Country and Rock... what's the difference?

[citric_bullets]

My theory teacher said they only (or at least almost exclusively) use major chords in country. That's different.

[Soror_YZBL]

My theory teacher said they only (or at least almost exclusively) use major chords in country. That's different.

Your teacher is wrong. I can name about 10 country songs off the top of my head in a minor chord:

Thunder Rolls - Garth Brooks
Crescent Moon - Cowboy Junkies
The Night the Lights went out in Georgia - Reba McIntire (or Mama, your pick)
Kawliga - Hank Williams Jr
Ghost Riders in the Sky - The Outlaws
Harrisburg - Josh Ritter
Midnight in Montgomery - Alan Jackson

Ok, i can't think of any more. I thought Fancy was, then i grabbed my guitar and found out it's not (it's in F# major). It's probably going to be a ballad if it's a minor key, though. Kawliga and Ghost Riders are the exceptions above.

Oh, and early rock didn't sound like the country of its time. 50's country was either honky tonk or Nashville, neither of which sound like the bluesy 50's rock. Nowadays country does sound like old rock, but that's because of its own evolution.

[MronoC]

@ Soro: The first music that could be called Rock resembled Country more so than Blues.

To be more specific, early rock combined a blues rhythm guitar with Country influenced licks and solos (see: Maybellene)

I guess the biggest difference is that rock music features high energy rhythm in guitar and bass playing, I guess you could say rock is more staccato and country is more legato.

[My name is Fez]

THE SOUTHERN DRAWL AND TWANGY GUITARS HUR HUR.

I don't like country, but I'm obviously not knowledgable enough in the topic to really give you a clear answer on the difference.

[polishdog90]

I think that the scales that the singers generally use have a lot to do with it. If you listen to country harmonies versus rock harmonies they sound totally different.

[Quinarvy]

Country sucks.

Sorry, couldn't pass on that one.

The guitar twangy-ness/lack of distortion, the singer, the topics of singing (As Tim McGraw said on SNL, in country they sing of love...and beer, and bar fights, and love in bars, etc.), the additional instruments (keyboard vs. vilolin), the drums (the drumsets will be different), the basses in some instances (stand up vs. electric), etc.

[HyeJinx1984]

I guess the reason I find this interesting is because Rock is such a huge umbrella genre with so many sub genre's within it that, upon any kind of analysis, have very little in common, it almost seems that country may as well be a sub genre of rock... but clearly and definitively is not. What I'm trying to get to is, WHY? Take Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" and Abnormality's "Visions"... they have very little, if anything, in common yet fall under the umbrella of "Rock Music" (though clearly not the same subgenre).

Yet it could be argued that Maybellene has far more in common with most country music than it does with Visions. I've seen people make the argument that Rock is defined by it's usual instruments of guitar, bass and drums... but country clearly has those instruments too. So then you would make the case, it is HOW the instruments are used... but it would be pretty hard to say that chuck berry uses his instruments the way abnormality does.

and what about Southern Rock? A typical country song probably has more in common with Lynyrd Skynyrd (one of the defining bands of Rock music imho) than Skynyrd has in common with, say, Nine Inch Nails... but, again, even with it being so very close, almost bordering country music, Skynyrd is still, rightfully so, considered Rock music. This is just a fascinating phenomenon to me.