The Music Matters: An Analysis of Early Rock and Roll

Literature Review

     Discussions involving early rock and roll music, 1955 through 1959, include stories about Elvis, screaming young girls, parental outrage, and lyrics laden with teenage angst.1 However, it is important to remember that rock and roll is, first and foremost, music. The purpose of this paper is to offer some insight into what were the defining qualities of the music of early rock and roll.

     To a great extent, research into rock and roll music has focused on the lyrics.2 They are often studied as a form of poetry implying that the music is not required for the words to have an impact.3

      The actual music behind the lyrics is usually written of in broad terms with little explanation. Rock and roll melody lines are termed, "minimal", while the musical progressions are dismissed as being only three chords.4

     Even so, the music of early rock and roll, however minimal, is still part of the song and can be studied independently of the lyrics. Stuessy points out that lyrics are not technically part of a song's music.5 Some studies go as far as suggesting that the music, apart from the lyrics, may be the most important part of the song.

     LeBlanc noted that it was the overall sound and beat that made a song attractive to a teen listener.6 Boyle, Hosterman, and Ramsey upheld these findings by writing that the most influential features of a song are, in order, the melody, rhythm, mood, and then the lyrics.7

     The overall musical sound of a song may be more important to the listener than the lyrics. That sound is made up from the above mentioned melody, time signature, and chordal progressions of the song.8 This paper will research those three items.

Rock and Roll

     To undertake a study of early rock and roll music it is important to denote why certain years were chosen and exactly what will be termed rock and roll.

     Songs from the years 1955 through 1959 will be used for this project. Texts that discuss early rock and roll have singled these years out.9 The five year span has often been refered to being rock and roll's formative years.10

     It is generally accepted that rock and roll, as a national music form, began sometime in 1955.11 This is not to say that rock and roll styles did not exist before 1955, only that rock and roll became a national music form that year.

     In 1955 Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock along with an all rock and roll soundtrack was introduced to national audiences through the film The Blackboard Jungle. Rhythm and Blues artists like Fats Domino and Chuck Berry began to cross over onto the pop charts. As Palmer wrote, "The rock and roll era had begun".12

     Exactly what constitutes a song as rock and roll is a more elusive set of constructs. To place very rigid restrictions on what songs are, or are not, might ensure leaving out music that some would include in a sample.

     A liberal view must be taken. Rock and roll is a very broad term "under which a diverse subsystem of styles can legitimately exist".13 The liberal view of what is rock and roll was used in choosing the songs for this project as will be discussed in the method section.

     No music form simply appears without having roots in other forms of music. Rock and roll is no different. Blues and country music are the two generally accepted streams of music that converged.14 This paper however will treat rock and roll as its own musical genre. It will be treated as an end product instead of a marriage of other styles.

Method

     This paper will analyze the chordal progressions, time signatures and melody lines of a sample of 100 rock and roll songs chosen from the years 1955 through 1959. This is an exploratory project that is intended to search for common threads and patterns in the music or early rock and roll.

The Sample

     The original sample for this project was to be 20 songs from each of the five years, but this presented a problem. Although 1955's music charts contain rock and roll songs, they contain far fewer than 1958 or 1959. This meant the sample had to be skewed towards the later years. Figure 1 shows the year by year breakdown of the sample. Individual songs were chosen from each of the years using the following criteria.

     Songs chosen for this project had to have been on Billboard's national music charts. These 100 songs were to be a representation of five years of rock and roll, and being on Billboard's charts was a good measure of strong national popularity.15

     There could be no more than one song per artist or group per year. Bill Haley had five songs in the year 1955 that could have made the sample. Loading 1955 with Bill Haley might make the sample equal to the music charts, but could also damage results. Singers have certain keys in which they are most comfortable singing. Choosing one artist five or six times in each year would skew the sample towards that artist's favorite key signatures and chordal progressions.

