Killer queen

• Freddie mercury is a tenor
• Guitar techniques: slides, bends, pull-offs, vibrato
• Recording techniques: EQ, flanger, distortion, reverb, panning, overdubbing, “wah-wah”
• Guitars and vocals are overdubbed to create a richer colour for the song
• The vocal melody are syllabic

  There’s mixture of vocalisation and words for the backing vocals
• Melody: mostly conjunct with small leaps of 3rd or 4th

  there’s descending sequence
• Verse and chorus combine conjunct and wide angular leaps in melodic line
• Leaps often have rising major 6th, and some leaps are large (eg. octave)
• killer queen is in verse-chorus form
• Verse 1 starts with unusual 6 finger clicks, with melodt starting on upbeat. It starts with an unstabe opening in Cm but quickly shifts
• There’s a descending sequence in guitar 1 in Verse
• The lead vocal uses falsetto
• first phrase is 4 bars. however, the second phrase has extended to 5 bars in length
• Chorus 1 has 8 bars, with phrasing of 5+3.

  It’s cadenced into Bb major then Dm and C major before shifting back to Bb
• Lead and backing vocals created four part texture (harmony), with backing vocals using vocables

  Theres a glissando on “queen”

  Theres flanger on “laser beam”
• Instrumental: Guitar 1 and 3 play in thirds using slides and vibrato
• Verse 2: Drums enter early with a drumroll with guitar 2

  there’s an inner chromatic descending pattern in bar 31-33
• Main vocal uses spoken text on bar 38 for dramatic effect
• Bass develops its line from the first verse by using pentatonic and chromatic scales (bar 37-38)
• Chorus 2 has been cut to the first 5 bars of the first chorus, leading to the guitar solo
• Guitar solo starts by mimicking the lead part of the chorus before expanding to 3 part solos
• There’s chord sequences with descending patterns for guitar solo
• at bar 48, guitar 3 and 4 uses imitation against guitar 1 before coming together to create 3 part texture
• in bar 51, harmony returned to the verse chord sequence, with original melody

  then the solo goes back to guitar 1 until bar 55
• Guitar 2 and 3 uses a hocketting effect before coming together onwards. The harmony is extended to repeated imperfect cadence for 2 bars leading to Verse 3
• Verse 3 is unusually 7.5 bars long

  Word painting on “absolutely drive you wild”

  3 part guitar responses to vocal line
• Climax of the song is on the word “wild”

  Vocals sings high in 4 parts following by a response from the band
• Chorus 3 has an addition of a guitar solo
• Outro: music fades with Eb major chord

  Harmony suggests a repeated IV-V-I cadence

  fading on subdominant with guitar 1 and 2 playing in 3rds and imitation between guitar 3 and 4
• Texture is homophonic

  uses of imitations and layering and panning
• song is in Eb major

  it opens in Cm

  but the tonality is ambiguous with many modulations
• there’s uses of dissonances

  extended chords and pedal
• there’s 7th chords, with most chords in the root position and some chords in 1st or 2nd inversion
• Tempo is moderato with dotted crotchet

  time signature is mainly in 12/8

  there’s a swung feel

  occasionally have 6/8 to extend the phrase length

  There’s triplets and frequent syncopation