Carnegie Hall

• Listen to any of the rock songs in The Orchestra Rocks playlist and identify the different sounds you hear that give rock its “edgy” sound.
  • What instruments and sounds do you hear?
  • What do the voices sound like?
  • What do you notice about the volume of the music?
• Orchestra instruments can also produce different timbres when they are played in different ways.
  • String techniques include:
    • Ponticello: a “scratchy” sound produced by bowing on a different section of the strings
    • Pizzicato: plucking strings instead of using the bow
    • Patting or tapping the body of the instrument like a percussion instrument
  • Wind and brass techniques include:
    • Mutes: Placing a mute in the bell of a brass instrument to muffle the sound
    • Flutter tonguing: Rolling the tongue while blowing into a woodwind instrument
    • Alternate fingerings
  • Percussion techniques include:
    • Bowing instruments—such as marimbas, cymbals, or glasses of water—with a string bow
    • Utilizing nontraditional instruments such as found objects or toys to produce unusual sounds
• Invite students to use classroom instruments, objects, and even their voices to experiment with how they can change the timbre that is produced to create different sounds.

Go Deeper

• Below you can listen to other composers’ versions of “La Follia,” including those by Corelli and Rachmaninoff.
  • What is similar to Vivaldi’s version?
  • What is different than Vivaldi’s version?

• In rock music, a cover is a new performance or recording of a song by someone other than the original recording artist that allows the performer to interpret the piece in their own way.
• Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” has been covered more than 40 times by other famous artists such as The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix. An important part of rock music history, covers pay tribute to the original artist while offering a fresh interpretation of an existing melody.
• Compare Berry’s original recording of “Johnny B. Goode” with any of the covers below.
  • What is similar to Berry’s version?
  • What is different from Berry’s version?

Go Deeper

Change some of the lyrics to make the song a class anthem, or tell the story of a person other than “Johnny.”

Chuck Berry is known as the father of rock and roll. A self-taught musician who began playing guitar in junior high school, Berry was among the first to evolve rhythm and blues into rock and roll, particularly through his dynamic guitar solos and showmanship, which was emulated by the artists who followed him. Berry was the first Black rock and roll musician who found popularity among both white and Black audiences in the 1950s, when the US was deeply entrenched in segregation. Berry’s music was deemed so important that a panel of NASA scientists chose to include “Johnny B. Goode” along with works by Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Mozart when they launched the Voyager Golden Records into space. If extraterrestrial life ever encounters this vehicle, they too will hear Berry’s music!

Rock and roll was born in the United State in the 1950s. Its roots lie in African American music traditions, including gospel, blues, and rhythm and blues, as well as country music and folk. The signature rock and roll sound is the amplified wail of the electric guitar, combined with electric bass, drum kit, and sometimes keyboards and saxophone. Its signature rhythm is the backbeat, with a driving accent on beats 2 and 4. Over the decades, many kinds of rock music grew out of these early rock and roll roots, from “British Invasion” bands like The Beatles to heavy metal to punk.