     The one exception to this rule is Elvis Presley's domination of the year 1956. Two Elvis Presley songs were chosen from that year in order to compensate.

     When two or more songs were in contention for the sample, the song that charted the highest would be chosen.

     Novelty songs and holiday songs will not be part of the sample. Although Purple People Eater, White Christmas, and the Chipmunk Christmas were all hits, their popularity could be attributed to more than their music stylings.

     The highest ranking songs were obvious choices for the sample. These were classics such as All Shook Up and Long Tall Sally. The remainder of the sample was made up of songs that reference books and music compilation albums noted as important or influential.16

     The result is a fair representation of early rock and roll. People who read the list might be able to argue that certain songs should be on the list, but they should not be able to argue certain songs should not be on the list.

Chordal Progressions

     The chordal progression, one chord moving to another, is at the root of almost all music.17 For this project, a chordal progression will be termed a movement of chords that occurs more than once.18

     The chordal progressions were transcribed from the original songs rather than taken from sheet music. Sheet music will often transcribe music into an easier or more common key signature than the original. Sheet music will also sometimes add change chords, chords that smoothly move one main chord to another, to ease the flow of the music.

     Chords were noted in both note and number form. An example: A song is in the key of C. This means that a C chord would be named the one chord, a D chord would be the two chord, an E chord would be the three chord, F is the four chord, G is the five chord, and so on. Thus a chordal progression of C, A minor, F, G, C would be noted as 1, 6, 4, 5, 1. Minors, sevenths, or major sevenths chords were added to the letter representation of the chord, but not the numerical.

      It was also noted if a progression was associated with a specific part of a song, such as the verse or the chorus.

      The 100 songs chosen for this project along with their chordal progressions appear in Appendix A.

Time Signatures

      This is the beat or rhythm of the song.

Melody Line

     The portion of the song known as the hook was transcribed. The hook is the part of the song, usually the chorus, that people tend to remember first.19

     The melody lines were transcribed from the original recording in the same fashion as the chordal progressions. In this case sheet music, American Rock and Roll, Volumes one through six, was consulted on some melody lines with very syncopated rhythms.

Results

     The sample included 100 songs. Seventy-eight of the songs were what would be termed fast tempo, while 22 were slower tempos. The number of chord progressions equals 145 instead of 100 due to many songs having more than one progression.

     There are no tables regarding the time signatures due to almost no fluctuation. All songs, except two, were in 4/4 or straight beat time, as if a metronome was keeping pace. Rock and roll was dance music, and this straight beat allowed almost anyone to keep the tempo.

     The two songs not in 4/4 were Phil Phillips' Sea of Love and Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel. Both songs were in 12/8 time which itself is little more than a form of 4/4 time..

     Of the 9 charts created from the 100 songs, Figures 2 through 7 are devoted to the chordal progressions while Figures 8 and 9 represent the melody lines.

     Figure 2 represents the number of progressions per song per year. Results show that up through the year 1957, rock and roll music remained fairly simple in regards to chord progressions. Relatively few songs had more than one. In 1958 the number of songs with multiple chord progressions and those with only one were fairly equal while in 1959 more songs had multiple progressions than singular.

     Songs with multiple chord progressions in 1955 or 1956 would have stood out as sounding different than those with only one. The musical differences between Ain't That A Shame (one progression) and Unchained Melody (two progressions) is an example. Unchained Melody requires the performer to sing more than the same melody line again and again.

     Brown wrote that early rock and roll was a kind of shout or jump blues where the performer would yell over a repeating music pattern.20 Gillett adds that in the later years of the fifties, the music industry attempted to take the hard edge off of rock and roll in order to make it more melodic.21 Adding more chord progressions, and thus more melody lines would by one way of doing this.

     Figure 3 shows the number of songs containing only major chords against those containing more intricate chords, a major or minor 7th for instance, by year. As the years increase the number of songs containing only major chords, by percentage, decrease. A marked increase in more intricate chords is shown after 1957.

