Psychedelic Rock
TASK #5 - MUSICOLOGY RESEARCH
For this assignment, I conducted research on Psychedelic Rock. Below you can find details such as the history of the genre, its characteristics, examples of artists, bands and songs which fall under psychedelic rock, and the impact of the style. I've also included an analysis of the song Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles, a perfect example of a song from the genre of psychedelic rock.
Historical Context
Psychedelic rock emerged in 1966 and quickly became associated with the hippie movement. Initially, the genre was based in the West Coast of the United States, but it wasn't long before it spread to the San Franciso Bay area, then further throughout the country, and even to Europe.
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Comprised heavily of white American teenagers and young adults, the hippie movement began in 1960, based on style and fashion innovations, recreational drug use, the rejection of materialism, philosophical discussions, and alternate sexualities; the abandonment of conventional standards and norms. Hippies promoted diversity, love, nonviolence, openness and tolerance, and many were environmentalists, vegetarians, or social outcasts. Psychedelia was a prevelant subculture during the movement involving people who used psychedelic drugs and the art and music they created inspired by their experiences. The movement rose to popularity in the mid-late 1960s, when it expanded to more countries and famous groups like The Beatles began to include aspects of psychedelia in their music.
These values and lifestyles of followers of the hippie movement and psychedelia were reflected through the lyrics and themes of psychedelic rock.
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The style evolved from early blues-based rock, but it aslo had heavy non-western influences -- in particular, Indian music.
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Inevitably, psychedelic rock began to fade out mid 1968, almost as quickly as its rise to fame two years prior. However, psychedelia lived on in the form of other genres, notably soul, which peaked at the beginning of 1970 and only started to fizzle out in the later years of the decade. Psychedelia also developed into subgenres of pop and even folk.
Characteristics and Examples
As its name suggests, psychedelic rock was largely inspired and impacted by the hallucinogenic drugs popular at the time such as marijuana and LSD. Visually, psychedelia is about distorted depth perception, hallucinations, trance or hypnotic states, and heightened aesthetic responses (more intense colours, richer textures, etc). This would often be emulated sonically through the use of dreamy, trippy, and elaborate production techniques such as reverb, distortion, delay, phaser, flanger, and reversed tapes.
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During the rise of psychedelic rock, studio production value rose drastically and there was a lot of exploration of multitrack recording and electronic sound processing.
Phaser was invented in 1967 during the recording of The Beatles' hit song All You Need Is Love. The band and their producer, George Martin, were recording the song in London's Olympic Studios when he asked for ADT (artificial double tracking) to be placed on Lennon's vocals. But since the tape machines in the studio worked differently to others the band were familiar with, this was simply impossible. So the tape operator, George Chkiantz, created his very own outlandish tape effect; the warped, frequency-sweeping effect we now know as phasing or flanging. This was done by duplicating some or all of a piece of music onto magnetic tape and then playing both recordings simoultaneously. A fractional time difference between the two tapes was what made the music sound like it was sweeping up and down in frequency.
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Additionally, the Indian influence on psychedelic rock is made clear through the use of irregular time signatures, large sections of improvisation, and the use of the sitar and tabla, and other traditional Indian instruments. Inspiration was also found in the raga form and the classical instrumental styles of Hindustani music, popularised by Ravi Shankar and The Beatles. The most common instruments used were electric guitar, bass guitar, drum kits, synthesizers, and electric pianos, often with peculiar feature instruments.
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Lyrics of psychedelic rock songs would often feature themes of either nostalgia and the lost innocence of childhood, or dreams, trances and visions (which could arguably be seen as augmented memories, drawing a connection between the two).
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Some notable examples of psychedelic rock include:
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The Beatles (mainly in their 1966 album Revolver and their 1967 album Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, in songs like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Strawberry Fields Forever)
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Jefferson Airplane's 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow
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The Rolling Stones' 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request
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Interstellar Overdrive and Astronomy Domine by Pink Floyd
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Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix
The Impacts of Psychedelic Rock
Psychedelic rock paved the way for later genres and subgenres including synth rock, funk, jazz rock, progressive rock, electro, heavy metal, bubblegum pop, and glam rock. The style also marked the creation of sounds and effects like phaser and flanger, and other sound effects such as disortion, reverb, delay, tape reversal, and distortion were popularised too.
