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

Path: Queen Songs - The Book - Songwriting Analyses - "No Synth" era - Jazz: Mustapha

Mustapha

Composer: Freddie Mercury
Meter: 4/4
Keys: f-minor, g#-minor, c#-minor, c-minor/g-minor, bb-minor
Form:
 
  Intro I-II |
 | Verse  | Chorus |
 | Verse' | Chorus'|

Queen's "post-Races" period is considered to be less experimental than the period before (pre-News). Still we can find traces of new, up-to-date elements built into their music successively on each album up to Hot Space. The range of the length of the tracks (Jazz: 3:01-4:16 vs. Opera: 1:07-8:20) would make some people think that they started writing more "regular" songs. This is true, especially concerning the form. On the other hand, this album features a number of songs that are quite "progressive" in many subtle ways, even if they sound "normal" or "popular". This song with Arabic chants and scales, occassionally disorienting rhythm, and long circles of repetition is not a typical rock number; still, its relatively simple arrangement makes the track quite a listenable and easy to perform rock song.
The body of the song is built from two long cycles that consist of subsections. The major section-articulating device is the switching between mono and stereo mode, resulting in more than two minutes of the song (the Intro and the two Verses) being mono. Many of the subsections have AA-form and most of them are of "square" length. The step-wise ascending riffs with double notes, minor scales, off-beat, double phrases used throughout, and the "Arabic" ornaments are the piece's unifying elements.
In respect of harmony, the song presents something strange that makes it particularly hard to intrepret. What we've got is something very similar to modal inflection that textbooks apply for the major scale, but this case seems to go for minor scales. The chordal support often suggests another tonic that is the root of the actual scale used. How unusual it is you will know if you try to find anything like that (I couldn't...).
The song is shot through with many modulations and ephemeral keys with often minimal chordal support. The keys are all minor, mostly with "harmonic" inflection.

Walkthrough

Intro I
It's a stylized Arabic melody. Authentic Arabic music uses some slightly  off-key notes beside the "normal" ones known in European music. On stage Freddie would perfom this intro in a more "authentic" way. The melody, however, is a variant of what we can hear at 1:09. The pitch set is (D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb), and we have got a C in the variant subsection. This is the c-minor key. But toward the end of the intro the F is substituted by F#, which sounds like the sharp 7th degree of the G (harmonic) minor. The variant subsection also emphasizes the Gm chord as if it were the tonic (see below). If it is really g-minor, then it is (modally?) inflected with flat-2 degree (Ab).
The whole section is ad-lib performed, even though the variant subsection is rhythmically quantized. The Intro ends with a "hey!", which also closes the song. Except these two, you can collect four more "hey"-s in the song placed mostly off-beat, just like many of the cymbal hits provided by Roger.

Intro II
The seven measures of instrumental intro start right on downbeat, but this is not easy to figure out. The syllable "-pha" from "Mustapha" is on a first beat, too; that may help you pick up the beat. Disorienting factor is the off beat stops/accents applied at the end of the first and in the last measures and the way the downbeats get no extra emphasis; hence, once you loose the beat, it's very difficult to pick it up again.
The scalar (no chords played) piano part starts from g-minor, but in the second measure melodic f-minor scale is used, both natural and with flat seventh (Eb). The phrasing of the lead vocal is 2x2 AA', and the second phrase is repeated one octave higher. The guitar does not play until the first Chorus.

Verse
As it was mentioned, this is not a real a verse, but a chain of mini-sections. The first of these is a subsection, sort of mini-intro. It is 2x2 measures long:

f:
/--------2x-------\
| Fm    | -  Eb/F |
| i     |     VII |

Next subsection is built from two four-measure phrases. The first phrase stays in f-minor. Let's take a look at the guitar fill that closes it in the second Verse: E, F, G, Ab, B, C, D, Eb, F... . The E is a sharp-7th, but we can find a curious flat-5th degree (B), too. The key shifts up to g#-minor for the second phrase. Note how Freddie uses "false" ornament/vibrato on the syllable "...him" from "Ibrahim". It's an arabic touch as Arabic music also uses some non-standard for Western-music note intervals.

f:
| Fm  | -  | -  | -  |
| i   | -  | -  | -  |

g#
| G#m | -  | -  | B   |
| i   | -  | -  | III |

Next sub-section starts with upbeat and is 2x2 measures long. First it seems to be in f#-minor, but in the second verse there is a guitar fill that uses the scale notes of the c#-harmonic-minor.

  |F#m | -  | -  | -  |
c#: iv | -  | -  | -  |
(f#:i)

The next four measures seem to use the G-harmonic minor scale, but (again) the tonic is not present. The phrasing is AA: 2x2 measures.

 | D  | -  | -  | -  |
g: v  | -  | -  | -  |

Freddie's voice is double-tracked: in the first phrase it's unisono; in the second phrase it's harmonized (paralell fifths). The instrumental backing is scalar. The sense of chords is created with the support of the lead vocal and the used scale.

The last subsection is a variant of Intro I. This is another double phrase: 2x4 measures long. The instrumental support is mostly scalar; the only full chord is the Gm. The key is either c-minor or modally inflected (G#=flat2) g-minor.

 /------------  2x  --------------\
 | Gm  | F1  | Eb1 | C1 D1 Eb1 F1 |
g: i
c: v

In the first four measures Roger uses asymmetric emphasis (on the 1st and 4th eighth note) that becomes symmetric in the second phrase.

The second Verse is slightly different:
There are three-part harmonies (both guitar and vocal). There is a rhythm guitar and a solo guitar. Some of the rhythm guitar parts are double-tracked and octave-parallel. The guitar fill at 1:59 is very interesting: it starts in f-harmonic minor and modulates to c-harmonic minor. There is a general pause at the end of the section, but formally that measure belongs to the second Chorus.

Chorus
The first two measures feature the same scalar riff that started Intro 2  but in a shortened form. This means there's a modulation from Gm to f-minor. The sudden change to stereo has got a bombastic effect because the entering guitar makes the record louder. Similar trick is used in the intro of Dead On Time.

Next sub-section is square eight measures long and consists of four variant phrases. In the fifth measure there's a key shift up to g-minor. May we interpret these two phrases being in iflected bb-minor and c-minor keys? It's beyond me.

f:
| Bbm| -  | -  | -  |
| iv | -  | -  | -  |

g:
| Cm | -  | -  | -  |
| iv | -  | -  | -  |

The vocals are arranged antiphonally. In the next phrase there is a modulation similar to what we saw at the start of Intro II.

bb:
|  Ab | Bb1 C1 Db1 Eb1 | Dbm    | Bb1 C1 Db1 Eb1 | C1 D1 Eb1...
| VII |  i...          | flat-iv| i             c: i ...

The section is eight measures long but not in a predictable way. The rhythm is so disorienting that it's hard to keep the beat (just try it out!) due to some mini-upbeats on the 8th eighth. Similar gambit is used in Don't Stop Me Now from the same album, too. Last measure features three-part guitar harmonies gradually turning from stereo to mono.

The second Chorus starts with a general pause. Except the missing notes "erased" by the pause, the ascending riff is the same as in the first Chorus. The second subsection features the lead vocal and the guitar (with heavy vibrato) arranged antiphonally. Roger (?) uses hawk bell.