     This would again lend credence to the arguments by Brown and Gillett.22 A softer edge and more melodic tone would be created by using more complex chord structures. Note the sound difference between Venus and Love Potion Number Nine. Both use similar chord progressions, but Venus has more intricate chords.

     Figure 4 shows the number of chords in each individual progression by year. Note that the number for the chords in each progression appears to be one less than is printed next to the song in Appendix A. The reason being that the progressions were written going from the one chord through the progression and back to the one chord for the reader. In reality, the second one chord would start the chord pattern over again and not be counted as part of the actual chord progression.

     The trend over the years appears to be toward smaller numbers of chords in each progression. In 1955 and 1956 progressions were mostly four and five chords long. This fit a 12-bar blues pattern. As the years pass, the number of four chord progressions remain high, but lower chording progressions begin to be used more often.

     The reason for this trend might lay in how Buddy Holly's Oh Boy is constructed (see 1958). The chorus, also melody line hook, has a four chord progression, 1 4 1 5. The verse is then a three chord progression holding the chords longer than was done before. Note the chords are the same used to make up the chorus progression, just in a different order. This same sort of style, using the same chords in a different order, can be found in The Monotone's Book of Love, The Silhouette's Get a Job, and in a reverse order in The Johnny Otis Show's Willie and the Hand Jive.

     Figure 5 shows each song's first chordal movement by year. There were two chordal movements that were used almost exclusively: 1-4 and 1-6. Note the chart lists three movements, the two above and "1-5 (4th)". The reason for the 1-5 (4th) is that 12 songs, instead of moving melodically up on their first movement, moved down. When the downward movement was to the 5 chord, the interval, space between chords, was the same as moving up to the 4 chord. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1

     For example, count up from the one chord on the left to the four chord, it is the same number of spaces you count going from the one chord on the right down to the five chord. The movement is different but the interval is the same.

     These above results suggest that early rock and roll tended to follow certain patterns. It is no mistake that the 1-4 progression started off the majority of the songs, it is the most harmonically compatible movement.23 It is familiar to the ear and easy to listen to.

     Figure 6 shows the two most used chord progressions in this sample. Progressions that used only 1, 4, and 5 chords, in different patterns, make up the majority. Songs falling into this pattern are found in each year and include Rock Around the Clock, Long Tall Sally, Suzy Q, Summertime Blues, and Sea Cruise.

     The second chord progression is also found in all five years, but in greater numbers toward the end of the decade. This 1, 6, 4, 5 progression always had the 6 chord as a minor and was almost exclusively associated with music that is often termed doo-wop. Songs with this progression include Why Do Fools Fall in Love, Eddie My Love, Lollypop, and I Wonder Why.

     A slight modification to the 1, 6, 4, 5 progression was found three times: Book of Love, Do You Want to Dance?, and Oh Carol all used a 1, 6, 2, 5 progression.

     Figure 7 shows resolutions, the ending movement of the progression moving back to the one chord, by year. One resolution, 5 to 1, dominated the chart. This also make sense due to 5, 1 being the most familiar and harmonically pleasing resolution.24

     The 4, 1 resolution occurred 26 times, however the four chord was used as a change chord between the five and the one. Examples include Honkey Tonk, Ain't Got No Home, and Great Balls of Fire.

     Figure 8 shows the key signatures used by year. The most used was the key of C. This follows the above discussion in that the key of C has no sharps or flats and allows for all major chords quite easily. The keys of E and A are also used, most probably because the guitar, a mainstay instrument in early rock and roll, is tuned to play easily in E or A. The key of Bb was used in the same fashion because horns are tuned to Bb.

     No specific technical reason could be cited for the use of key signatures. The reason may simply be that the singer was most comfortable singing in that key.

     Figure 9 shows the space between the highest and lowest note in each melody line. All of the melody lines except for 10 stayed within an octave while almost two thirds remained within half an octave.