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By the mid 1980s, the style made a comeback, this time in the "new and improved" form of neo-psychedelia. During this decade, many bands and artists began incorporating psychedelia into their music once again in different ways and with different genres, including but not limited to:
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Phish, a band from the early 80s, who combined intricate rhythms and melodies into a form of psychedelic rock heabily influenced by jazz
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Paisley Underground (mid 80s), who created a refreshing combination of "jangle pop" and psychedelic folk
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Dream Syndicate, a german band, who mixed exotic far-western instruments with psychedelic folk rock
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Australian band The Church (1980), whose earlier work was reminiscent of that of Paisley Underground
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Tool and The Smashing Pumpkins (1990s), two prevelant alternative bands who fused heavy metal with psychedelic rock
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Nirvana and Prince, who both took inspiration from the style in the late 80s
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The Bangles, Green on Red, and the Three O'Clock were some of the most influential and successful bands from this second wave of psychedelia
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Tame Impala - (2007-present), an Australian neo-psychedelia project by Kevin Parker, who mixes psychedelic guitars, analogue synths, and rare drum machines with odd instruments, heavy reverb and delay, and crunchy bass synths.
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A trend of neo-psychedelia even arose in Goa, India in the late 80s. Around this time, it was also becoming increasingly popular in Australia (in Perth in particular) among bands including The Tripps, Prince Vlad & The Gargoyle Impalers, The Sleepy Jackson, The Panda Band, and The Panics. Between the late 1990s and early 2000s, another surge of psychedelia occurred in Los Angeles and Britain, with notably more blurrily distorted riffs. Some ambient or "trance" music made from the beginning of the hippie movement right up until the 90s can even be traced back to psychedelia.
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Other notable examples of bands impacted by psychedelic rock are Neutral Milk Hotel, Of Montreal, Beachwood Sparks, Acid Mothers Temple, Pax Romana, Screaming Trees, The Burnside Shattered, The Apples (In Stereo), Kyuss, and Olivia Tremor Control.
Song Analysis - Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles
DURATION
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Strawberry Fields Forever is played at 90bpm, or andante (a comfortable walking pace). The introduction is made up of long note values playing the deeper notes in the flute mellotron part with the higher notes being played as shorter notes over the top. Then, with the introduction of the first electric guitar part, all of the instrumental note values become longer, and stay this way most of the first chorus in the flute and rhythm guitar parts. These long, held-out notes are a common trope in psychedelic music as they build an atmosphere and engross the listener, wrapping them up in an ambient trance.
To contrast with this, a short and plucky bassline is played alongside an additional electric guitar part playing a syncopated sprinkling of short, softly plucked notes. Throughout the song, this role of accompanying short note values is repeated by trumpets, cellos, and a tack piano.
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The rhythms within this song are all tied together by the drumkit, maracas, and tambourine. While the main beat is quite a standard rock beat, there is no shortage of improvisation and embellishments. Additionally, at the end of each chorus, a syncopated rhythm is played alongside the words "Strawberry Fields Forever". Here, the drums deviate from their usual beat to highlight this crucial, catchy change in rhythm.
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TEXTURE
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Homophonic texture is present throughout the majority of the song. This consists of two clear layers:
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a melody (vocals)
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accompaniment (percussion, electric guitar, bass, flute mellotron, tack piano, cello, and trumpet).
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Occasionally, this homophonic texture evolves briefly into polyphonic texture, adding a trumpet part as a countermelody or harmony. Now, the song has three clear parts (a melody, rhythmic/harmonic accompaniment, and a countermelody or harmony).
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The drums play the role of rhythmic accompaniment, whereas the harmonic accompaniment is provided by the bassline, electric guitar chords, flute mellotron, cello, tack piano, and trumpet. The melody is sung constantly throughout almost the entire piece.
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DYNAMICS AND EXPRESSIVE TECHNIQUES
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The dynamics in Strawberry Fields Forever vary moderately between each section. The song begins softly (piano) in the introduction. Then, with the entrance of the first chorus, it evolves into moderately loud (mezzo forte), before shrinking down slightly into a moderately soft volume (mezzo piano) for the second verse.
