Fender Musical Instruments Corporation
Fender Musical Instruments Corporation is an American manufacturer of stringed instruments and amplifiers. Fender produces acoustic guitars, electric basses, bass amplifiers and public address equipment, but is best known for its solid-body electric guitars and bass guitars the Stratocaster, Precision Bass, the Jazz Bass; the company was founded in Fullerton, California, by Clarence Leonidas "Leo" Fender in 1946. Its headquarters are in Arizona. FMIC is a held corporation, with Andy Mooney serving as the Chief Executive Officer; the company filed for an initial public offering in March 2012, but this was withdrawn five months later. In addition to its Scottsdale headquarters, Fender has manufacturing facilities in Corona and Ensenada, Baja California; as of July 10, 2012, the majority shareholders of Fender were the private equity firm of Weston Presidio, Japanese music distributors Yamano Music and Kanda Shokai and Servco Pacific. In December 2012, TPG Growth and Servco Pacific took control of the company after acquiring the shares held by Weston Presidio.
In 1950, Fender introduced the first mass-produced solid-body Spanish-style electric guitar, the Telecaster. Following its success, Fender created the Precision Bass. In 1954, Fender unveiled the Stratocaster guitar. With the Telecaster and Precision Bass having been on the market for some time, Leo Fender was able to incorporate input from working musicians into the Stratocaster's design; the company began as Fender's Radio Service in late 1938 in California. As a qualified electronics technician, Fender had repaired radios, home audio amplifiers, public address systems and musical instrument amplifiers, all designs based on research developed and released to the public domain by Western Electric in the 1930s using vacuum tubes for amplification; the business sidelined in carrying records for sale and the in rental of company-designed PA systems. Leo became intrigued by design flaws in contemporary musical instrument amplifiers and began building amplifiers based on his own designs or modifications to designs.
By the early 1940s, Leo Fender had entered into a partnership with Clayton Orr "Doc" Kauffman, they formed the K & F Manufacturing Corp to design and market electric instruments and amplifiers. Production began in 1945 with amplifiers, sold as sets. By the end of the year, Fender became convinced that manufacturing was more profitable than repair, decided to concentrate on that business instead. Kauffman remained unconvinced, he and Fender amicably parted ways by early 1946. At that point, Fender renamed the company the Fender Electric Instrument Company; the service shop remained open until 1951, although Leo Fender did not supervise it after 1947. Leo Fender's lap steel guitar made in 1946 for Noel Boggs was the first product of the new company, bearing an early presentation of the cursive "big F" Fender logo. In the late 1940s, Fender began to experiment with more conventional guitar designs. Early Broadcasters were plagued with issues. Fender's reluctant addition of a metal truss rod into the necks of his guitars allowed for the much needed ability to fine-tune the instrument to the musician's specific needs.
With the design of the Telecaster finalized, mass production began in 1950. The Telecaster's bolted-on neck allowed for the instrument's body and neck to be milled and finished separately, for the final assembling to be done and cheaply by unskilled workers. In 1959, Fender released the Jazzmaster guitar. Like the Stratocaster before it, the Jazzmaster was a radical departure from previous guitar designs; the offset body, vibrato system and innovative electronics were designed to capture the Jazz guitar market which until was dominated by acoustic guitars. Fender promoted the Jazzmaster as a premium successor to the Stratocaster, an accolade it never achieved. Despite being shunned by the Jazz community, the guitar found a home in the growing surf rock music scene, one that would go into influence the Jazzmaster's successor, the Jaguar in 1962. In early 1965, Leo Fender sold his companies to the Columbia Broadcasting System for $13 million; this was two million more than they had paid for The New York Yankees a year before.