     When a melody line remains inside a small interval, two items are ensured. First it almost guarantees a conjunct, or smooth moving, melody line. There is no room to take large melodic jumps. Second, it allows for easy performance. The singer does not have to have a large singing range.

     The results in Figure 9 might suggest that early rock and roll melodies were minimal, as was stated earlier. Note-wise perhaps, but what could not be charted were the rhythms employed in singing these melody lines. Although the beat of early rock and roll was solid and straight forward, the melodies were not. There are very intricate syncopations at the beginning of Tutti Fritti or Bo Diddley. To sing rock and roll might not have take great range, but it did take a great feel for rhythm.

Conclusions

     Ennis wrote that there were two rules of thumb in the music industry. What is popular now, do the same, and what ever is popular now, do the opposite.25 The results of this study suggest that rule one was followed more than rule two.

     Rock and roll has some definite musical patterns. The 1, 4, 5 chord progression was used in almost three-fourths of the songs. Many of the songs had exactly the same progressions. Rock Around the Clock and Maybellene were, chord-wise the same song. Tutti Frutti use the same chord progression one fourth lower.

     It would be difficult to make an argument that these similarities occurred by chance. With some exceptions, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, and Buddy Holly, the artists that sang the songs chosen for this survey did not write the songs. Professional songwriters, like Leiber and Stoller and Otis Blackwell, are responsible for most of the music analyzed here. This repetition was on purpose.

     Early rock and roll was popular because it was music to rebel by, it was full of teenage angst, and because Elvis shook like none before, but early rock and roll was also popular because the music was, in terms of its structure, safe.

     Tannenbaum used the term "safe" to describe the way people felt when watching familiar television reruns, but the usage applies here.26 The music of early rock and roll made no large demands on the listener. It was easy to quickly identify the latest rock and roll song. It sounded similar to all the others, mainly because it was. The musical movements were familiar and the listener was comfortable.

     The song's chord progression began with an upward movement in the interval of a forth or a sixth. The chord progression followed familiar movements and resolved in the most harmonically pleasing fashion. Obviously this is painting with a broad brush, but the results tend to back it up.

     Early rock and roll was not quite a formula music because there was more to a rock and roll record than just the music. First there were the lyrics, but more importantly, there was a large performance aspect. A 1, 4, 5 chord progression and syncopated melody line could be written, but if it was not performed correctly, it fell flat. Pat Boone's versions of Little Richard music is a good example. The music was the same yet the performance aspect was lacking.

     The music of early rock and roll might be thought of more as a skeletal framework. Underneath, most early rock and roll songs were quite similar. That was what grouped them together as being from the same genre. They sounded like rock and roll records should sound and that sound was created through the use of the structures noted above.

     What was added to the basic musical framework was what set the song apart. In his discussion of Chuck Berry, Robert Christgau summed up the results of this paper by writing, "repetition without tedium is the backbone of rock and roll".27

