Rock and Indie Genre Study

The core elements of most rock style music include;

• Power chords

• Blues shuffle/ rock n roll riff

• Pentatonic note choices in riffs and lead playing

• Blues scale, Myxolydian mode and major scale note choices are also always possible

• Lead guitar techniques such as string bending, double stops and other rock style phrasing

In most poplar styles of music, the major scale is used as a framework to give us the chords in a key and the melodic notes that will work over those chords. In rock music, it is more common that the Minor pentatonic is used to give us not only the lead note choices, but also the root notes of the chords in the song too. Here is an example of how this is done in the Key of A.

Interactive TAB

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This concept applies to all the core rock genres including (but not limited to!)...

• 50s/ 60s rock n roll

• 70s Classic Rock 

• 80s metal 

• 90s grunge 

• 00s indie/ garage rock