History of Rock ‘n’ Roll Assignment Throughout the session, we have been discussing various styles of rock and talking about specific musical
influences and characteristics that helped define those styles. For your final paper for the course, I would like
you to analyze in detail two larger sub-genres that were presented in the assigned reading and describe how
one directly influenced the other.
To be more specific, pick two topics from the following list:
– Mainstream Rock (1950s)
– Rockabilly
– Soft Rock History of Rock ‘n’ Roll Assignment
– Folk Music
– Surf Music
– The Beatles
– The Rolling Stones
– Folk Rock
– Soul Music/Motown
– San Francisco Rock (Acid Rock)
– Jazz Rock
– Art Rock
– Mainstream Rock (1970s)
– Disco Music
– Punk Rock
– Heavy Metal History of Rock ‘n’ Roll Assignment
And describe how one influenced and led to the other. To illustrate using an obvious example, you could write
your paper on how folk music influenced and evolved into folk rock (that would be a boring and simple
analysis, and I wouldn’t recommend it). It’s a pretty open-ended topic, so I would pick a style that interests you
and think about which other style would complement it. To be honest, an argument can be made for almost
any pairing, since later styles especially took their influence from a multitude of sources, so feel free to be
creative when writing your paper. Don’t just look for the most obvious pairing – look for the one that you would
enjoy discussing and studying more deeply. History of Rock ‘n’ Roll Assignment
Your paper should include SPECIFIC MUSICAL DETAILS about each style in question. That means using
those musical terms like melody, harmony, rhythm, etc. and providing very in-depth analysis using specific
artists and songs as examples. I hope that by now I’ve been pretty clear about the level of detail I expect, but
writing vague things like “their music was different” or “their singing was unique” without explaining how it
was different or unique accomplishes nothing except raising my blood pressure. Use baby steps – you’re not
writing for your teacher, but for someone who hasn’t actually taken the class. You have to hold them by the
hand and walk them through everything one step at a time. History of Rock ‘n’ Roll Assignment