The Book

Introduction What is it all good for? Scope of work Project History

Music theory in nutshell Harmony Chord notation used in the analyses The degrees of notes Chord functions Keys, Sharps and flats, neighbour keys Guitar friendly and piano-friendly keys Modulations, key changes Parallel key modulations Relative key modulations Neighbour key modulations Combined modulations Step-up/down modulations Unusual modulations Key-shifts Pivot Modulation Borrowed chords Cliche chord progressions Modes Ambigous harmony Rhythms Exercies Syncopations Shuffle beat Metrical modulations, metrical anomalies Compound meters Disorienting Rhythms Songforms General aesthatics of popular and rock music

Repetitions and variants

Queen - The four of them as musicians Brian May Roger Taylor Freddie Mercury John Deacon

Songwriting Analyses Smile Ibex "No Synth" era Queen Keep Yourself Alive Doing All Right Great King Rat My Fairy King Liar The Night Comes Down Modern Times Rock'n'roll Son And Daughter Jesus Seven Seas Of Rhye Silver Salmon Hangman Mad The Swine Queen II Procession Father To Son White Queen (As It Began) Some Day One Day The Loser In The End Ogre Battle The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke Nevermore March Of The Black Queen Funny How Love Is Seven Seas Of Rhye See What A Fool I've Been Sheer Heart Attack Brighton Rock Killer Queen Tenement Funster Flick Of The Wrist Lily Of The Valley Now I'm Here In The Lap Of The Gods Stone Cold Crazy Dear Friends Misfire Bring Back That Leroy Brown She Makes Me In The Lap Of The Gods... Revisited A Night At The Opera Death On Two Legs Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon I'm In Love With My Car You're My Best Friend Sweet Lady '39 Seaside Rendezvous The Prophet's Song Love Of My Life Good Company Bohemian Rhapsody God Save The Queen A Day At The Races Tie Your Mother Down You Take My Breath Away Long Away The Millionaire Waltz You And I Somebody To Love White Man Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy Drowse Teo Torriate News Of The World We Will Rock You We Are The Champions Sheer Heart Attack All Dead All Dead Spread Your Wings Fight From The Inside Get Down Make Love Sleeping On The Sidewalk Who Needs You It's Late My Melancholy Blues Feelings Jazz Mustapha Fat Bottomed Girls Jealousy Bicycle Race If You Can't Beat Them Let Me Entertain You Dead On Time In Only Seven Days Dreamers Ball Fun It Leaving Home Ain't Easy Don't Stop Me Now More Of That Jazz Live performances in the 70s Modern-era Queen The Game Play The Game Dragon Attack Another One Bites The Dust Need Your Loving Tonight Crazy Little Thing Called Love Rock It (prime Jive) Don't Try Suicide Sail Away Sweet Sister Coming Soon Save Me Human Body Sandbox Flash Gordon Flash's Theme In The Space Capsule Ming's Theme The Ring Football Fight In The Death Cell Execution Of Flash The Kiss Arboria Escape From The Swamp Flash To The Rescue Vultan's Theme Battle Theme The Wedding March Marriage Of Dale And Ming Flash's Theme Reprise Crash Dive On Mingo City The Hero Hot Space Staying Power Dancer Back Chat Body Language Action This Day Put Out The Fire Life Is Real Calling All Girls Las Palabras De Amor Cool Cat Under Pressure Soul Brother The Works Radio Ga Ga Tear It Up It's A Hard Life Man On The Prowl Machines (or 'Back To Humans') I Want To Break Free Keep Passing The Open Windows Hammer To Fall Is This The World We Created? I Go Crazy A Kind Of Magic One Vision A Kind Of Magic One Year Of Love Pain Is So Close To Pleasure Friends Will Be Friends Who Wants To Live Forever Gimme The Prize (Kurgan's Theme) Don't Lose Your Head Princes Of The Universe The Miracle Party Khashoggi's Ship The Miracle I Want It All The Invisible Man Breakthru Rain Must Fall Scandal My Baby Does Me Was It All Worth It Hang On In There Chinese Torture Hijack My Heart My Life Has Been Saved Stealin' New Life Is Born Dog With A Bone Guess We're Fallin Out Innuendo Innuendo I'm Going Slightly Mad Headlong I Can't Live With You Don't Try So Hard Ride The Wild Wind All God's People These Are The Days Of Our Lives Delilah The Hitman Bijou The Show Must Go On Lost Opportunity Face It Alone Self Made Man My Secret Fantasy Made In Heaven It's A Beautiful Day Made In Heaven Let Me Live Mother Love My Life Has Been Saved I Was Born To Love You Heaven For Everyone Too Much Love Will Kill You You Don't Fool Me A Winter's Tale My Life Has Been Saved It's A Beautiful Day (reprise) No-One But You Live performances in the 80s

