page_title: Rocksteady
section_title: Characteristics
hierarchical_section_title: Rocksteady / Characteristics
caption_attribution_description: English: Ska/rocksteady rhythm. Created by Hyacinth (talk) 03:52, 3 November 2010 using Sibelius 5.
context_page_description: Rocksteady is a music genre that originated in Jamaica around 1966. A successor of ska and a precursor to reggae, rocksteady was the dominant style of music in Jamaica for nearly two years, performed by many of the artists who helped establish reggae. For example harmony groups such as The Techniques, The Paragons, The Heptones and The Gaylads; soulful singers such as Alton Ellis, Delroy Wilson, Bob Andy, Ken Booth and Phyllis Dillon; musicians such as Jackie Mittoo, Lynn Taitt and Tommy McCook. The term rocksteady comes from a popular dance style mentioned in the Alton Ellis song 'Rocksteady' that matched the new sound. Some rocksteady songs became hits outside Jamaica, as with ska, helping to secure the international base reggae music has today.
context_section_description: The Jamaican musicians and producers who created the rocksteady sound out of ska were well-versed in jazz and readily influenced by other genres, most notably rhythm and blues (R&B), but also Cuban and other Caribbean sounds plus African drumming. When considering the differences between ska and rocksteady it is worth remembering that the musicians and producers were essentially the same (many continuing into Reggae).
  Perhaps Rocksteady’s most easily recognizable element, and that which could be considered reggae music's gift to the world, as in ska, is an offbeat rhythm: staccato chords played by a guitar and piano on the offbeats of the measure. 
  The perceived tempo became slower with the development of rocksteady than it had been in ska. The guitar and piano players began to experiment with occasional accents around the basic offbeat pattern. This can be heard throughout Jamaican recordings in subsequent years.
  Rocksteady, even more so the early reggae that followed, was built around the "one drop" drum beat, characterized by a heavy accent on the third beat of every bar. This differs markedly from the drumming styles in R&B and rock and roll, which put the emphasis on the second and fourth beats.
  The slowing that occurred with rocksteady allowed bass players to explore more broken, syncopated figures, playing a counterpoint to the repetitive rhythm of the guitar and keyboards and this new style eventually largely replaced the walking patterns that had been so characteristic of many ska recordings. The slower tempo and smaller band sizes in turn led to a much larger focus on the bass line in general, which eventually became one of the most recognizable characteristics of Jamaican music. In rocksteady, the lead guitar often doubles the bass line, in the muted picking style created by Lynn Taitt (as on "Run for Cover" by Lee "Scratch" Perry).
  Smaller band sizes and slower tempos also led to a number of changes in the way horn parts were written and arranged. Whereas, in ska, the horn section had often spent much of the song playing the offbeats with the guitar and piano, in rocksteady they favored repeated rhythmic patterns or simply sitting out all together until the lead line.
caption: Ska/rocksteady rhythm[4] About this soundPlay (help·info).
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