ENDNOTES

1 Charlie Gillett. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock 'n' Roll. (New York: Outerbridge and Dienstfrey, 1970); Jim Dawson, & Steve Propes. What Was the First Rock and Roll Record? (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1992)
2 Steven H. Chaffee, "Popular Music and Communication Research: An Editorial Epilogue," Communication Research 12 (1985), 413-424; Phil Hirsch, "Sociological Approaches to the Pop Music Phenominon," American Behavioral Scientist 14 (1971), 371-388; R. Rice, "The Content of Popular Recordings," Popular Music and Society 7 (1980), 140-158.
3 Simon Frith, Music for Pleasure. (New York: Routledge, 1988).
4 Gene Busnar, It's Rock and Roll: A Musical History of the Fabulous Fifties, (New York: Julian Messner, 1979), 28; Steve Anderson, "Three-Chord Catharsis: Horseshoes and Hand Grenades by Chris Mars," Village Voice 37, (1994) 74; Mike Tribby, "The Arts: Mid-Life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour With Three Chords and an Attitude," Booklist 90, (1994) 1913.
5 Joe Stuessy, Rock and Roll: As History and Stylistic Development, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc, 1990)
6 A. LeBlanc, "Generic Style Music Preferences of Fifth-Grade Students," Journal of Research in Music Education 27, (1979) 255-270.
7 J. David Boyle, G. L. Hosterman, & D. S. Ramsey, "Factors Influencing Pop Music Preferences of Young People. Journal of Research in Music Education 29, (1981) 47-55.
8 Clinton Heylin, The Penguin Book of Rock and Roll Writing, (New York: Viking, 1992)
9 Mirek Kocandrle, The History of Rock and Roll: A Selected Discography, (Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1986); Joel Whitburn, The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, (New York: Billboard Publications, 1987); Joel Whitburn, The Billboard Pop Charts 1955-1959 (Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research Inc, 1989)
10 Busnar, 1979.
11 Busnar, 1979; Dawson & Propes, 1992; Phillip Ennis, The Seventh Stream: The Emergence of Rocknroll in American Popular Music. (New England: University Press, 1992); Richard A. Peterson, "Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of Rock Music," Popular Music 9, (1990) 97-115.
12 Robert Palmer, "Rock Begins" In Anthony DeCurtis, James Henke, & Holly George-Warren, eds., Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, (New York: Random House, 1992), 14. 13 Stuessy, 1990, 4.
14 Palmer, 1992.
15 Dawson & Propes, 1992.
16 See Kocandrle, 1986; Whitburn, 1987; Whitburn, 1989; Anthony DeCurtin, James Hanke & Holly George-Warren eds., The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll. (New York: Randon House, 1992); Jon Pareles, & Patricia Romanowski, eds., The Rolling Stone Encyclopenia of Rock and Roll (New York: Rolling Stone Press, 1983); Joel Whitburn, Pop Singles Annual 1955-1959, (Monomonee Falls, WI: Record Research Inc, 1990).
17 Howard Morgen, "All About Chord Progressions," Guitar Player 24, (1988) 66-80.
18 Charles T. Brown, The Rock and Roll Story, (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc, 1983).
19 Stuessy, 1990.
20 Brown, 1983.
21 Gillett, 1970.
22 ibid, Brown, 1983.
23 Morgen, 1988.
24 ibid.
25 Ennis, 1992.
26 Percey H. Tannenbaum, "'Play It Again Sam': Repeated Exposure to Television Programs", In Dolf Zillman, & Jennings Bryant, eds., Selective Exposure to Communication. (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1985).
27 Robert Christgau, "Chuck Berry," In Anthony DeCurtis, James Henke, & Holly George-Warren eds., Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, (New York: Random House, 1992), 62.
28 The chi-squares performed on all tables were done by collapsing data into two collums to avoid empty cells. The Yates correction was also employed where expected frequencies were below five. Both corrections allowed for a true chi-square with little loss of statistical power.
29 It was decided, for this sample, that a song does not have to be of fast tempo to be rock and roll. Conversations over the Internet newsgroups alt.rock-n-roll and alt.rock-n-roll.oldies agreed with this decision.
30 Many songs in the sample might be better characterized as rhythm and blues than rock and roll. However all songs that might fall under such suspect did cross over to the Billboard Pop charts, and for that reason were included in this sample as another genre of rock and roll.
31 Although Johnny Cash is today recognized as a country artist, in 1956 he was labled rock-a-billy. The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll refers to rock-a-billy as the purest form of the rock and roll genres. I Walk the Line is considered rock and roll for this sample.
32 Venus might not be considered rock and roll by some standards, but the song is representational of a shift in the later fifties toward calming rock and roll. Rolling Stone notes the teen idols as another genre in the wide umbrella of rock and roll music.