Surf music

Surf music is a subgenre of rock music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Orange County and other areas of Southern California. It was especially popular from 1962 to 1964 in two major forms. The first is instrumental surf, distinguished by reverb-drenched electric guitars played to evoke the sound of crashing waves, largely pioneered by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones. The second is vocal surf, which took the original surf sound and added vocal harmonies backed by basic Chuck Berry rhythms, a movement led by the Beach Boys.

The surf rock sound was dominated by electric guitars played through spring reverb and using the vibrato arm on their guitar to bend the pitch of notes downward. Surf music was one of the early adopters of the electric bass, and often used an electric organ or an electric piano featured as backing harmony. At the height of its popularity, surf music rivaled girl groups and Motown for top American popular music trends.

Surf music is sometimes referred to interchangeably with the California Sound. Many notable surf bands have been equally noted for both instrumental and vocal surf music, so surf music is generally considered as a single genre despite the variety of these styles. During the later stages of the surf music craze, many groups started to leave surfing behind and write songs about cars and girls; this was later known as hot rod rock.