1. What is Tin Pan Alley and why is the history of Tin Pan Alley important to the history of rock 'n' roll leading up to the 1950s? Tin Pan Alley was a place in New York City where music publishing was centered. Great songwriters such as George Gershwin and Irving Berlin wrote music here. Many of the Tin Pan Alley songs were written in a strophic verse-chorus form. Tin Pan Alley was originally the name of the place in New York, but then came to refer to the very popular style of music that was produced there during the first half of the twentieth century. Many songs from 1920-1950 borrowed from the Tin Pan Alley model, which is its greatest influence on rock and roll leading up to the 1950's.
2. What is a musical crossover and why are crossovers important in music? A musical crossover is basically a cover of a piece of music done by another artist another than the original. Covers were an accepted method used to popularize songs that were originally made and performed by hillbilly and black artists. This is important in music because making covers of the original songs was crucial to increasing crossover success of the blues and jazz genres.
3. How has technology affected the history of rock 'n' roll ? Technology has greatly affected the history of rock 'n' roll. In the 1930's the Germans and Japanese developed magnetic tape recording which was brought back to North America by military personnel returning from duty in World War 2. Gaining this technology allowed musicians to capture the full range of musical sounds rather than the older technology of phonograph discs.
The magnetic tape also allowed musicians to re-record, which introduced overdubbing the layers of sound on a recording.Les Paul designed his own eight-track tape recorder and in 1948 began to release a series of popular recordings of his own music which he overdubbed to sound like an ensemble of six or more guitars playing at once. In 1948 Columbia Records introduced the twelve inch long playing disc, known as LP for short. An LP could fit over 20 minutes of music on both sides of the record while spinning at 331/3 RPM. FM radio technology majorly affected rock 'n' roll in 1939 when the first FM radio broadcast took place. By 1949 there was around 700 FM stations that were operating in North America.
By 1950 the radio was used for stereo broadcasting, which introduced a major change in the audio quality.