Appendix Special instruments Special effects Special playing techniques Classical quotes Musical terms Index References

Brian May

Brian May

 Brian May was the most-rocking songwriter of Queen. Beside of writing some more straight-forward rocksongs for Queen he also developed and unique playing style and approach of harmonizing guitar (and vocals too) which became an important part of the Queen-sound. The creative atmosphere of the band inspired him to experiment with distant styles as baroque, big-band dixiland, or folk. As guitarist he was influented first by the Shadows, Sputniks, later Jeff Back and Clapton, BB King, even later Jimmy Hendix who influented him the most. Except these as songwriter he must have been influented by the music of the late fifties (Buddy Holly and the Crickets,...)
the beat music of sixties (especially the Beatles, who were his "heroes"), and early heavy metal (Led Zeppelin). These were the music he grew up with. 

 Brian May (1947-) picked up ukulele when he was 5-6. He also was taken piano lesson for one or two years, but his interest for the guitar was bigger. On his seventh (or eight?) birthday (1955-56) he got an acoustic guitar. After a period of playing skiffle stuff (eg. Lonnie Donegan songs) he started to master the single-note style too playing Shadows bits. He grew up with the records of the Everly Brothers, Little Richard but the most lasting favourite of his was Buddy Holly And The Crickets. Later he would be a fan of the Who, saw the concert of the Rolling Stones, and he also liked much the Beatles. As guitarist he was influented by the Yarbirds's guitarist Eric Clapton, later Jeff Beck, he also started to listen to blues guitarists BB King, Mike Boomfield, Bo Diddley. Then came along Jimmy Hendrix who "blew his mind" and influented him probably the most. He has had a school-band called 1984, and around this time he completted his trusty guitar the 24 fretted Red Special.
When he was 16-17 he developed his playing speed in competition with his mates. One of the practices was Orange Blossom by the Sputniks (featuring varyspeeded up record of lead guitar). On the first concert of the band 1984 they played adapted soul stuff like Sam & Dave and Ottis Redding (recordings are available). Soon 1984 started to cover songs of Pink Floyd, Cream, and Hendrix. When
Led Zeppelin came along he played already in the Smile. They were envy of Led Zeppelin, feeling that this band has stolen their idea.
 The idea of guitar harmonies came to Brian May from a Jeff Beck record called Hi Ho Silver Lining (1967). The song has a double track guitar part which for a moment turns into (an accidenntal?) harmony. The young Brian May was fascinated by that short harmony. In fact the technique of guitar harmonies is much older: Les Paul (guitarist and inventor) invented (among other studio tricks) the "sound on sound" technique (no multitrack!). His 1948 records How High Is The Moon and Brazil (reportedly) contain guitar harmonies.
Brian May experimented with two part harmonies first on two Smile songs: Earth and Step On Me. By the time Queen got into studio (1971-) the two-part harmonies were not rarities anymore, still Brian managed to creat the most clever guitar harmonies of his time. He strengtened his top-position year by year in the "creator of most clever guitar harmonies" competition. The use of guitar harmonies (with more than two parts) got into fashion in the pop-music for some ten years, when the synths caused it's declination that still lasts.
In the early days many of Brians multitrack solos were not harmonies, or just partly. Later he would do harmonies that sounded very coherent. Brian applied various characterstic tone settings to achive a great spectrum similarly as organ players/composers apply registers.

