What is remarkable, special and most characteristic about this song is the drastic changing structure. This song can be split into three parts, [Ballad Part], [Opera Part] and [Hard Rock Part]. We almost cannot help thinking that: Freddie Mercury, the author of this song, just put three different songs together (probably that is true). Here, firstly I am going to mention about instruments used in this song, and then analyze each segment.
Ensemble
-Acoustic Piano
-Electric Bass
-Drums
-Electric Guitars
-Lead Vocal
-Overdubbed vocals
-Chinese gong (at the very last sound of the song)
-”No Synthesisers!”
Although the song is quite long and dramatic, the instruments used in the song is not quite many. Basically they are the basic instruments of Rock music. What is worth mentioning is that they used over-overdubbed vocals (I will mention it in the [Opera Part]) and, they never used synthesizers in the recording. In the jacket of their 4th album “A Night At The Opera”, which includes ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, there is a credit saying: “No Synthesisers!”. Queen refused to use synthesizers and tried to make their original sound by the basic Rock instruments (Piano, Guitar, Bass and Drums). This policy made the identity of Early Queen Sound: Overdubbed Vocals and Guitar Orchestration (However, Queen started to use synthesizers 6 years after, in the album “The Game”).
Ensemble
-Acoustic Piano
-Electric Bass
-Drums
-Electric Guitars
-Lead Vocal
-Overdubbed vocals
-Chinese gong (at the very last sound of the song)
-”No Synthesisers!”
Although the song is quite long and dramatic, the instruments used in the song is not quite many. Basically they are the basic instruments of Rock music. What is worth mentioning is that they used over-overdubbed vocals (I will mention it in the [Opera Part]) and, they never used synthesizers in the recording. In the jacket of their 4th album “A Night At The Opera”, which includes ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, there is a credit saying: “No Synthesisers!”. Queen refused to use synthesizers and tried to make their original sound by the basic Rock instruments (Piano, Guitar, Bass and Drums). This policy made the identity of Early Queen Sound: Overdubbed Vocals and Guitar Orchestration (However, Queen started to use synthesizers 6 years after, in the album “The Game”).
1. -Ballad Part- 
The song begin with four part a cappella sung by Mercury and the piano played by Mercury. Then other instruments gradually come in: Bass, Drums and finally, Electric Guitar, which is a bit similar to the way of making the song “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin. Slow half note rhythm is kept by the drums. Mercury’s vocal style is sorrowful, mellow and sings quietly, uses little bit of falsetto, and it is easy to get the meaning of lyrics. When the Guitar comes in, the Ballad Part comes to the peak and move on to the guitar solo by the guitarist Brian May. The guitar solo is bridging the Ballad Part and the next, Opera Part.
-Where’s the idea of this song come from?
Queen must have been influenced by many artists who used “Wall of Sound” like the Beach Boys and the Beatles. Also, the idea of putting different themes was already used by the Beatles. In the song ‘A Day in the Life’, as we saw in the class. Most of the song was written by John Lennon, but the middle part (“woke, fell out of bed...”) was written by Paul McCartney. They wrote the song separately and put their songs together. This song must have influenced Queen’s song making.
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was created mostly by Freddie Mercury. “So much has been said about Bohemian Rhapsody, of course, and it’s Freddie’s baby, it always will be, it’s Freddie’s dream Of course we all contributed pieces to it, but really he, he’s a mastermind”, said May in the video :
By making experiments like these songs above, Mercury and Queen made a complete masterpiece of Rock Music.
Work cited:
Hodkinson, Mark. Queen. Omnibus Press, 2004.
The song begin with four part a cappella sung by Mercury and the piano played by Mercury. Then other instruments gradually come in: Bass, Drums and finally, Electric Guitar, which is a bit similar to the way of making the song “Stairway to Heaven” by Led Zeppelin. Slow half note rhythm is kept by the drums. Mercury’s vocal style is sorrowful, mellow and sings quietly, uses little bit of falsetto, and it is easy to get the meaning of lyrics. When the Guitar comes in, the Ballad Part comes to the peak and move on to the guitar solo by the guitarist Brian May. The guitar solo is bridging the Ballad Part and the next, Opera Part.
