The Secret
that made the Rock ‘n’ Roll revolution possible
Rock ‘n’ Roll Music Begins
Elvis Presley – The King of Rock and Roll
After Elvis Presley released his second movie in 1957, a Rock ‘n’ Roll revolution
exploded across North America and changed the music world forever.
Elvis Presley’s 2nd Movie
*Loving You* (July 9, 1957)
– Notable songs: “Loving You,” “Teddy Bear,” “Mean Woman Blues.”
available on YouTube>Dailymotion
In this iconic movie, young teens saw—”for the first time”—their kind of music being played on the big screen. The film showcased Elvis singing many of his current hit songs, portraying a young singer just starting out in a small-town band.
But the teens who watched this film didn’t just see a movie; they also saw the entire process of transforming a virtually unknown singer into a top-billing performer—working his way from a small, rural town to the bright lights of the city.
What they saw was a roadmap to stardom that anyone could follow. All anyone needed was an inexpensive guitar, a bass player, and a drummer. (The stand-up piano providing rhythm was barely noticeable in the background.)
Sadly, most teens only saw the glitter and the happy ending; they largely ignored the darker side of the music industry, which seldom ends happily for any musician.
From 1950 to 1970, U.S. guitar sales grew from 228,000 to 2.3 million—a 1,000 percent increase—and tens of thousands of small, three- and four-piece teen bands formed and began playing Rock ‘n’ Roll music in local communities across North America and around the world.
Learning to play guitar during the Rock ‘n’ Roll era was very different from how it is today. Most politicians, law enforcement, religious groups, and music teachers were dead set against this wild and crazy music.
Budding musicians couldn’t learn from the Internet or YouTube. The Internet wasn’t available to the general public until the mid-1990s—well after the Rock ‘n’ Roll revolution was largely over in the mid-1980s.
So, how did these excited teenage musicians learn to play guitar professionally in just a few short months? Well, they learned the same way all their favorite recording artists and Rock ‘n’ Roll bands did. Like Elvis, Chuck Berry, the Beatles, or the Rolling Stones—they taught themselves.
How to teach yourself to play Guitar
First, you buy a guitar and take it home—don’t forget to buy a guitar tuner.
Next, you realize that to play guitar, you need to know how to play some chords. Right? Fundamentally, there are only seven basic chords you must learn: (A, D, E, and B7) for faster music, and (C, F, G) for slower music.
These seven chords will allow you to play thousands of popular songs. With your browser, you can easily find information on where to place your fingers and even watch demo videos.
Unfortunately, simply knowing these chords doesn’t mean you know how to play guitar. That’s just the beginning. There is much more to playing guitar than just playing chords.
The final step in learning guitar is actually playing songs or music with a guitar.
You can easily do this yourself—just like thousands of young musicians during the early days of Rock ‘n’ Roll—by going to YouTube and searching for the song “Be-Bop-A-Lula” by Gene Vincent.
Back in the 1950s to the 1980s, there was no internet or YouTube. These early guitar players had to rely on record players.
Through patient experimentation, I know that “Be-Bop-A-Lula” is played using the chords E, A, and B7, with A being the most commonly used.
Back then, most budding musicians copied the lyrics of the song onto a piece of paper. They would focus on the chorus to identify the primary chords, then repeat the process until all the chords in the song were marked.
The final step in learning to play guitar was to practice the same song repeatedly, aiming to match the original music’s tempo, timing, and feel.
Once they could play the song so it matched the original recording, they could confidently feel they were truly playing the guitar.