Sonic Patterns And Compositional Strategies In Queen’s .

176 Braae Sonic Patterns and Compositional Strategies in Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’Did it introduce a new and divergent stylistic path? Or, perhaps, was it simply a remarkable,one-off piece of songwriting?Methodology I: idiolect analysisIdiolect analysis offers an appropriate framework for answering such questions. The term‘idiolect’ derives from the discipline of structural linguistics, where it refers to the speakingpatterns (tone, pronunciation, vocabulary, discursive organization, etc.) of an individual, asopposed to a ‘dialect’, which concerns the speaking patterns of individuals bound by, forexample, a geographical region or social class.14 Although various analysts have employeddifferent terminology,15 the same types of ideas are upheld in musical contexts. Thus, anidiolect ‘refers to the individual stylistic fingerprints [ . . . ] of a performer or group ofperformers’.16 In theoretical terms, Moore notes that ‘style refers to the manner of articulationof gestures [ . . . ] at various hierarchical levels, from the global to the most local’.17 An idiolectis a level of style, operating at the ‘local’ end of the spectrum.Over the past two decades, a number of popular music analysts have contributed to ourunderstanding of artists’ idiolects by documenting the common traits or ‘fingerprints’ ofthe artists in question. The various analyses demonstrate that in practical terms an idiolectmay be understood as comprising any number and type of musical details. Moore, forexample, emphasizes the consistent juxtaposition of electric and acoustic textures in JethroTull’s output, as well as the group’s use of contrasting rhythmic layers.18 Endrinal and Spicerboth highlight the importance of instrumental playing techniques in their studies of U2 andThe Police, respectively. In the former instance, one of U2’s defining traits is the arpeggiatedrhythm guitar figuration;19 in the latter instance, each band member employed instrumentaltechniques from contrasting styles, as heard in Sting’s punk-derived bass guitar playing, AndySummers’ fusion-influenced guitar chords, and Stewart Copeland’s ‘upside-down’ reggae14 See J. B. Pride and Janet Holmes, ‘Introduction’, in Sociolinguistics, ed. J. B. Pride and Janet Holmes (Harmondsworth,Middlesex: Penguin Education, 1972), 8; E. Haugen, ‘Dialect, Language, Nation’, in Sociolinguistics, ed. Pride andHolmes, 97–102.15 Meyer, for example, uses the term ‘idiom’, whereas Zak uses the general term ‘style’ but as qualified by ‘Roy Orbison’and ‘West Texas’, thus indicating that he is referring to the musical characteristics of a subset of a single artist’s output.See, respectively, Leonard B. Meyer, Style and Music: Theory, History, and Ideology (Chicago: Chicago University Press,1989), 24; Albin Zak, ‘“Only the Lonely”: Roy Orbison’s Sweet West Texas Style’, in Sounding Out Pop: AnalyticalEssays in Popular Music, ed. Mark Spicer and John Covach (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009), 18–41.16 By ‘group of performers’, Moore is referring to a band; his turn of phrase implies that the idiolect of a band maydepend on the unique techniques brought to the musical table by individual band members. Allan F. Moore, SongMeans: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate, 2012), 166.17 Allan F. Moore, ‘Categorical Conventions in Musical Discourse: Style and Genre’, Music and Letters 82/3 (2001),441–2.18 Allan F. Moore, ‘Jethro Tull and the Case for Modernism in Mass Music’, in Analyzing Popular Music, ed. Allan F.Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 158–72.19 Christopher Endrinal, ‘Form and Style in the Music of U2’ (PhD diss., Florida State University, 2008), 28–60.Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Loyola Notre Dame, on 07 Jan 2022 at 06:47:54, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available athttps://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S147857221500002X

Braae Sonic Patterns and Compositional Strategies in Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ 177grooves.20 The idiolect of The Police thus developed from the confluence of these stylisticingredients. The methodological approach in each case is rather straightforward: to identifythe common musical details from a corpus of songs. To paraphrase Meyer, idiolect analysisis similar to statistical sampling insofar as one is concerned with ‘observed correlations andrepeated concatenations of traits’.21 One can understand, therefore, how idiolect analysis maybe useful for assessing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in the context of Queen’s career. Analysis of thewider corpus reveals the common features of the group’s output, or Queen’s idiolect; analysisof ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ reveals whether the song’s features correlate with this idiolect.This is the fundamental