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But in the second chorus, the song seems to intensify, and becomes loud (forte). After this, the song pulls back significantly into moderately soft (mezzo piano) in the third verse. The third chorus is much like the second, once again played loudly (forte).
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Once again, the song pulls back for the third and final verse, back to soft (piano). But it returns to its loudness in the final chorus (forte), and the instrumental which follows is very loud (fortissimo).
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Strawberry Fields Forever was written about John Lennon's childhood memories in Liverpool. He sings "Let me take you down, 'Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields". Strawberry Field was a recreational ground near his childhood home, and he spent a lot of time there. This strong nostalgic lyrical influence is a clear characteristic of psychedelic rock and music which emerged from the hippie movement.
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PITCH
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Strawberry Fields Forever was originally written on guitar in C major, but the recorded version sits at approximately Bâ™ major. The chords used in the song are F, Fmaj7, F7, Eâ™, Bâ™, Fm7, G7, Gm, and Eâ™maj7. As evident in this odd collection of chords, the song makes use of many borrowed chords (chords outside the song's original key) and accidental notes. If integrated well with techniques such as stepwise motion and common tones, these borrowed chords can be made much less jarring and much more interesting. Being able to use borrowed chords largely expands the pool of chords to choose from, creating endless possibilities, and The Beatles weren't afraid to take advantage of this.
In this song, the chords sit right in the sweet spot between complex and simple. They're complex enough to catch you off guard and to stand out, but simple enough to remain catchy and memorable after minimal listening. This perfectly encapsulates the psychedelic rock genre; catchy, yet new, unique, and exciting.
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The vocal melody is relatively simple, save for a few accidentals which may catch the untrained ear off guard, making it a tiny bit harder to sing for people wihtout any musical knowledge or training. This small quirk, this little catch, is something quite reminiscent of the trippiness associated with psychedelia - the feeling that something isn't quite right, or at least normal - but exciting and modern instead. Vocal harmony is quite rare, and used rather sparingly in the choruses.
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The introduction consists of a small chordal arrangement played on the mellotron, making use of the triads F, Fmaj7, F7, Eâ™, and Bâ™. This progression also forms the beginning of each verse.
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TONE COLOUR
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The general tone colour of Strawberry Fields Forever is warm, nostalgic, bright, brassy, golden, and grand. This comes from a combination of orchestral instruments with clean guitars and artificial flute sounds on the mellotron.
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The vocals have ADT (artificial double tracking) placed on them, an effect which takes one vocal take and makes it sound like it is two. This gives them a slightly odd yet dreamy, tinny, high cut sound. The electric guitars in the guitar are warm, dark, and welcoming.​ The flute mellotron has a sweet, mellow, murky tone colour which contrasts beautifully with the brilliant, shimmering tone colour of the tack piano used at the end of the choruses.​ The cello has a wonderfully deep, majestic tone colour, and somehow sounds almost synthetic within the context of such muffled instrumentation. The trumpet's tone colour is rather brassy, piercing, and blazing.
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Overall, the welcoming, warm, dreamy, type of tone colour found in this song is a perfect example of the hypnotic nostalgia of psychedelic rock.
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STRUCTURE
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The structure of this song is generally standard in the world of psychedelic rock. While a fan of pop may point out its lack of a bridge or designated instrumental solo section, this simply is not a vital aspect of a psychedelic rock song. The structure of the song is as follows:
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intro*
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chorus
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verse 1
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chorus
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verse 2
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chorus
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verse 3
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chorus
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outro*
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*Both the intro and outro are lacking vocal melodies. They are the only instrumental areas in the whole song.
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The intro begins with a fluttering of mellotron triads, before settling on the tonic chord to begin the chorus, where most of the instruments are introduced (bass, electric guitar, drums, vocals). Some of these layers pull away in the second verse, significantly quieter than the chorus, but they're added back in even louder in the second chorus, where the tone colour is deeper, darker, and crunchier, and trumpet, cello, and tack piano have been added. The third verse is possibly the quietest one yet, contrasting greatly with the third chorus, which is even louder and thicker, which continues into the outro before fading out.
Sources
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