CBS entered the musical instruments field by acquiring the Fender companies, as well as Electro-Music Inc. Rogers drums, Steinway pianos, Gemeinhardt flutes, Lyon & Healy harps, Rodgers organs, Gulbransen home organs; the sale was taken as a positive development, considering CBS's ability to bring in money and personnel who acquired a large inventory of Fender parts and unassembled guitars that were assembled and put to market. However, the sale led to a reduction of the quality of Fender's guitars while under the management of "cost-cutting" CBS. Several cosmetic changes occurred after 1965/1966, such as a larger headstock shape on certain guitars. Bound necks with block shaped position markers were introduced in 1966. A bolder black headstock logo, as well as a brushed aluminum
Semi-acoustic guitar
A semi-acoustic guitar or hollow-body electric is a type of electric guitar that originates from the 1930s. It has one or more electric pickups; this is not the same as an acoustic-electric guitar, an acoustic guitar with the addition of pickups or other means of amplification, added by either the manufacturer or the player. In the 1930s guitar players and manufacturers were attempting to increase the overall volume of the guitar, which had a hard time competing in loudness with other instruments—especially in large orchestras and jazz bands; this led makers to try a series of designs that focused on amplifying a guitar electrically through a loudspeaker. In 1936, Gibson made their first production run of electric guitars; these guitars, known as ES-150s were the first manufactured semi-acoustic guitars. Gibson based them on a standard production archtop, with f holes on the face of the guitar's soundbox; this model resembled traditional jazz guitars. The soundbox on the guitar let limited sound emit from the hollow body of the guitar.
These guitars, could be electrically amplified via a Charlie Christian pickup, a magnetic single-coil pickup that converted the energy of the vibrating strings into an electrical signal. The clear sound of the pickups made the ES series popular with jazz musicians; the first semi-acoustic guitars are thought of as an evolutionary step in the progression from acoustic guitars to full electric models. However, Gibson made the ES-150 several years after Rickenbacker made the first solid-body electric guitar; the ES series was an experiment the Gibson company used to test the potential success of electric guitars. The experiment was a successful financial venture, the ES series is referred to as the first successful electric guitar; the ES-150 was followed by the ES-250 a year in what became a long line of semi acoustics for the Gibson company. In 1949 Gibson released two new models: the ES-175 and ES-5; these guitars came standard with built-in electric pickups and are considered the first electric semi-acoustic guitars.
Prior models were not built with pickups. As the production and popularity of solid body electric guitars increased, there was still a market of guitar players who wanted to have the traditional look associated with the semi-acoustic guitars of the 1930s but wanted the versatility and comfort of new solid body guitars. Several models, including the ES-350T by Gibson, were made in the 1950s to accommodate this growing demand by including a more comfortable version of the archtop model. Gibson and other makers followed these variations with an new type of guitar that featured a block of solid wood between the front and back sections of the guitars cutaway; this guitar still functioned acoustically, but had a smaller resonant cavity inside, which makes less sound emit from the f holes. Gibson first manufactured this variant in 1958, it is referred to as a semi-hollow body guitar, because of the smaller, less open body. Rickenbacker began making semi-acoustic guitars in 1958; when the company changed ownership in 1954, they hired Roger Rossmiesl.
He developed the 300 series for Rickenbacker, a wide semi-acoustic that did not use a traditional f hole. Rather it used a sleeker dash hole on one side of the guitar, the other side had a large pickguard; this model boasted a modern design with a unique Fireglo finish. It became one of Rickenbacker's most popular series and became a strong competitor to Gibson's models. In addition to the main model variants of the guitar, Gibson made several small changes to the guitar, including a laminated top for the ES-175 model and mounted top pickups for general use on all their models, as opposed to Charlie Christian models from the 1930s. While Gibson provided many of the innovations in semi-acoustic guitars from the 1930s to the 1950s, there were various makes by other companies including a hollow archtop by Gretsch; the 6120 model by Gretsch became popular as a rockabilly model despite having no technical differences from Gibson models. Rickenbacker was a prominent maker of the semi-hollow body guitar.
Gibson, Gretsch and other companies still make semi-acoustic and semi-hollow body guitars, making slight variations on their yearly designs. The semi-acoustic and semi-hollow body guitars were praised for their clean and warm tones; this led to widespread use throughout the jazz communities in the 1930s. As new models came out with sleeker designs, the guitars began to make their way into popular circles; the guitar became used in pop and blues. The guitars sometimes produced feedback; this made the guitars unpopular for bands. As rock became more experimental in the late 60s and 70s, the guitar became more popular because players learned to use its feedback issues creatively. Semi-hollow guitars share some of the tonal characteristics of hollow guitars, such as their praised warmth and clean tone. However, the addition of the central block helps to manage feedback and allows the guitar to be played at higher gain and higher volume. Semi-hollow guitars with a central block are more durable than hollow guitars, whose sound is popular with jazz, blues and psychobilly guitarists.