approach taken below; however, I have limited the analysis intwo ways, and made a small, but significant adjustment to the analytical apparatus. First,the scope of the idiolect analysis has been limited such that the ‘sample’ of songs comprisesonly those that precede or were written concurrently with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in Queen’soutput.22 This creates a corpus of forty-five songs from the group’s first four albums: Queen(1973), Queen II (1974), Sheer Heart Attack (1974), and A Night at the Opera (1975). Theprimary reason for this limitation is that it allows one to address in greater detail the idea of‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as a fulcrum or turning point in the career path of Queen. That is, itis necessary to have a clear conception of what occurred musically both before and after thispoint in time. Given the potential scope of such a task, this article only tackles the formerissue, in terms of addressing how ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ related, in musical terms, to the earlycareer output of Queen. There would be merit in developing a further study that considersissues of idiolect after ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ in order to gain insight into how the song mayhave shaped Queen’s music post-1975.The second analytical limitation concerns the musical details addressed below. Againprimarily for reasons of space, I examine and discuss seven salient features of ‘BohemianRhapsody’: the formal template; the key structure; Brian May’s guitar arrangements; theoperatic references; aspects of the vocal arrangement structure; a surface harmonic gesture;and the spatial arrangement of voices in the sound-box. For each feature, the underlyingconsideration is whether the traits of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ are consistent with the treatmentof the corresponding traits in the forty-five other songs of the corpus. Thus, in the section onform, I outline the structure of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and place this structure alongside otherQueen tracks, with the implicit question: is the structure of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ similar tothe structures of previous Queen songs? With both these limitations in mind, it is necessaryto note that the analysis does not aim to provide readers with a complete understanding20 Mark Spicer, ‘“Reggatta de Blanc”: Analyzing Style in the Music of the Police’, in Sounding Out Pop: Analytical Essaysin Popular Music, ed. Mark Spicer and John Covach (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), 123–53.21 Meyer, Style and Music, 57.22 Some thought was given to cutting off the corpus after Sheer Heart Attack given that ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ wasreleased as a single prior to the release of its parent album. Assuming that most listeners in 1975 probably heard‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ as a single before hearing it as track eleven on A Night at the Opera, this approach would haveallowed one to approximate what it may have been like to hear the song anew at the time of its release. Equally, itwould seem that songs on the album were developed concurrently in 1975, which means other tracks from A Night atthe Opera may have influenced the final product of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’. See Georg Purvis, Queen: Complete Works(London: Titan Books, 2011), 40ff.Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Loyola Notre Dame, on 07 Jan 2022 at 06:47:54, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available athttps://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S147857221500002X

178 Braae Sonic Patterns and Compositional Strategies in Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’of either ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ or Queen’s idiolect; that said, the material below does offersignificant insight on both counts, as discussed in the conclusion of this article.There is a final methodological hurdle that requires an adjustment to the analyticalapparatus. It was noted above that idiolect analysis is concerned with identifying consistentmusical traits across a given corpus of songs. The problem in this context is that one canobserve different types of musical consistency across this selection of Queen’s output. Thiskind of issue is not unique to Queen. In their study of Radiohead, Moore and Ibrahimidentify several structural features that recur in various guises across the band’s career:AAB formal templates; development within songs via variations on this template; and thepresence of ‘breakdown’ sections. But the authors’ most striking conclusion is this: ‘it is theunpredictability of the band’s recordings that is arguably the only real constant . . . it is in thisrespect that Radiohead problematizes the specification of idiolect’.23 