Loved or hated, hard rock marks a turning point in rock music.

Let’s discover together its history and what composes it!

What’s hard rock ?

If we look at Collin’s dictionary, it says: “Hard rock is a type of very loud rock music with a fast beat.”

Let’s dive a little deeper than that.

Hard rock is a style of rock that appeared in the middle of the 60s. It comes after the psychedelic rock movement, flower power, etc.

Bands, tired of these musical genres, began to look for a more powerful and heavy sound. Sound that, until that time, was unprecedented.

The origins

Hard Rock draws its roots from:

Blues and Blues rock musics

Blues-rock was imported by the artists who were part of the British invasion. The latter contributed to its dissemination to the white population with covers of Howlin’ Wolf or Muddy Waters. It was then taken over and tamed by Power Trio (group of 3 people) and garages bands.

We can mention as groups of the British invasion: the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Faces, the Kinks, or the Beatles.

In addition, the blues impregnated by jazz and rock n’roll by Jimi Hendrix will greatly influence hard rock.

Rock n’ Roll

If you want to know more about it, you can read this post.

African-American elements

Runs-in with the devil of Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf opened the doors of Satanism. (Or at least stories with the devil. Because, a small reminder for those who do not know, but all rockers and metalheads are not satanists. But this is another debate…).

With his stage performances (screaming and gestures), James Brown uninhibited generations of white singers. Extroverted postures, moans and screams become essential elements of a performance.

Baroque music

It is important to note the beginning of the link between (hard) rock and baroque writing music techniques.
Now some of you will say that I have completely lost my mind. But no!

The Highway Star solo from Ritchie Blackmore (Deep Purple) is a perfect example.

It contains a majority of ingredients specific to Bach’s music:

• Repetition of melodic figures (in this case they are arpeggios),
• Very square sentence structure,
• The virtuoso approach of the instrument,
• Typical harmonic progression.

The main rules of hard rock

The riff

It’s generally composed of “power chords” and is influenced by the early rock n’ roll. The novelty comes from the use of chords in sharp (increased) and flat (decreased). These allow to create more complex harmonic progressions.

A riff that alone represents hard rock is Smoke On The Water from Deep Purple. Simple, unforgettable, powerful. With its syncopated passages, it will form the basis of thousands of songs of this kind.

Rhythmic

The hard rock takes back the bases of the rock n’roll of the beginnings, namely a rhythm in 4/4 with the 2nd and 4th beats scored. But from now on, the beating of drummers is much heavier! This gives rise to a particular pulsation, prompting us to shake our heads. This is the famous “headbanging”.

It is also possible to hear shuffle beats from blues rock on occasion.
The blues rhythm or «shuffle» is a division into 3 parts from which we would have skipped the 2nd beat. This gives a “shuffling” effect to the melody.

THE best rhythm that describes hard rock is Led Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll (played by John Bonham). The latter hammers all the time: the 1st and 3rd at the bass drum and the 2nd and 4th at the snare drum. It’s heavy, strong, and visually impressive.

Bonham becomes the archetype of the hard rock drummer: banging his drums, drenched in sweat, and completely in his music.

The omnipresence of distortion

Distortion is the transformation/distortion of the sound between the moment it’s emitted by the instrument and its diffusion by the speakers.

One of the very first ways to produce saturation is to maximize the amp.

In 1958, Link Wray introduced the distortion pedal. However, experiments by guitarists such as Jimi Hendrix, Dave Davies (Kinks), Pete Townshend (Who), Eric Clapton (Cream) or Jeff Beck (Yardbirds), as well as technological advances, pave the way for new methods (including phasing, feedback, and distortion).  One of them is the fuzz pedal. Marketed in the mid-1960s, it offers better control. You just have to insert it between the instrument and the amp.

Sound saturation creates two main effects:

The harmonic stability

It comes from the fact that the distortion extends the sonorities of the guitar as much in the bass as in the treble. The high-pitched harmonics add brilliance to the sound and the low-pitched tones create sounds below the usual range of the instrument. Which makes hard rock one of the MOST STABLE music, harmonically speaking!! Hell yeah, in your face haters!

Sustain

It’s the ability to maintain sound. When a note is pinched on the acoustic or electric guitar without saturation, it declines rapidly. With a strongly distorted signal, the sound is compressed and forms a kind of loop that can be maintained indefinitely.

Hard rock and then heavy metal will change the quality of the distortion. From parasite, it becomes synonymous with strength and power.

Lyrics

They talk about themes that are found in the blues. That is to say, broken loves, loneliness, drugs, alcohol, women, and even sex with much innuendo.

It should be noted that many groups have been accused of misogyny. (Well on this level, we can see that, at the moment, misogyny is found a little in all styles of music).

Group formations

Hard rock will as much triumph thanks to:

Power trio

With bands like Cream, Grand Funk Railroad, Mountain or Rush.

Quatuors

With Led Zeppelin, or Black Sabbath for example.

Quintets (with keyboard)

We can mention here, Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Steppenwolf or MC5

Hard rock has continued to develop. In the 70s, alongside the aforementioned bands, a second wave of hard rock artists such as Judas Priest, UFO, Thin Lizzy, and Scorpions were added.

However, this second wave is also considering itself in the HEAVY METAL category.

In the next post, we will see what this genre is, whose border with hard rock is very fine, but still present.

In the meantime, you can listen to the playlist dedicated to this post right here. And feel free to share it if you like it, or if it might interest someone you know.

Here are caricatures of artists belonging to this Hard Rock

Also, you can see all the drawings / caricatures right here !

See you soon !

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Sources :

Une Histoire musicale du rock – Christophe Pirenne

Histoire du Rock : https://histoiredurock.fr.gd/Hard_Rock.htm

La (petite) histoire du Rock #4 : Le Hard Rock et le Heavy Metal – Raff de HGuitare – Hguitare https://www.hguitare.com/communaute/blog/conseils/histoire-du-rock-hard-rock-heavy-metal

Histoire du Hard Rock, l’arrivée d’une musique lourde et saturée – Dominique Mesmin – Cadence Info: https://www.cadenceinfo.com/le-hard-rock-histoire-et-evolution.htm

C’est quoi un shuffle ? Le rythme du blues expliqué aux débutants – Alexis – Guitar School Garden : https://guitarschoolgarden.fr/techniques/shuffle-blues-debutant/

Apprendre le solfège – Binaire et ternaire (temps): https://www.apprendrelesolfege.com/binaire-et-ternaire

Collins Dictionary: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/hard-rock

Claire Abe

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