Define surf music

[Johnny_L.A]

You know it when you hear it. But if you’ve never heard it how could someone define it to you so that you’d know it? Assume that you’ve never heard of Dick Dale or The Ventures or The Beach Boys or the Surfaris or whomever, so saying surf music is what those bands play would not be helpful. You need to be told how the instruments are used, the flow of the music, etc.

[vibrotronica]

Surf music is played by rock combos. The guitar is the lead instrument, but the bass and drums are much more equal partners than in mainstream, folk-influenced 60s rock. Organs, particularly the Hammond B3, are sometimes seen. Tempos tend to be fast. Guitar playing emphasizes single-note lines with two- and three-string voicings taking the place of barre chords. When full chords are used, the strumming technique resembles flamenco more than country and western or folk. Instrumentals are more prominent than in other forms of rock music. Vocal harmony groups like the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean initially sang complex harmonies over surf style backup bands, but eventually moved towards more lush orchestration.

How’d I do?

[Eltanin]

One of the big keys to the surf “sound” was a guitar running through the Fender Reverb unit - very prominent on Dick Dale recordings, but was also used by the other bands you listed.

[TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW]

Some more notes:

Production wise, surf music tends to be reverb-heavy, specificially spring reverb. The guitar is usually completely slathered in it, and the drums tend to be heavily room-miked or overhead-sounding with a lot of reverb and room sound rather than dry or close-miked. Rhythm guitars tend to have some slap-back as well.

Playing style is whammy bar-heavy; lots of bends and dives, especially the iconic open Em whammy dive. There’s quite a bit of individual string bending when playing lead lines; surf leads tend to be extremely bendy and sinuous. Rhythm guitar parts tend to be fast-plucked and palm-muted (think Dick Dale’s “Misirlou”) rather than strummed.

The chord progressions tend to favor non-major chords; you hear quite a bit of minor and seventh chords, giving the music a darker or more mysterious vibe in spite of the idea of surfing being bright and sunny.

You tend to hear whiny farfisa organs more than the traditional rock hammond organ in surf music.

[Johnny_L.A]

And wouldn’t you know it? There’s a Wiki article on Surf Music (which may benefit from having the posts here added to it).

The surf instrumental is generally dance music of medium to fast tempo, with electric guitars dominating the sound, and almost always in straight 4/4 common time.

Surf guitarists produce a distinctive tone colour not unlike a hawaiian guitar by use of the bridge pickup, treble boost, and distinctive use of the tremolo arm. The use of distortion effects is rare; instead, sustain is produced by use of double picking and spring reverb. The use of vibrato units is also common; these were built into the guitar amplifiers of the late 1950s and 1960s, and more recently in effects pedals.

One thing I just learned today is that Misirlou is of Mediterranean origin.

“Misirlou” (Greek: ???, ‘Egyptian Girl’; from Turkish “M?s?rl?” ‘Egyptian’, from Arabic ???, Mi?r, “Egypt”), is a popular Greek song with a cult-like popularity in four very diverse styles of music: Greek rebetiko, Middle-Eastern belly dancing, Jewish wedding music (Klezmer), and American surf rock.

The song was first performed by the Michalis Patrinos rebetiko band in Athens, Greece in 1927. As with almost all early rebetika songs (a style that originated with the Greek refugees from Asia Minor), the song’s actual composer was never identified, and its ownership rested with the band leader. The melody was most likely composed collaboratively by the group, as was often the case at the time; the initial lyrics were almost certainly by Patrinos himself. Patrinos, being a Smyrniot, pronounced the song’s title [musurlu], approximately similar to the Turkish pronunciation, [m?s?rl?].

Now that I see it, I do hear the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern influence when I listen to Dick Dale’s version.

Edit: I don’t know if the foreign characters will show up in this post. I’m getting question marks when I look at them.

[Duke_of_Rat]

Hit This

[E-Sabbath]

Johnny, Dick’s half lebanese, and one of his big songs is Hava Nagila. He’s got a huge middle eastern flavor to his music. You can hear the same thing in some Offspring songs.

[Kalhoun]

Johnny A does some awesome surfer guitar work. I particularly love his version of The Beatles’ Yes It Is.

[Hey_It_s_That_Guy]

Huge surf music fan checking in. I love the sound of twangy, reverb-drenched guitars playing in minor keys, and I desperately need to buy a guitar one day so I can learn how to play in this style and achieve this sound.

When I played sax in a ska-punk band, I actually arranged a medley of “Miserlou” (Greek), “Hava Nagila” (traditional Jewish/Klezmer), and “Malaguena” (traditional Spanish) as a horn-heavy ska arrangement (though inspired by Dick Dale), and they blended together seamlessly. “Have a Misernagilaguena!” was born.

[Quasimodal]

The drums often have this rhythm (listen to miserloo)

Rest, TiTi, Rest, Ta
(eighth notes) (quarter note)

Done on the snare drum.

[Great_Dave]

There’s also the later punk surf style- I’ve seen the Offspring mentioned, but there’s also Pennywise, Bad Religion, and even Sublime, among others. Surf music is played and listened to by surfers in SoCal and the Bay Area.