Hard rock or heavy rock is a sub-genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage and psychedelic rock and is considerably harder than conventional rock music. It is typified by a heavy use of distorted electric guitars, bass guitar, drums, pianos, and other keyboards. Hard rock is strongly influenced by blues music; the most frequently used scale in hard rock is the pentatonic, which is a typical blues scale.

Departing from earlier acoustic based blues, hard rock makes use of more modern instruments such as electric guitars, drums and electric bass. A notable departure from traditional blues forms is that hard rock is seldom restricted to the I, IV, and V chords prevalent in twelve or sixteen bar blues, but includes other chords, typically major chords rooted on tones of the minor scale. One of the major influences of hard rock is blues music.

American and British rock bands began to modify rock and roll, adding to the standard genre harder sounds, heavier guitar riffs, bombastic drumming and louder vocals. This sound created the basis for hard rock. Early forms of hard rock can be heard in the songs "Born to be Wild" by Steppenwolf, "You Really Got Me" by The Kinks, "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" by The Yardbirds and "My Generation" by The Who.

Similar to 0 things you like: