Instrumental Rock
“Surf Rock” music is heavily reliant on the instrumentals featuring electric guitar and the drums coming out from the influences of late 1950’s rock & roll instrumentals.
Among the many instrumentals from the fifties were songs like Link Wray’s, 1958 hit “Rumble“, which gave us this raw, altered guitar effects and The Venture’s, 1960 hit “Walk, Don’t Run“, which, along with Duane Eddy’s output, gave us the fast pace of surf rock.
Dick Dale,
The guitars had extensive use of the “wet” spring reverb sound effects; a vibrato “whammy bars” (a bar on the guitar, to pitch bend notes downward); and tremolo effects (a type of echo effect) and tremolo guitar picking techniques. The bands tried out different effects and experimented with capturing the fast-paced athletic simulation of surfing, but by augmenting sound waves.
The beat was a fast-paced music sometimes above 120 beats per minute that supported the guitars emulations. On the drums, surf rock incorporates a lot of tom-tom rolls along with a steady fast paced throbbing beat that would often use a slight cha-cha beat to propel the music. In surf rock, the guitar experiments with many different riffs and scale runs, as well as, echo, reverb, delay and wha-wha sound effects which would be used to add to the emulation of surfing.
Garage Rock
Garage rock is a type of rock & roll which was derived from guitar instrumentals popular in the late fifties and the west coast California “surf rock” scene of the early sixties. The instrumentals often featured an electric guitar solo with a saxophone solo accompanied by a full rock & roll type band including one or several guitar players keeping a fast-paced groove.
The pioneers of the Garage Rock genre were artists like Link Wray’s with his hit song “Rumble” which first experimented with distortion and tremolo effects for electric guitar. Other great bands with that “garage rock” sound were the Ventures with “Walk Don’t Run”, the Centurian’s with “Bullwinkle, Pt 2”, the Revels with the raw “Comanche”, the Kingsmen with the anthemic “Louie, Louie” or the Trashmen’s ultimate sound wave transgression with “Bird Is A Word”.
Surf Rock
Surf rock is a fast paced energetic music, that is to say, above 120 beats per minute. The music emulates the act of surfing, and the chaos experienced when surfing the waves or driving really faster in a drag race.
On the drums, surf rock incorporates a lot of tom-tom rolls along with a steady fast paced throbbing beat that would often use a slight cha-cha beat to propel the music as a lot of cymbals tried to recreate the waves.
The guitarists of the surf rock genre tried out different electronic effects to capture the feeling of a fast-paced and athletic simulation of surfing the waves. In surf rock, the guitar experiments included many different scales, exercises, runs and exotic tunings as well as experimentation in electronic effects such as echo, reverb, delay and wha-wha sound effects.