Moore makes a similarpoint regarding progressive rock band Gentle Giant. Having surveyed the material from their1972 album Octopus, he concludes: ‘This album then forms part of a changing Gentle Giantidiolect, an idiolect which I suspect retains few constant features across its lifespan.’24 If weconsider the nature of the idiolects discussed in this article, there is a clear tension: on the onehand, the idiolects of The Police and U2 were marked, above all, by consistent instrumentaltechniques; on the other hand, the idiolects of Radiohead and Gentle Giant were marked,above all, by constant change. In the case of Queen, both sides of this issue come to the fore,thus raising the question of how to assess the group’s idiolect when some elements constantlychange, and some elements stay the same.Methodology II: sonic patterns and compositional strategiesIn order to resolve this issue, I propose a distinction between the different types of traitsthat comprise an artist’s idiolect. The analysis below suggests that a richer understanding ofQueen and ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (and, indeed, other artists’ output) may be possible if onedistinguishes between sonic patterns and compositional strategies. Both categories encompasscommon elements of a group’s output, and thus may be considered subservient to theoverarching idiolect of a group. That is, Queen’s idiolect – what allows us to ‘recognize their[Queen’s] work as their work individually’25 – may be construed as comprising the sum totalof the group’s sonic patterns and compositional strategies.What, then, do the terms mean? To adopt the terminology from Moore’s definition ofstyle (noted above), there are gestures or musical details that are ‘articulated’ in the same‘manner’ from song to song. These constitute Queen’s sonic patterns. There are also gesturesor musical details that are ‘articulated’ in a different ‘manner’ from song to song, but onecan understand the corresponding gestures as sharing a common musical kinship or identity.23 See Allan F. Moore and Anwar Ibrahim, ‘Sounds like Teen Spirit: Identifying Radiohead’s Idiolect’, in Strobe-Lightsand Blown Speakers: Essays on the Music and Art of Radiohead, ed. Joseph Tate (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009), 152.24 Allan F. Moore, ‘Gentle Giant’s “Octopus”’, Philomusica On-line: Composition and Experimentation in British Rock:1966–1976 (2007), .pdf.25 Moore and Ibrahim, ‘Sounds like Teen Spirit’, 140.Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Loyola Notre Dame, on 07 Jan 2022 at 06:47:54, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available athttps://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S147857221500002X

Braae Sonic Patterns and Compositional Strategies in Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ 179These constitute Queen’s compositional strategies. To use Meyer’s terminology,26 sonic patternscomprise musical details that are replicated across an artist’s output, and are realized in thesame way at the individual levels of intraopus style; compositional strategies are musicalfeatures replicated across an artist’s output, but realized in different ways at the individuallevels of intraopus style. Ultimately, the naming of the particular labels is arbitrary; however,I have attempted to use terms with appropriate connotations. ‘Sonic patterns’ have beendesignated thus because the musical gestures sound the same across songs; ‘compositionalstrategy’ suggests a general plan on the songwriters and musicians’ behalves that may resultin numerous musical outcomes.27Although the sections on Queen should help to clarify this methodological distinction,several examples from the wider popular music repertoire may be useful in the first instance.It is important to note that the following paragraphs are based on ad hoc analytical sketchesof the artists in question; however, they should suffice to illuminate several initial points.To start, a good example of a sonic pattern can be found in the songs of Jerry Lee Lewis –one of his trademarks was the long glissando across the piano. This appears as part of theaccompaniment and as part of his piano solos in early career tracks, such as ‘Great Balls ofFire’, ‘Whole Lotta Shakin’ Going On’, ‘Boogie Woogie Country Boy’, ‘Wild One’, as well as in‘Rock and Roll’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, and ‘Trouble in Mind’ from Last Man Standing(2006), an album of covers in collaboration with other artists. The point is that the pianoglissando, as a musical gesture, appears in much the same form across all of these examplesas a marker of Jerry Lee Lewis’s idiolect. In other words, his idiolect (what distinguishes hisoutput) is defined, in part, by this particular sonic pattern.The Beatles’ output provides a good example of a compositional strategy. Particularly inthe latter half of the 1960s, one can note the following features in