Freddie Mercury

“You can be anything you want to be, just

turn yourself into anything you think that
you could ever be.”
Biography:
Early Life
❏ Born in Zanzibar East Africa

❏ Raised in India

❏ Started boarding school and later

studied Graphic design

❏ Started to play piano at a young age.

Biography:
Golden Age

❏ Joined a band named Smile

❏ Signed with EMI and EleKtra

record labels

❏ 1975 4th album “A Night at

the Opera” with “Bohemian

Rhapsody”

❏ Changed name form Bulsara

to Mercury

❏ Concert?
Biography:
Later Years
❏ 1981 South America Concert

230,000 fans

❏ Produced music without Queen.

❏ Diagnosed with Aids

❏ Live Aid concert

❏ Passes away on

❏ Aids awareness
Composition history
We Will Rock You: Written by Brian
Dixon and Queen

❏ Famous Crowd two stomp and clap

❏ Interaction performed with crowds of up to

230,00 people

❏ Freddie’s stage presence

 0.00: Introduction Opens with a simple Triple Meter of a stomp stomp Clap and is also a part
of the famous ground interaction with this particular song

Listening 0.12: Theme A At this time in the song Freddie comes in the songs with vocals and we hear
the first theme talking about a young man, hard man waving a banner.
Guide which ends at .017 and we see the progression into theme b

0.18 Theme A Pt. 2) We see the opening line of the chorus “Mud on your
face….” comes at the theme b and ending at 0.23 seconds

0.24 Chorus We hear the most famous line in the Corus “WE will Rock you which
continues through 0.34 Seconds

0.35 Theme B Like the Previous theme we have the same idea of this continuing acapella
drum line, and he continues with this aggressive singing style of lyrics.
However we see the contrary now saying a old poor man being put in his
place.ending at 47 seconds.

0.50 After hearing Theme B we see the repeat of the of the chorus four more
times.

1.30 The Bridge We hear the slow Crescendo of the guitar striking a single note and slowly
tying into the chorus for the 3rd time

1.33 Guitar solo We see transition from pp to ff after the strike of the note and we see the
entry of a guitar playing a guitar solo up until it fades out at 1.52
Composition History

Bohemian Rhapsody: Written By Freddie

Mercury

❏ Song theme based around “A Night at The

Opera”

❏ 5:56 seconds long

❏ 2004 introduction to The Grammy Hall Of

fame
 0.00 introduction We see the opening lines of the song with the members if the band
Listening in harmony. This part of the song only being the vocalist

Guide 0.17 Piano enters with melodic chord pattern that is the chord structure
maintained throughout the song.
Pt. 1
0.38 We see the musical effect of them shifting around the recording
microphone causing a spacial audio effect.

0.17-0.51 Theme A This part of the song is very all over the place representing the ups
and downs and scatteredness of the man.

0.52 Chord repetition At this time we see that opening chord riff repeated this time in the
form of ff rather than pp like prior.

0.54 Aria Aria starts with freddie singing the word “mama” with the piano
playing in the background

1.19 Pitch change This melody takes a change from a softer lighter tone to a deeper
more raspy sound.

0.53- 1.22 Theme B We start to understand the backstory of the man, he is on death row
for a murder that he now facing the concequences of.
 1.23- 1.44 Chorus We see the repetition of the word “mama” as freddie belts the chorus,
Listening which is followed by the chord pattern.

Guide 1.56 We see the simple drum line that is the same acapella drum line in the
Pt. 2 song we will rock you.

1.58-2.21Theme C Talkes about how he is too late and that his time is up and it seems like he
is preparing himself.

2.36 We see the the entrance of a wide wrange guitar solo.

3.04-3.10 Timbre change We see a new bouncy chord structure of the piano enter. Followed by
freddie’s voice and a harmonized phrase by the band

3.13 Pitch change Dramatic change from pp to FF for the words “ Thunder Bolts and
Lightning”

3.23 We see the vocalists chiming over the microphone to then all join back in
harmony once again to soft transition to the transition to ff this continues
through 4.00

4.07 We see the guitar come in once more, and the song taking another turn to
the more classical rock style that queen has presented many times.
Listening
guide Pt.3 4.44-4.56 Guitar and Piano start to bleed together, piano matches chord progression
and fades out the guitar.

5.09 Composition The musical instruments start to drop off and consist of just freddie playing
the piano and a simple drumline and guitar riff.

5.16 We see a new version of the chorus being played in a very soft pp almost
reminicents tone.

5.38- 5.47 closing The piano follows the same chord progression at a much slower tempo
instruments while the guitar has a few slide riffs to conclude freddy's goodbye vocals.

5.48 Gong rings out for remainder of the song.

Composition History

Love of My Life: Written By Freddie

Mercury

❏ Written about Mary Austin

❏ Song Appears on the Album “A Night at the
Opera”
❏ Freddie performs the song live with just
Vocals and Guitar
❏ Expresses his eternal love for Mary Austin.
Listening 0:01 Introduction Piano starts off very soft (pp) from the very beginning. Through the entire
song the most often used time signature is 4/4

Guide 0:06 Introduction The guitar chimes in for a very short time to give the music some texture then
ends with a harmonic note hit on the harp

0:09 The piano plays again to introduce melody then the harp strums the strings 3
times

0:21 Theme A At this point of the song vocals enter. Freddie talks about how hurt he is by
the love of his life with piano still remaining in the background

0:41 Chorus Piano and his voice are pp then at 0:49 his music ascends, descends, then
ascends once more for the last of the chorus which ends 0:54

1:04 Theme B Freddie begins to sing again with sadness in his voice.

1:13 Theme B The other members of the band join in and create a harmony for 3 seconds.
Then goes back to singing solo. Soon the band rejoins in at 1:29 for 6
seconds. This gives the song texture, makes it more engaging, and keeps
the listeners attention

2:12 Theme B The song uses crescendo and at 2:19 they all harmonize once again and
ends in a fermata before guitar solo
 2:19 Theme C The guitar solo begins with many intricate notes. Using staccatos
and legatos. The piano is still playing very softly in the
Listening background

Guide Pt. 2 2:42 The piano notes speed up while the guitar hold one note for 5
seconds

2:47 A loud guitar strum begins with the drums hitting the main notes
making it more captivating

3:00 Chorus Freddie then sings the chorus again but throughout it his band is
going in and out of harmony with him to make it the most powerful
chorus out of them all

3:12 Aggressive harp strums bringing it close to the coda

3:15 Diminuendo happens within Freddie’s voice and the last 2

harmony’s of the song

3:24 Song ends with very lovely and light notes on the harp
The End
(Shimmering Gong Hit)

Works Cited