Chronology of Rock Music

These, of course, are my personal opinions on when genres where invented, who invented them, and which were the most significant events. To understand how I justify these opinions you have to read my book "A History of Rock Music".

The Chronology of Rock Music actually starts from the 1950s, but this chronology of mine is being extended to pop, blues, jazz, etc. So this page starts from the beginning of published music. Skip to the 1950s if you are only interested in modern music.

1860	Eduard-Leon Scott invents the phonautograph and makes the first visual recording of sound
1867	The first collection of "Slave Songs of the United States" is published
1876	Thomas Watson, Edison's assistant, is the first person to listen to noise (on the first telephone test line) for pleasure
1877	Thomas Edison invents sound recording, and a phonograph to play sound recorded on cylinders
1880	The tango is born in Buenos Aires ⇐
1885	Benjamin Franklin Keith and Edward Franklin Albee set up a nation-wide chain of vaudeville theaters
1887	Emile Berliner builds the first gramophone, that plays sound recorded at 78 RPM on a flat record
1888	Charles Ives' "Variations on America" is the first polytonal piece
1889	Columbia is founded by Edward Easton
1892	Popular music becomes big business and music publishers rent offices around Union Square in New York City, an area that is renamed "Tin Pan Alley" (sheet music is the primary "product" of popular music and the industry is dominated by music publishing houses)
1893	Kerry Mills's Rastus On Parade is the first published cakewalk ⇐
1894	Hawaiian guitarist Joseph Kekeku invents the slide guitar (by fretting the guitar with a comb) The weekly Billboard magazine begins publication, offering "charts" of music sales
1895	Ben Harney's You've Been a Good Old Wagon is the first ragtime piece to be published ⇐ The first jazz band, the Spasm Band, first performs in New Orleans Gugliemo Marconi invents the radio
1897	Edwin Votey invents the player piano
1898	Emile Berliner sells the European rights to the gramophone to the Gramophone Company or HMV (His Master's Voice)
1899	Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag (1899) starts the ragtime craze
1901	Emile Berliner founds the record label Victor Talking Machines Melville Clark builds the first full 88-key player piano
1903	Will-Marion Cook's musical revue In Dahomey exports cakewalk to Britain
1905	Arnold Schoenberg composes atonal music
1906	Thaddeus Cahill builds the first electronic instrument
1907	Ferruccio Busoni publishes "Entwurf einer neuen Aesthetic der Tonkunst", predicting the use of dissonant and electric sound in musical composition Fred Barrasso creates a chain of vaudeville theaters that evolves into the Theater Owners's Booking Association (T.O.B.A.).
1908	Cubism is the new fad in Paris
1909	The term "jazz" is used for the first time in the song Uncle Josh in Society (but it refers to ragtime) Filippo Tommaso Marinetti publishes his "Manifesto Futurista" in Paris

Origins