their records: artificialdouble-tracking of the lead vocal (‘Love To You’); running the lead vocal through a rotatingLeslie speaker (‘Tomorrow Never Knows’); recording the bass guitar through Direct Input(‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’); close miking of instruments (‘Eleanor Rigby’),and playing back the tapes in reverse (‘Rain’).28 These examples clearly showcase a range ofgestures arising from different production techniques. And yet, it is possible to understandthese varying sounds as deriving from the group’s overarching aim of experimenting andinnovating in the studio, which is often regarded as a key feature of The Beatles’ output oridiolect. Everett, for instance, talks of the ‘tape manipulations and studio effects that wereto become de rigeur for them [ . . . ] in the coming years [post-1965]’.29 Compared with the26 From Meyer, Style and Music, 24ff.27 The phrase ‘compositional strategy’ is reasonably common in the analytical literature. Moore, for example, uses it inhis analysis of Gentle Giant with roughly similar connotations; my use of the phrase draws on this and other examplesbut offers a slightly more rigid definition of the category. See Moore, ‘Gentle Giant’s “Octopus”’.28 See, for instance, Kari McDonald and Sarah Hudson Kaufman, ‘“Tomorrow never knows”: The Contribution ofGeorge Martin and his Production Team to the Beatles’ New Sound’, in ‘Every Sound There Is’: The Beatles’ Revolverand the Transformation of Rock and Roll, ed. Russell Reising (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 140–3, 150–5.29 Walter Everett, The Beatles as Musicians: Revolver through the Anthology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999),20.Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. Loyola Notre Dame, on 07 Jan 2022 at 06:47:54, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available athttps://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S147857221500002X

180 Braae Sonic Patterns and Compositional Strategies in Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’case of Jerry Lee Lewis’s glissandi, however, this component of The Beatles’ idiolect may beregarded as a compositional strategy insofar as the feature identified from the group’s output(i.e. experimentation in the studio) has a variety of musical outcomes in individual songs.The above comparison between sonic patterns and compositional strategies drawsattention to the level of analysis for each category. Jerry Lee Lewis’s glissandi are essentiallydecorative gestures, while The Beatles’ production techniques could shape the overall soundof a part of a track; indeed, the discussion of Queen below draws a similar distinction betweenthe sonic patterns, which play out on the musical surface, and the compositional strategies,which operate at the structural levels of the musical texts. It is not imperative, however, thatsonic patterns and compositional strategies align with pre-determined levels of a musical text.In hard rock band AC/DC’s output post-1980, many of their songs are in verse–chorus formwith the verses underpinned by a repeating rhythm guitar riff. Lead guitar solos tend to beplayed over the same riff patterns, although in a number of songs one hears an instrumentalbridge section, which begins with either a power chord on or a new rhythm guitar riff basedaround the subdominant (e.g. ‘Shoot to Thrill’, ‘What Do You Do For Money Honey?’, ‘Givin’the Dog a Bone’, ‘Shake a Leg’, ‘Heatseeker’, ‘Thunderstruck’, ‘Wheels’). In terms of the riffsthemselves, there is considerable variety in the riff construction (chords vs scalar passagesvs arpeggiated figuration), rhythmic design, and harmonic patterns; nonetheless, they tendto be built around notes of the pentatonic minor scale, which, I would argue, provides theriffs with a common musical identity. AC/DC’s idiolect can thus be defined in part by sonicpatterns that create a sense of structural regularity (consistent verse–chorus forms and bridgesstarting on IV), and in part by a compositional strategy (guitar riffs built on pentatonic minorscale) that produces a range of surface gestures across their output.In outlining the examples thus far, I have proceeded as if the musical gestures of an artist’sidiolect fall easily into the category of sonic patterns and compositional strategies. In practice,this is not the case, as one can often identify gestures that reside in a grey area relative to thedefinitions of the categories set out above – not identical from one instance to the next, andyet

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ only reached no. 9 on the Billboard singles chart. Nonetheless, when re-released in 1991 and 1992, following Freddie Mercury’s death and its appearance in the popular film Wayne’s World (1992), ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ returned to the top of the British charts and ascended to second position on the Billboard charts .