Today, semi-acoustic and semi-hollow body guitars are still popular among many artists across various genres. Examples include Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, renowned jazz guitarist George Benson, John Scofield, pop rock guitartist Paul McCartney. Famous guitarists of the past who have us
Electric ukulele
An electric ukulele is a ukulele, electrically amplified. If not plugged in, it can still play acoustically. A solid-body electric ukulele produces little sound acoustically, requiring an amplifier to be heard from more than a few feet away; some solid-body electric ukuleles have steel strings and active humbucker style or single-coil magnetic pickups, such as the Blue Star Konablaster, Mahalo MEU1/S, RISA, Monkey Wrench, Mark Vinsel and Vorson electric ukuleles, while other electric ukuleles, such as Eleuke ukuleles, are solid-body electric ukuleles with nylon strings and passive pick-ups under the saddle. An electro-acoustic ukulele is a standard acoustic instrument to which a passive pickup has been added, a method similar to that used for an acoustic-electric guitar; such ukuleles have nylon or gut strings, not the metal strings necessary for ukuleles with magnetic pickups. Electro-acoustic ukuleles may be played either plugged into an amplifier; such nylon-strung ukuleles include those designed to look like metal-strung electric guitars, such as the Epiphone Les Paul-style acoustic-electric ukulele.
The acoustic and electric tone qualities will differ between electric ukuleles, some "a/e" ukuleles are built with the aim of producing quality sound when amplified, to the detriment of the acoustic sound. Electric ukuleles come in the same four standard sizes as acoustic ukuleles; the electric lap steel ukulele is an uncommon instrument, consisting of a small ukulele-shaped solid-body, laid in the artist's lap. It has four strings raised above the neck, which are not pressed down onto a fretboard, but are played with a steel slide. An electric lap steel ukulele is a small lap steel guitar with only four strings. Similar instruments have been built by custom instrument makers, but the only production manufacturer was Jupiter Creek Music before they closed their business in October 2012. Epiphone Fender Ovation Guitar Company Stagg Music Vox
String instrument
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when the performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner. Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the strings with their fingers or a plectrum—and others by hitting the strings with a light wooden hammer or by rubbing the strings with a bow. In some keyboard instruments, such as the harpsichord, the musician presses a key that plucks the string. With bowed instruments, the player pulls a rosined horsehair bow across the strings, causing them to vibrate. With a hurdy-gurdy, the musician cranks. Bowed instruments include the string section instruments of the Classical music orchestra and a number of other instruments. All of the bowed string instruments can be plucked with the fingers, a technique called "pizzicato". A wide variety of techniques are used to sound notes on the electric guitar, including plucking with the fingernails or a plectrum, strumming and "tapping" on the fingerboard and using feedback from a loud, distorted guitar amplifier to produce a sustained sound.
Some types of string instrument are plucked, such as the harp and the electric bass. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, string instruments are called chordophones. Other examples include the sitar, banjo, mandolin and bouzouki. In most string instruments, the vibrations are transmitted to the body of the instrument, which incorporates some sort of hollow or enclosed area; the body of the instrument vibrates, along with the air inside it. The vibration of the body of the instrument and the enclosed hollow or chamber make the vibration of the string more audible to the performer and audience; the body of most string instruments is hollow. Some, however—such as electric guitar and other instruments that rely on electronic amplification—may have a solid wood body. Dating to around c. 13,000 BC, a cave painting in the Trois Frères cave in France depicts what some believe is a musical bow, a hunting bow used as a single-stringed musical instrument.
