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
/ classical
  • uses classical harmonies
  • operatic style of singing
  • antiphonal dialogue
  • polyphonic style of texture
/ Ballad style
  • lyrics based on social themes
  • dialogue form
  • verse and chorus form = strophic form

Recording terms used in this work:

  1. a Capella: Unaccompanied singing in one or more parts
  2. Backbeat: beats 2 and 4 usually by a snare drum
  3. Bends: a guitar technique in which a note is altered in pitch by pushing the string up and down
  4. Call and response: a technique of African music where a solo singer is answered by a chorus
  5. Distortion: the speaker is overloaded by a guitar foot pedal
  6. Echo: a sound delay
  7. Falsetto: a technique used by males singing in a very high register
  8. Feedback: a guitar pickup
  9. Hook: memorable/catch part of a tune
  10. Lick: guitar solo which moves up and down the register
  11. Melisma: one syllable and lots of different notes
  12. Multi-tracking: a recording technique where another part is recorded over a precious track
  13. Panning: switching the sound from the right to left speakers
  14. Powerchords: use of open strings to produce a heavy sound on guitars (doh-me-soh-doh)
  15. Riff: short ostinato (repeated phrase of rhythm or melody or harmony)
  16. Vibrato: like a “wobble” or reverbrate