British Music Experience

RESEARCH: British Music Experience  (account of your study day; presentation of what you learned; evidence; photos; timeline of music video history). This will be a really BIG post, probably in sections.

When we arrived at the British Music Experience, we were taken into a room that was specifically for classes who were visiting the experience for educational purposes, where we took part in a quiz and learnt about general knowledge of music from the 50's through to today's popular genre's of music. The quiz consisted of recognising images on the screen or listening to different songs from different periods and identifying them. This was quite a difficult quiz, but learning briefly about the different periods beforehand helped the majority of people to be successful-ish in the quiz. 

Below I will go through the decades of music, showing what I learnt about each decade, why they were significant and what changes they made to civilisation. 

50's: During the 1950's, Rock n Roll was introduced as the most popular genre of music for the decade. Artists such as Elvis were especially popular and took the charts by storm. The 50's also introduced the teenage rebellion scene and Rock n Roll music was especially liked by most teenagers. Older generations didn't like the Rock n Roll scene as much as the teenagers. 

60's: The 60's experienced the roll over of Rock n Roll from the 50's and saw the introduction of bands like the Beatles who are arguably one of the greatest bands of all time. It was bands like The Beatles that caused a stir, especially amongst the teenage groups. Teenagers began to rebel even more and do things their own way, forgetting rules and principles set by their parents. The 60's saw a lot more violence and fighting between youth's just because they were bored and considered themselves rebels in every aspect, often creating revolts against 'the Man' (authorities) and global issues that may not even have concerned the United Kingdom. 

70's: The 70's saw a diverse change from the 50's and 60's with the introduction of Funk Rock and Disco. People were genuinely tired of rebelling and fighting each other, and the era of more 'happy' and relaxed music began. Many people, especially teens, took to dance clubs, to socialise and have fun with others, without the threat of violence and anger. Bands such as ABBA and Pink Floyd became extremely popular, representing Funk Rock, Progressive Rock and Disco. 

80's: During the 1980's one of the most significant events for music history occurred. The introduction of MTV or Music Television gave upcoming artists and existing ones the chance to become much more popular and well known, in quick succession. The first ever video to be played on MTV was: 'Video Killed the Radio Star' by The Buggles. Duran Duran were an extremely popular band in the 80's and many claimed that Duran Duran were mostly successful because of the introduction of MTV who gave them extreme exposure. Genre's such as New Wave and Synthpop were massively introduced in the 80's along with Punk Rock and other types of rock that travelled over from the 70's, with bands such as Aerosmith and Def Leppard appearing on the scene rapidly. 

90's: A couple of years into the 90's, saw the introduction of a different type of rock, which acted as a replacement for the techno and hip-hop that was still played on radio stations regularly, with the lyrics being far from satisfactory for many people due to the sexual and provocative lyrics expressed within the tracks. This new type of rock saw bands like Pearl Jam and Nirvana become a craze with many songs of theirs being classified as 'grungy'. It has been argued that bands like Nirvana labelled the 90's as 'Grunge'. The song 'Smells like Teen Spirit' by Nirvana spoke of a teenage revolution and related well to youths and remained popular throughout the 90's. 

00's: Music of the 2000's (often known as the naughties) has been based around a genre of music called garage music. Garage music came to light and recognition when an artist called Daniel Beddingfield, started releasing music and composing music directly from his garage! Some even have argued that garage music was named after Daniel Beddingfield's tracks due to the simplicity of him composing them from his garage at home. His track 'Gotta Get Through This' was a massive hit in the 00's. 

After the brief lesson on the history of music, and once we had finished the quiz, we were free to go and explore the experience alone. 

One particular part of the experience which I enjoyed the most was the room dedicated to trying out instruments. They had guitars to play, drums, keyboards, bass' and others as well. It was especially impressive due to the fact, although you could simply 'jam' freely, above the instruments were individual televisions which gave video tutorials on how to start playing a particular instrument. The tutorial provided a narrative speaker explaining the history of the instrument and how to begin playing. For example, for the guitars, video visuals were shown to show you where to place your fingers in order to play a chord or a particular small tune. It was extremely detailed, but was expressed in a simple manor that anyone could pick up within a few minutes depending on how patient you were, unlike me, who simply wanted to jam on the guitars instead of following instructions. 

Following from the instrument area, was the exhibition room where you could explore all the different genre's of music throughout the decades, interactively. Each decade explored the majority of extremely successful bands such as The Beatles. Never seen before posters and pictures were also plastered around the experience which was extremely interesting. It was also very useful that we were able to take pictures of most things in the experience. 

The British Music Experience was an interesting day which I enjoyed as I love many different genre's of music and exploring the change of scene and styles in the decades that the genre's dominated.