h An intro to Queen and Bohemian Rhapsody
Queen formed in 1971 in London
Members included:
- Freddy Mercury (Real name: FarokBulsara)..Vocalist and piano player(dip art/design)
- Brian May…..Guitarist (PHYSICS TEACHER)
- John Deacon….Bass Guitarist(degree in electronics)
- Roger Taylor…..Drummer (DEGREE IN BIOLOGY)
SO WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD DURING THE 1970s???
- It was a time of change and development: there were great advances in electronic inventions such as home computers and the microwave.
- The Jumbo jet was unveiled
- The Vietnam war ended but the cold war between the east and west still existed
- The arms race continued
- The Hippy culture was no longer fashionable….image was very important
- It was a time of inflation, oil crisis and a growth in women’s rights
- It was the era of bands with heavy publicity and posters for promoting concerts.
- The fashion was flashy clothes, platform shoes and long hair
So what was the Music style of the 70s????
Instruments:
Guitars
Synthesisers
Drums
Electronic amplification
SO WHO WAS POPULAR DURING THE 70S?
The Rolling Stones Elton John Led Zeplin
Eric Clapton Bruce Springsteen Pink Floyd
ABBA The Eagles David Bowie
Features of music:
many high tech studios were built to cater for the demand in albums being recorded:
they used:
- stereo panning
- distortion WE WILL LOOK AT
- overdubbing THIS A BIT LATER
- multi tracking
let’s have a listen to these plus some more
(Anne-Marie Higgins…Irish music cd)
types of rock music included
- Glam rock (silly, catchy and fun but cool, arty and sophisticated…image was everything!)
- Progressive rock (they wanted rock to be taken seriously-large scale works. It mixed in classical music)
- Heavy metal (screaming vocals and guitar solos)
- all this led to Punk rock…angry music…high decibels
Features of the melody
rock music was rebellious….it featured strong rhythmic beats with lots of repetition
music was built around high volume and distortion
The drums and guitars were the driving force
Lyrics usually commented on society
Form of the music (musical plan/layout)
most songs were made up of a number of verses and a repeated chorus.
The verses have the same music but different lyrics
The chorus was different: melodically and harmonically
In between the verse and chorus was a guitar solo called a LICK……A MUSICAL SOLO PASSAGE THAT MOVES RAPIDLY UP AND DOWN THE SCALE
THIS FORM IS CALLED STROPHIC FORM
THE HISTORY OF THE ALBUM AND BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY
It was taken from the album “A Night At the Opera” 1975
The single was released in 0ctober 1975 and the album “A Night at the Opera” was released in November 1975
It spent 17 weeks in the charts, 9 weeks at number 1
It was 6 minutes long….this was highly unusual. Most people thought it would not get any air play.
It took 6 months to produce and 3 weeks to record it
They didn’t use any session musicians-only the 4 members of the group
No synthesiser was used
It is a mix of different styles:
Let’s listen to Bohemian Rhapsody and decide what styles have been incorporated.g
Rock style- Rock instruments
- Driving rhythms in guitars and drums
- Guitar solos: licks and riffs
- Use of amplification
- Repetition
- Lyrics
- powerchords
- uses classical harmonies
- operatic style of singing
- antiphonal dialogue
- polyphonic style of texture
- lyrics based on social themes
- dialogue form
- verse and chorus form = strophic form
Recording terms used in this work:
- a Capella: Unaccompanied singing in one or more parts
- Backbeat: beats 2 and 4 usually by a snare drum
- Bends: a guitar technique in which a note is altered in pitch by pushing the string up and down
- Call and response: a technique of African music where a solo singer is answered by a chorus
- Distortion: the speaker is overloaded by a guitar foot pedal
- Echo: a sound delay
- Falsetto: a technique used by males singing in a very high register
- Feedback: a guitar pickup
- Hook: memorable/catch part of a tune
- Lick: guitar solo which moves up and down the register
- Melisma: one syllable and lots of different notes
- Multi-tracking: a recording technique where another part is recorded over a precious track
- Panning: switching the sound from the right to left speakers
- Powerchords: use of open strings to produce a heavy sound on guitars (doh-me-soh-doh)
- Riff: short ostinato (repeated phrase of rhythm or melody or harmony)
- Vibrato: like a “wobble” or reverbrate