----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven Smolian" <[log in to unmask]>
> In addition, much is taken for granted. Has anyone seen sheet music for
> rock that has a hard accent over the second beat?
>
Actually, all the rock I've heard...back to when it was still called
"rock'n'roll"...has the accent on the third beat! Rock'n'roll started
out with the shuffle rhythm of its "swing" ancestor...then about
1958/59 Chuck Berry's backup band started playing old swing tunes
("Route 66, "Down the Road a Piece") with a very tricky rhythm
which sounded like straight 4/4 but still had a swing feel to it.
My assumption has always been that the rock'n'roll drummers of
that period simply weren't competent enough to master that, and
instead went to the "one-two-THREE-four" that backed up rock
from that point until much later. Contemporary pop music uses
a "funk" dance rhythm that is lifted from Black artists, most
notably James Brown...which, if carefully analyzed, turns out
to be based on the old tango rhythm.
Anybody out there in Radio-Land make any sense of this?
Steven C. Barr