From the musical bow, families of stringed instruments developed. In turn, this led to being able to play chords. Another innovation occurred when the bow harp was straightened out and a bridge used to lift the strings off the stick-neck, creating the lute; this picture of musical bow to harp bow has been contested. In 1965 Franz Jahnel wrote his criticism stating that the early ancestors of plucked instruments are not known, he felt that the harp bow was a long cry from the sophistication of the 4th-century BC civilization that took the primitive technology and created "technically and artistically well-made harps, lyres and lutes."Archaeological digs have identified some of the earliest stringed instruments in Ancient Mesopotamian sites, like the lyres of Ur, which include artifacts over three thousand years old. The development of lyre instruments required the technology to create a tuning mechanism to tighten and loosen the string tension. Lyres with wooden bodies and strings used for plucking or playing with a bow represent key instruments that point towards harps and violin-type instruments.
Musicologists have put forth examples of that 4th-century BC technology, looking at engraved images that have survived. The earliest image showing a lute-like instrument came from Mesopotamia prior to 3000 BC. A cylinder seal from c. 3100 BC or earlier shows. From the surviving images, theororists have categorized the Mesopotamian lutes, showing that they developed into a long variety and a short; the line of long lutes may have developed into pandura. The line of short lutes was further developed to the east of Mesopotamia, in Bactria and Northwest India, shown in sculpture from the 2nd century BC through the 4th or 5th centuries AD. During the medieval era, instrument development varied from country to country. Middle Eastern rebecs represented breakthroughs in terms of shape and strings, with a half a pear shape using three strings. Early versions of the violin and fiddle, by comparison, emerged in Europe through instruments such as the gittern, a four-stringed precursor to the guitar, basic lutes.
These instruments used catgut and other materials, including silk, for their strings. String instrument design refined during the Renaissance and into the Baroque period of musical history. Violins and guitars became more consistent in design and were similar to what we use in the 2000s and into the present day; the violins of the Renaissance featured intricate woodwork and stringing, while more elaborate bass instruments such as the bandora were produced alongside quill-plucked citterns, Spanish body guitars. In the 19th century, string instruments were made more available through mass production, with wood string instruments a key part of orchestras – cellos and upright basses, for example, were now standard instruments for chamber ensembles and smaller orchestras. At the same time, the 19th-century guitar became more associated with six string models, rather than traditional five string versions. Major changes to string instruments in the 20th century involved innovations in electro
Electric violin
An electric violin is a violin equipped with an electronic output of its sound. The term most properly refers to an instrument intentionally made to be electrified with built-in pickups with a solid body, it can refer to a violin fitted with an electric pickup of some type, although "amplified violin" or "electro-acoustic violin" are more accurate in that case. Electrically amplified violins have been used in another since the 1920s; the Electro Stringed Instrument Corporation, National String Instrument Corporation and Vega Company sold electric violins in the 1930s and 1940s. Barcus Berry have been producing electric violins since the mid-1960s and in the early 1970s Max Mathews began developing an electric violin which reached completion in 1984 During the 1980s more companies were formed producing their own brand of electric violin, such as RAAD or The Amazing Electric Violin and ZETA. There has been a great deal more commercial success for manufacturers of electric violins since the 1990s for both well known, established companies and new independent makers too.
Acoustic violins may be used with an add-on piezoelectric bridge or body pickup, or a magnetic pickup attached to the fingerboard end. Alternatively, an electrodynamic pickup can be installed under an acoustic violin's fingerboard avoiding interference with any tone-producing parts of the violin, therefore keeping its acoustic resonances and tone intact. To avoid feedback from the resonances of the hollow body under high amplification on stage, many instruments have a solid body instead; the timbre of a standard unamplified violin is due in large part to these resonances, however, so depending on how the signal is picked up, an electric violin may have a "rawer" or "sharper" sound than an acoustic instrument. This raw sound is preferred in rock and some avant-garde genres. Several "semi-hollow" designs exist, containing a sealed but hollow resonating chamber that provides some approximation of acoustic violin sound while reducing susceptibility to feedback. Solid-body electric violins have a non-traditional, minimalistic design to keep weight down.