2. -Opera Part-
Probably, this part is the most significant part of the song, and for the rock music. This is perhaps the first song which contains the concept of opera in the Rock song. This thick chorus is performed by only three singers: Freddie Mercury (Vocal, Piano), Roger Taylor (Drums) and Brian May (Guitar) in the promotion video, we can see four of Queen singing, but the bassist John Deacon does not sing in the recording. “‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ took three weeks to record and in places featured 180 vocal over dubs” (Hodkinson 192). The element which made the choir so thick was that three different singers had three totally different characteristic voices. Freddie Mercury had sharp and clear voice and was able to sing in clean falsetto. Roger Taylor, who belonged to Church Choir group in his childhood had husky voice like Rod Stuart and also could reach very high tone. Brian May had normal, rounded soft voice and could reach low tone. Mixture of these three different voices could make this great opera part, which can be the good example of “Wall of Sound (actually the wall of voice)”. Instruments: piano, bass and percussion are also used effectively.
3. -Hard Rock Part-
After the Opera Part, here comes the Hard Rock Part. May’s guitar riff with unison bass is pretty impressive and it sounds almost angry. Taylor’s drumming really rocks. Mercury’s vocal is double-tracked and the way he sings is very different from that in Ballad Part: emotional, angry and also little urgent.
Then, the song calms down and moves back to the same theme as the introduction. As the bridge of hard rock and one minute of outro, May uses the guitar orchestration, double-tracked guitar melody. When doing it, he uses the amplifier called “Deacy Amp”, which was designed by the bassist John Deacon. At last, the song ends very quietly with only Mercury’s voice and his piano remain, same as the introduction.
3. -Hard Rock Part-
After the Opera Part, here comes the Hard Rock Part. May’s guitar riff with unison bass is pretty impressive and it sounds almost angry. Taylor’s drumming really rocks. Mercury’s vocal is double-tracked and the way he sings is very different from that in Ballad Part: emotional, angry and also little urgent.Then, the song calms down and moves back to the same theme as the introduction. As the bridge of hard rock and one minute of outro, May uses the guitar orchestration, double-tracked guitar melody. When doing it, he uses the amplifier called “Deacy Amp”, which was designed by the bassist John Deacon. At last, the song ends very quietly with only Mercury’s voice and his piano remain, same as the introduction.
-Where’s the idea of this song come from?
Queen must have been influenced by many artists who used “Wall of Sound” like the Beach Boys and the Beatles. Also, the idea of putting different themes was already used by the Beatles. In the song ‘A Day in the Life’, as we saw in the class. Most of the song was written by John Lennon, but the middle part (“woke, fell out of bed...”) was written by Paul McCartney. They wrote the song separately and put their songs together. This song must have influenced Queen’s song making.
‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was created mostly by Freddie Mercury. “So much has been said about Bohemian Rhapsody, of course, and it’s Freddie’s baby, it always will be, it’s Freddie’s dream Of course we all contributed pieces to it, but really he, he’s a mastermind”, said May in the video :
The idea of structure changing was not suddenly come up by Mercury. This idea was already existing in their 1st album “Queen”. In the song ‘Great King Rat’ written by Mercury, we can see the change of rhythm and melody for four times.
Also, the song ‘The March of the Black Queen’ from their 2nd album “Queen II” has same idea of changing. The change in this song is very drastic and it is obvious that Mercury put some of totally different songs together. What is more, there are a lot of over-dubs of instruments and voices already used.
By making experiments like these songs above, Mercury and Queen made a complete masterpiece of Rock Music.
Work cited:
Hodkinson, Mark. Queen. Omnibus Press, 2004.
