums, that accounts for my omission of rap and dubstep from what I consider rock. If a song has heavy electric guitar elements (Such as metallica) then it's definitely rock. If a song has up tempo instrumentals with a low pitched (man's) voice, then it's definitely rock. Like I said, I really have no earthly way to describe what I think rock to be, if you were to sit me down and have me listen to a song, I could tell exactly if I thought it was rock or not.

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