A Philosophical Analysis of Rock Music and its Recording Process

This essay delves into the philosophical implications of rock music and its recording, analyzing the perspectives of three key scholars: Lee Brown, Chester, and Baugh. Baugh emphasizes the unique aesthetics of rock music, highlighting its evolution and distinct characteristics compared to traditional music forms, and the importance of the singer's voice and instrumentation. Chester focuses on the intentional development within rock music, examining its musical elements and the significance of lyrics and dance forms. Conversely, Lee Brown argues for the advantages of recording, particularly in preserving the inherent qualities of rock music, even with studio manipulations. The essay concludes by contrasting these viewpoints, acknowledging the shared recognition of rock music's significance while highlighting their differing opinions on the impact of recording on its essence.

Running head: ROCK MUSIC AND RECORDING
Rock Music and Recording
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Music is a solace to the minds of the people. In the contemporary world the work
pressure on the human beings have increased to a considerable extent. They are required to work
for longer hours in their respective work places without getting any substantial break. As a result
of this, the stress level experienced by the people are on the verge of ever increase. Music as an
element helps to calm down these stressed out people by the way of providing them relief. The
physical burden felt by the people is lessened down by the mental satisfaction they receive when
they listen to music. There is an inherent conflict that arises within the sphere of music. The
conflict is between the live performance of music and recording of this music. This essay seeks
to analyze this issue of recording of music from a philosophical context of three scholars that of
Lee Brown, Chester and Baugh.
Baugh looks in to the aspect of aesthetics of rock music and the unique features of rock
music. According to Baugh, “rock music has such standards, that they are implicitly observed by
knowledgeable performers and listeners, and that these standards reflect the distinctiveness of
rock as a musical genre.” Through this sentence, the philosopher has tried to show the essence of
rock music. Rock music has been in existence since the historical times but there is a general
perception to understand that rock music has evolved in the modern times. Baugh makes a
detailed comparison between the different forms of traditional music and rock music and
according to him, it is quite difficult to understand rock music through the aesthetics of
traditional European music. According to Baugh, the voice of the singer is much more important
in rock music than the lyrics themselves. The way the song is sung has a great impact on the
audience. Baugh also lays emphasis on the different instruments used in rock music such as that
of guitar. The guitarist, Eric Clampton gave a statement that “his ideal is to play a single note
with such feeling and intensity that it would cause listeners to weep”. Over here, an important

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conundrum that can be noticed is that would the same feelings be evoked if such rock music is
heard by the audience through the medium of recording. The live performance of rock music has
the ability to give goose bumps to the people with the help of the instruments, the voice and the
way the singer sings the music. However, how much of this is transmitted through the medium of
recording is highly debatable.
In the words of Chester rock music foolows the path of intensional development. Within
rock music, the musical elements are not collaborated together through time and space in to a
complex structure. The simple elements within rock music are the harmony, beat and the melody
while the difficult elemtns include the voice modulation of the notes and the beats within the
music. This modulation is is dependent on various factors such as the language in which the song
is sung, the gesture involved in the music and the psychological element of the singer and those
of the audience. Chester is also of the opinion that the internal elements of the rock music are
one of harmony. The lyrics of any rock music has a great significance. The dance form within
this genre is the intensional development and it gave rise to a new form of break dance after rock
music was properly appreciated by the target audience.
In contrast to the philosophical implication of the above two philosophers, Lee Brown
believes in the advantages of the instruments of recording to a considerable extent. He starts his
article with the implications of the work of phonography. Even if the medium of recording is not
transparent in nature and there are technical manipulations done in it, still then it does not mean
that all forms of recording are works of phonography. Gracyk is of the belief that “not all studio
manipulations are willful distortions of sound’. Gracyk wants to draw a clear distinction between
rock music and the genre of rock ‘n’ roll. He reiterates the point of John Lennon that “the basic
energy of rock is on the records”. According to him, the unique feature of rock music is based on

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the sound and their combinations. They are more ‘thick’ in nature, which means that the music
are heavier in their element. This is in sharp contrast to the idea of rock ‘n’ roll where the music
delivered in quite ‘thin’ in nature. Chester is of the opinion that live performance of such rock
music will be very difficult because the way they are sung will differ wildly in the different
environments’ For instance, the song of Elvis Presley can only be sung in a very small and quiet
room. If it is sung in an open space through live performance, it will lose its charm and unique
characteristic. Thus, according to Gracyk, the recordings of rock music is highly feasible and
rock music cannot be accessed independently of their recordings.
In conclusion, it is observed that the thoughts of the three thinkers are quite different
from each other. The point of similarity among the three philosophical thinkers of Chester,
Baugh and Lee Brown is that rock music is an important genre of music and that it has its own
special unique features, which makes it distinct from all other types of music genre. However,
they differ on the issue of recording of such rock music. Lee Brown believes in the recording of
rock music, stating that the inherent quality of rock music can only be preserved within a
particular quiet environment. However, Baugh and Chester are of the idea that recording will
take away the essential feature of rock music and will render it ineffective and ordinary, when
compared with the other types of music genre. There is a need to preserve the inherent
characteristic of rock music.

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