Materials such as kevlar and carbon fibres, are used in the build process. They are seen as "experimental" instruments, being less established than electric guitar or bass. Hence, there are many variations on the standard design, such as frets, extra strings, machine heads, "baritone" strings that sound an octave lower than normal, sympathetic strings. Luthier Yuri Landman built a 12 string electric violin for the Belgian band DAAU; the strings on this instrument are clustered in four groups of three strings tuned unison creating a chorus. The instrument features an extra pickup in the tail piece for extra amplification of string resonances. Acoustic 5-string violins are becoming more common, it is not unusual for an electric violin to have 5, 6, 7 or more strings; the typical solid body accommodates the extra tension caused by more strings without stressing the instrument too much. The extra strings are a low C string for 5-strings, a low C and low F for 6, a low C, F and B♭ for 7. Electric violin signals pass through electronic processing, in the same way as an electric guitar, to achieve a desired sound.
This could include delay, chorus, distortion, or other effects. Today electric violins are being used to reinvigorate music education. NBC, for example featured a "music camp that combines rock and orchestra" by Mark Wood, chosen as the "person of the day" and featured on Today for bringing fresh interest to music education with rock performances all on electric violins where proceeds are donated back to school music programs. Today stated "The perfect blend of classical instruments and rock and roll is giving kids across the country a whole new appreciation for music." Electric violins may use piezoelectric, or electrodynamic pickups. Guitar/coil type magnetic pickups require the use of violin strings that have ferrous metal wraps or cores. A few single-coil guitar-style magnetic systems are available, The small body size and arced string arrangement of a violin limit the amount of space available for coil placement. One unusual acoustic/electric violin system uses the string itself as a linear active pickup element.
Made to fit standard acoustic violins, the only requisite is that the string is electrically conducting, so the common synthetic or steel core strings can be used. Piezoelectric pickups are inexpensive and more common. Piezo elements come in the shape of cylinders or a plastic film, they detect physical vibrations directly, sometimes placed in or on the body, or in some cases actual string vibrations directly, but more general bridge vibrations are sensed. Some piezo setups have a separate pickup within the bridge under each string. A few systems use transducers oriented in various directions to differentiate between bowed and plucked string motion. Operating a switch selects the preferred mode. Piezo pickups have a high output impedance, must be plugged into a high impedance input stage in the amplifier or a powered preamp; this buffers the signal to avoid low frequency loss and microphonic noise pickup in the instrument cable. Preamplification is done by an external signal processor, but some electric
Violin
The violin, sometimes known as a fiddle, is a wooden string instrument in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body, it is highest-pitched instrument in the family in regular use. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino piccolo and the kit violin, but these are unused; the violin has four strings tuned in perfect fifths, is most played by drawing a bow across its strings, though it can be played by plucking the strings with the fingers and by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow. Violins are important instruments in a wide variety of musical genres, they are most prominent in the Western classical tradition, both in ensembles and as solo instruments and in many varieties of folk music, including country music, bluegrass music and in jazz. Electric violins with solid bodies and piezoelectric pickups are used in some forms of rock music and jazz fusion, with the pickups plugged into instrument amplifiers and speakers to produce sound. Further, the violin has come to be played in many non-Western music cultures, including Indian music and Iranian music.
The name fiddle is used regardless of the type of music played on it. The violin was first known in 16th-century Italy, with some further modifications occurring in the 18th and 19th centuries to give the instrument a more powerful sound and projection. In Europe, it served as the basis for the development of other stringed instruments used in Western classical music, such as the viola. Violinists and collectors prize the fine historical instruments made by the Stradivari, Guarneri and Amati families from the 16th to the 18th century in Brescia and Cremona and by Jacob Stainer in Austria. According to their reputation, the quality of their sound has defied attempts to explain or equal it, though this belief is disputed. Great numbers of instruments have come from the hands of less famous makers, as well as still greater numbers of mass-produced commercial "trade violins" coming from cottage industries in places such as Saxony and Mirecourt. Many of these trade instruments were sold by Sears, Roebuck and Co. and other mass merchandisers.
