Sonic Patterns and
Compositional Strategies in
the Music of Queen
Nick Braae
University of Waikato
CUNY Graduate Centre
5 November 2015
Background
•
Idiolect analysis of Queen, 1973-80 (90 songs, Queen to The
Game)
•
Style — refers to common musical traits across a range of
artists/composers (e.g. 1980s pop, High Classical)
•
Idiolect — refers to common musical traits of a single artist
•
Easily identifiable recurring traits: vocal harmonies, guitar
arrangements, harmonic fragments
•
But, nagging problem of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
•
Two strands of an idiolect (compositional strategies and sonic
patterns)
Unique Structural Identities of the Rock Ballads
•
Queen’s rock ballads: ‘In the Lap of the
Gods…Revisited’, ‘Teo Torriatte’, ‘We are the
Champions’, ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’, ‘Save Me’, etc.
•
Most standardized song type in Queen’s output: stock
instrumentation and textural changes, verse-chorus(bridge) form, plus other idiolect traits (close-position
vocal and guitar arrangements, drum fills, etc.)
•
But different modulation patterns and techniques
Queen’s Idiolect as a Sonic Watermark:
‘Mustapha’
•
‘Mustapha’ (1978), Jazz
•
‘Persian rock’ style; consistent with the pastiche
compositional strategy
•
Consistent in terms of sonic patterns (sudden textural
change, overdriven rhythm guitar doubling the bass
line, guitar harmonies, vocal arrangement)
•
Queen’s individual take on the Persian rock style
Queen in the 1980s
•
Queen’s struggles in the 1980s: intra-band conflicts, Sun City, mixed
critical reviews
•
From ‘Save Me’, The Game (1980) — to ‘Staying Power’, Hot Space
(1982)
•
Mixed fortunes thereafter: ‘If you're a fan who's been hankering for
years to hear Queen get back to the bombast of its heyday, replace your
old copy of A Night at the Opera or News of the World instead. But don't
give up hope. At least The Miracle offers little snippets of Queen's
former majesty’ (Neely, Rolling Stone, 1989)
•
Redemption with Innuendo: ‘The album is a homecoming of sorts for
Queen, a return to the mid-'70s glory days of such tunes as the
infamous “Bohemian Rhapsody”’ (People Weekly, 1991)
Queen’s Idiolect in the 1980s
•
‘Staying Power’ and American R&B/funk, e.g. Skyy’s ‘Call
Me’ (1981)
•
Congruous with compositional strategy, but few sonic
patterns
•
‘Tear It Up’ (1984), ‘Hammer to Fall’ (1984), ‘Friends Will
Be Friends’ (1986), ‘Breakthru’ (1989), ‘I Want It All’
(1989)
•
Clear sonic patterns (namely, vocal arrangements), but
lack of compositional strategies
Queen’s Idiolect and Innuendo (1991)
•
Queen’s struggles in the 1980s: intra-band conflicts,
Sun City, mixed critical reviews
•
Redemption with Innuendo: ‘The album is a
homecoming of sorts for Queen, a return to the mid'70s glory days of such tunes as the infamous
“Bohemian Rhapsody”’ (People Weekly, 1991)
Levels of Relationship
Style
Sonic
Patterns
Compositional
Strategies
Idiolect
Compositional
Strategies
Sonic
Patterns
Idiolect
Compositional
Strategies
Sonic
Patterns
Progressive Rock and the Classical Connection
•
Classical music influences/borrowing key to progressive rock
(Macan 1997; Covach 1997; Holm-Hudson; Anderton 2010,
etc.)
•
‘Cadenza’ figuration in Yes’ ‘Roundabout’ (Sheinbaum 2002)
•
Canon in Gentle Giant’s ‘As Old As You’re Young’ (Lundberg
2014)
•
‘Classical’ piano in Styx’ ‘Come Sail Away’ (Holm-Hudson
2005)
•
Pastiche in Queen’s ‘Millionaire Waltz’ (Braae forthcoming)
Progressive Rock and the Classical Connection
•
Classical music influences/borrowing key to progressive rock (Macan 1997;
Covach 1997; Holm-Hudson; Anderton 2010, etc.)
