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What Rock Music Really Means
"Rock is everywhere", said my 16-year-old-son. Are there any parents who would not agree? It zooms through the house, throbs behind closed doors, and we wonder at the hold this deafening music has on our children.
An enormous percentage of teenage spending money goes on music. In this country last 2 billion was spent on popular records. Equally astonishing was the sale of guitars: two million of them. My son bought two. The young also rush concerts, 560,000 applied for 20,000 available tickets to hear Rolling Stones in New York City's Madison Square Garden. Why do they go in such fantastic numbers?
To understand look into the music itself. It is first of all extraordinary and creative. It is absolutely 20-th-century in conception — electronic sounds, distortion, brilliance of improvisation — there are no limits. If the creators are young, do not underestimate them: the best of rock is serious music, intellectual as well as emotional. Classical music is not so far off. Rock composers have made interesting use of European and Indian classical music.
Three things distinguish rock — the relentless beat, the freedom of conception and overpowering volume. This is physical, powerful music. Amplifiers at rock concerts produce a sound intensity which sometimes reaches 120 decibels (a new jet on takeoff must not exceed 108). Why so loud? "Without amplification, the music just doesn't exist", explains a young friend. Together with the pulsing, driving beat, it creates passionate excitement — one wants to move, to dance. Electronics and inspiration produce incredible effects. Small wonder that the listener is carried right into the music.
Rock music is central to the youth culture. The young are unified by it, communicate through it.
Rock is beautiful because it is "sun at dawn, mountains in a storm, rivers, the stars, nature", said a young boy. In other words, it includes everything.
to throb— пульсировать; percentage — процент, процентное отношение; available — годный, действительный, имеющий силу; creative— творческий; distortion— искажение
underestimate— недооценивать; to distinguish— различать, отличать; amplifier— усилитель; passionate — страстный, пылкий, горячий; incredible— неправдоподобный, невероятный
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Adam Ant
During the past ten years the music world has seen a number of different styles. After the flower power movement of the 1960's came the extravagant glitter rock of the early 70's. This reached its peak in 1974 with singers like Gary Glitter and David Bowie.
1976 saw the emergence in Britain of the punk bands: loud and noisy groups who sang about, and often practised violence. Punks weren't particularly glamorous. With their torn clothes, ugly tattoos and blank expressions they were a strange, almost frightening, sight.
By 1979 the mood had changed. Dismal punk fashions were gone. Their successors, the New Romantics, were a different matter. Wearing bright and unusual clothes, garish make-up and weird hair styles the New Romantics made refreshing change from the old punks. But they lacked one thing — a central leader. Now they have found him in Adam Ant, lead singer with "Adam and the Ants", Britain's best-known new rock band. Adam Ant was correct in believing that people were tired of punk uniformity and wanted a more glamorous image. He is an admirer of the North American Indians and it was to them that he turned for inspiration.
glitter — мерцающий, мигающий; emergence— появление; punk-bands— панк-рок; violence — сила, стремительность; glamorous— колдовской, зачаровывающий; tattoo — барабанный бой; татуировка; garish— кричащий, показной; inspiration — вдохновение
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The Role of Music
Here is another science-fiction projection on the role of music. The world changed after some natural disaster and the earth became covered by thick fog. Conditions of life changed.
Art, too, changed. The art of objects was gone. Books wouldn't last; and so the memory increased enormously, and men carried their libraries in their heads — a cheaper way and much more convenient. As a result, academic accuracy, the continual quoting of authorities, disappeared. A new epic age resulted. Men in the dusk composed, jointly developed great epics, sagas, and choruses, which grew like trees, generation after generation. And, as bardic poetry returned, it united again with its brother, music. Wood-winds and strings were ruined by the damp. But stone instruments like those used by the dawn cultures, returned — giving beautiful pure notes. Just as the Arabs had had no plastic art, but instead, a wonderful art of singing verse, so the creative power of men swung from eye to ear. Men could hear for miles: their ears grew as keen as a dog's. They appreciated intervals of sound which to the old men of the open air would have gone unnoticed. Men lived largely for music and they felt they had made a good exchange when they looked at the last shreds of pictorial art.
projection — выпуск, проект; disaster— бедствие, внезапное большое несчастье; accuracy— точность, правильность, пунктуальность; to disappear— исчезать; generation— поколение; verse— стих, строфа; to appreciate— оценивать; shred— кусок, клочок; pictorial art— живопись
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