A declination of usage of guitar harmonies can be seen dramaticly on the Hot Space album featuring only one song (Dancer) with guitar harmonies. The heavy use of this technique presented Brian May with a remarkable strong skill of arrangement and harmonizing, and an approach which was often put his outcome closer to classical music than to rock and roll.

On stage Brian could not play multitrack. To bring the magic of guitar harmonies to the stage he used delay, both single and double to creat two and three part harmonies respectively. In the late years he also experimented with harmonizers that can creat only parallel harmonies (eg. Chinese Torture).

Brian May was (and still is) famous for picking the string with a sixpence instead of a plectrum. This results him a more direct contact with the instrument and also creates his characteristic sound. He was also famous for switching to "manual mode" by picking the string with index finger for the fine parts where he wanted to prevent the noise of the coin attacking the strings for example in the beginning of the "These Are The Days" solo.
 Brian May was also famous for his vibrato technique on guitar. Two major way to achive vibrato is using the vibrato bar and pushing the guitar strings with fingers by rocking one's wrist. Brian used both method frequently. While playing rhythm guitar he often used  continuously the vibrato bar holding it between his  p-r-m fingers. Check the video of  "Spead Your Wings". Another fine example is the intro of "It's Late".
His finger vibratos were achived by pushing and releasing the strings at a frequency of appr. * Hz. He would use vibrto also for

While his years as musician he refreshed his piano-playing knowledge. He told in an interview that he could write more interesting music on piano, while on the guitar he wrote more simple stuff like Tie Your Mother Down or Hammer To Fall.

Brian about his solos:
Do you have a philosophy of soloing?
It's different in every case, of course. Mostly the guideline that I've worked under is that the best solos are something which you can sing as well as the melody line. The kind of solos I enjoy are where there's a line which reflects the melody line but subtely changes it in some way which adds to the song. It opens up another little window in the song. It should also have some freedom; there should be some spontaneity there. It shouldn't be totally planned out.

How do you approach solo?
Generally in the studio, when we've played the acking track a lot of times - there's a guide vocal in there - I usually get something in my head. When it comes to solo time, I go in there and we do two or threee takes staight off. Very often the first take has a lot of what goes on the record. There may be just a couple of notes we don't like, and we'll change them. That's one of the advantages of the multi-track system: You can do acouple more solos alongside and button little things in and out. So very often I like the feel of the first
thing I do, which is spontaneous, but there will be a couple of notes in there which I think didn't work, and so I'll change them.

...It's just a delay machine set on one delay rather than a multiple, so it's not a sort of echo effect. It's one line coming back at you. I have two delay machines, so I can do three-part harmonies with that: I can play a lone - maybe two or three notes - and then it comes back and I can play along with it. And then it comes back again and there are three parts. The delays are mostly about one and a half seconds. A lot of things can happen: You can play in synch with what comes back and make the harmonies, or you can play chords and then single
notes on top to get a playing-in-rhythm effect. You can also do various kind of counterpoints. Sometimes they work. It all depends on whether I can hear myself well. If it's a good night and I can really hear well, I can do things that I demand very close timing. On this tour I've been experimenting with steps which are not exactly on the beat: so when it comes back at you, they are in a different place each time. I found I could do all sorts of strange things with that, just making them mesh in a different way.

Do you use a pick?
I play with an English sixpence. It's a coin made of soft metal with a serration on the edge. I hold it loosely between the thumb and the first finger, with the first finger bent down.

Do you use all four fingers of your left hand?
Yes, but the little finger is weak, which is one of my big weaknesses in playing. It restricts me. The new stuff that I play uses the little finger because I've consciously tried to bring it in. But when I'm playing from the head to the fingers, generally the little finger gets left out.

How do you compose?
I generally get ideas on the road or away from the studio. Then when it comes to making the album, I get the idea out - which may be om cassette or paper - and work on them. When the band rehearses them, we just gather round, strum guitar, play piano, and sing. It's kind of adiscussion environment.