•
‘Cadenza’ figuration in Yes’ ‘Roundabout’ (Sheinbaum 2002)
•
Canon in Gentle Giant’s ‘As Old As You’re Young’ (Lundberg 2014)
•
‘Classical’ piano in Styx’ ‘Come Sail Away’ (Holm-Hudson 2005)
•
Pastiche in Queen’s ‘Millionaire Waltz’ (Braae forthcoming)
•
Structural and thematic design in Yes and Genesis (Covach 1997, Palmer
2001, Spicer 2008)
•
Different influences/borrowing practices, but recognised as related =
compositional strategy
Glam/Glitter Rock
•
From Moore (2012) and Auslander (2003),
exaggeration of 1950s/1960s pop: Roy Wood (‘See My
Baby Jive’) and Phil Spector; David Bowie (‘The
Prettiest Star’, ‘Drive-In Saturday’) and doo-wop;
Queen (harmonic language) and the Beatles
•
‘Glitter stomp’ drum groove
Glam/Glitter Rock
•
From Moore (2012) and Auslander (2003), exaggeration of
1950s/1960s pop: Roy Wood (‘See My Baby Jive’) and Phil
Spector; David Bowie (‘The Prettiest Star’, ‘Drive-In Saturday’) and
doo-wop; Queen (harmonic language) and the Beatles
•
‘Glitter stomp’ drum groove in Gary Glitter’s ‘Rock and Roll’;
‘Leader of the Gang’; ‘Dynamite’ (Mud); ‘Hell Raiser’ (Sweet’)
•
Plus, ‘Do You Wanna Touch?’ (Gary Glitter); ‘Tiger Feet’ (Mud);
‘Block Buster!’, ‘Teenage Rampage’ (Sweet); ‘Can the Can’, Suzi
Quatro, etc.
•
Commercial imperatives (sonic patterns) vs. artistic prestige
(compositional strategies)?
Further Reading
Progressive Rock and the Classical Connection
John Covach, 'Progressive Rock, 'Close to the Edge,' and the Boundaries of Style'. In Understanding Rock: Essays in Musical Analysis, eds. John Covach and
Graeme M. Boone. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. 3-31.
Kevin Holm-Hudson, '"Come Sail Away" and the Commodification of "Prog Lite"'. American Music 23/3 (2005): 377-394.
Nors S. Josephson, 'Bach Meets Liszt: Traditional Formal Structures and Performance Practices in Progressive Rock'. The Musical Quarterly 76/1 (1992): 67-92.
Mattias Lundberg, 'Motivic cohesion and parsimony in three songs from Gentle Giant's Acquiring the Taste (1971)'. Popular Music 33/2 (2014): 292-292.
———. '“To Let it Be Without Pretense”: Canon, Fugue, and Imitation in Progressive Rock 1968–1979'. Music Theory Online 20.3 (2014).
<http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.14.20.3/mto.14.20.3.lundberg.php> (accessed 14 October 2014).
Edward Macan, Rocking the Classics: English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture. New York, Oxford University Press, 1997.
John R. Palmer, 'Yes, 'Awaken', and the Progressive Rock Style'. Popular Music 20/2 (2001): 243-261.
John J. Sheinbaum, 'Progressive Rock and the Inversion of Musical Values'. In Progressive Rock Reconsidered, ed. Kevin Holm-Hudson. New York: Routledge,
2002. 21-42.
Mark Spicer, 'Large-Scale Strategy and Compositional Design in the Early Music of Genesis'. In Expression in Pop-Rock Music: Critical and Analytical Essays,
ed. Walter Everett. New York: Routledge, 2008. 313-344.
Glam Rock
Allan F. Moore, Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2012.
Philip Auslander, 'Good Old Rock and Roll: Performing the 1950s in the 1970s'. Journal of Popular Music Studies 15/2 (2003): 166-194.
———. Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006.
The ‘Opera’ Section of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
•
Famous sixty-second episode
•
Influences? Mercury: ’I did some research…’ (cf.
Peraino, McLeod 2001, Long)
•
Likely allusion to Gilbert and Sullivan (e.g. H.M.S.
Pinafore or The Pirates of Penzance)
Queen’s Stylistic Voyages
1960s folk
‘Long Away’
Rockabilly
‘Crazy Little Thing
Called Love’
19th-C Vienna
‘Millionaire Waltz’
Queen
1970s rock
1930s jazz
‘Dreamer’s Ball’
Music hall
‘Lazing on a
Sunday Afternoon’
Also in the Opera Section
•
Vocal arrangement: close-position upper parts plus
octave/fifth below
•
Standard arrangement for Queen
•
Common-tone diminished chord built on local tonic
•
Movement of inner/lower voices under upper pedal
•
Antiphonal dialogue across the sound-box
Issues with Queen
•
Easily identifiable recurring traits: vocal harmonies,
guitar arrangements, harmonic fragments
•
But, nagging problem of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’
•
‘One last attribute that is part of Queen's sonicfingerprint is their stylistic eclecticism’ (de Boer 1999);
‘It is the unpredictability of the band’s recordings that is
arguably the only real constant . . . it is in this respect
that Radiohead problematizes the specification of
idiolect’ (Moore and Ibrahim 2009)
Compositional Strategies and Sonic Patterns
•
Two strands of an idiolect
•
Sonic Patterns: gestures or musical details ‘articulated’ in the same
‘manner’ from song to song
•
Compositional Strategies: gestures or musical details that are
‘articulated’ in a different ‘manner’ from song to song, but shared
musical kinship or identity
•
Any category (style, idiolect, sonic pattern, compositional strategy, etc.)
simply ‘tells us something different about how we organize the
sequence of sounds issuing from instruments or speakers’ (Moore 2001,
441)
•
Richness of the method from different forms of commonality within
single temporal span