The parts of a violin are made from different types of wood. Violins can be strung with Perlon or other synthetic, or steel strings. A person who makes or repairs violins is called a violinmaker. One who makes or repairs bows is called an bowmaker; the word "violin" was first used in English in the 1570s. The word "violin" comes from "Italian violino, diminutive of viola"; the term "viola" comes from the expression for "tenor violin" in 1797, from Italian viola, from Old Provençal viola, Medieval Latin vitula" as a term which means "stringed instrument," from Vitula, Roman goddess of joy... or from related Latin verb vitulari, "to exult, be joyful." The related term "Viola da gamba" means "bass viol" is from Italian "a viola for the leg"." A violin is the "modern form of the smaller, medieval viola da braccio." The violin is called a fiddle, either when used in a folk music context, or in Classical music scenes, as an informal nickname for the instrument. The word "fiddle" was first used in English in the late 14th century.
The word "fiddle" comes from "fedele, fidel, earlier fithele, from Old English fiðele "fiddle,", related to Old Norse fiðla, Middle Dutch vedele, Dutch vedel, Old High German fidula, German Fiedel, "a fiddle. As to the origin of the word "fiddle", the "...usual suggestion, based on resemblance in sound and sense, is that it is from Medieval Latin vitula." The earliest stringed instruments were plucked. Two-stringed, bowed instruments, played upright and strung and bowed with horsehair, may have originated in the nomadic equestrian cultures of Central Asia, in forms resembling the modern-day Mongolian Morin huur and the Kazakh Kobyz. Similar and variant types were disseminated along East-West trading routes from Asia into the Middle East, the Byzantine Empire; the direct ancestor of all European bowed instruments is the Arabic rebab, which developed into the Byzantine lyra by the 9th century and the European rebec. The first makers of violins borrowed from various developments of the Byzantine lyra.
These included the lira da braccio. The violin in its present form emerged in early 16th-century northern Italy; the earliest pictures of violins, albeit with three strings, are seen in northern Italy around 1530, at around the same time as the words "violino" and "vyollon" are seen in Italian and French documents. One of the earliest explicit descriptions of the instrument, including its tuning, is from the Epitome musical by Jambe de Fer, published in Lyon in 1556. By this time, the violin had begun to spread throughout Europe; the violin proved popular, both among street musicians and the nobility. One of these "noble" instruments, the Charles IX, is the oldest surviving violin; the finest Renaissance carved and decorated violin in the world is the Gasparo da Salò owned by Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria and from 1841, by the Norwegian virtuoso Ole Bull, who used it for forty years and thousands of concerts, for i
Rock music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particularly in the United Kingdom and in the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style which drew on the genres of blues and blues, from country music. Rock music drew on a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. Musically, rock has centered on the electric guitar as part of a rock group with electric bass and one or more singers. Rock is song-based music with a 4/4 time signature using a verse–chorus form, but the genre has become diverse. Like pop music, lyrics stress romantic love but address a wide variety of other themes that are social or political. By the late 1960s "classic rock" period, a number of distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock, folk rock, country rock, southern rock, raga rock, jazz-rock, many of which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock, influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene.
New genres that emerged included progressive rock. In the second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave, post-punk and alternative rock. From the 1990s alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge and indie rock. Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop punk, electronic rock, rap rock, rap metal, as well as conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including the garage rock/post-punk and techno-pop revivals at the beginning of the 2000s. Rock music has embodied and served as the vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major subcultures including mods and rockers in the UK and the hippie counterculture that spread out from San Francisco in the US in the 1960s. 1970s punk culture spawned the goth and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of the protest song, rock music has been associated with political activism as well as changes in social attitudes to race and drug use, is seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity.
The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists; the sound of an electric guitar in rock music is supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered in jazz music in the same era, percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ, the synthesizer; the basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed as a rock group. Furthermore, it consists of between three and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist and keyboard player or other instrumentalist. Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four.
Melodies originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian, as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Since the late 1950s and from the mid 1960s onwards, rock music used the verse-chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock; because of its complex history and its tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition." Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, rebellion against "The Establishment", social concerns, life styles. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources such as the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music, rhythm and blues.
Music journalist Robert Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more noise." The predominance of white and middle class musicians in rock music has been noted, rock has been seen as an appropriation of black musical forms for a young and male audience. As a result, it has been seen to articulate the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, "rock and roll implies an identification of male sexuality and aggression". Since the term "rock" started being used in preference to "rock and roll" from the late-1960s, it has been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from wh
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