Rock 'n Roll
Late 1940's
The history of Rock 'n Roll is like that of most other innovations: the result of so many contributors and influences that it is meaningless and unfair to pick an "inventor." Blues, jazz, gospel music, R&B, country western, folk, and bluegrass influenced the rock and roll sound, which coagulated in the United States in the late 1940s and became hugely popular in the 1950s. In 1951, a Cleveland DJ, Alan Freed, named the new style "rock and roll," a slang term for sex, and many credit Elvis Presley with popularizing rock. Though it began in the U.S., the style quickly spread around the world, picking up new influences and sprouting new offshoots.
Our Thoughts...
When creating knowledge in the form of new ideas, the collective thinking processes that occur at the macro level between groups of people (such as the creation of Rock 'n Roll) and the processes that occur at the micro level (say, within one person's mind) are remarkably similar. Our ideas are often influenced by too many sources to count. A single concept may be related to any number of other concepts creating a network. We can add one new idea to this network and alter it forever. Likewise, a lot of musicians and artists contributed to the creation of the idea of Rock 'n Roll. As new musicians offer variations on the theme, our idea of Rock 'n Roll changes over time.
The thinking skills one learns by using ThinkBlocks (distinction making, interrelating, systematizing, and perspective taking) are essential drivers of conceptual change both at the group and individual level.
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