Brian May

Brian Harold May CBE (born 19 July 1947 in Hampton, London, England) became famous in the 1970s and 1980s as the virtuoso guitarist of the rock group Queen and composed many of their hits, including "We Will Rock You", "Hammer to Fall", "Tie Your Mother Down", "Who Wants to Live Forever", "I Want it All", and "The Show Must Go On".

Highlights

Brian May began composing in 1968/1969. He covered a wide variety of styles, but basically he wrote ballads and hard rock. From the first group perhaps the most respected piece is Who Wants To Live Forever, which has been covered by artists like Seal and Sarah Brightman. His most popular rock number is We Will Rock You, a very simple ABABAB composition with pentatonic melody and ostinato percussion. Among his most ambitious works were Procession (Queen II, 1974), a pseudo-baroque short piece for guitar octet, and The Dark (1980-1991).

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Through the years he wrote some songs with other people, the most memorable being Too Much Love Will Kill You, composed with Frank Musker and Elizabeth Lamers, which won Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically & Lyrically in 1996. As a meticulous arranger he focused on multi-part harmonies, often more contrapuntal than parallel — a rarity for rock guitar. Good examples are found in Queen's albums A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races, where he arranged a jazz band for guitar mini-orchestra (Good Company), a vocal canon (Prophet's Song) and guitar and vocal counterpoints (Teo Toriatte).

Related Topics:
Contrapuntal - A Night at the Opera - A Day at the Races

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As a performer, he was primarily respected as a guitarist. May explored a wide variety of styles in guitar as well. Playing lead some of his best works include sweep picking (Was It All Worth It), tapping (Bijou, Resurrection, Cyborg), Hendrix-like licks (Liar, Brighton Rock) and melodic parts (Bohemian Rhapsody, Killer Queen, These Are The Days Of Our Lives). Some of his solos and orchestral parts were composed by Freddie Mercury, who then asked Brian to bring them to life (Bicycle Race, Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon). May also performed notable acoustic works, including the fingerpicked solo of White Queen (Queen II, 1974) and the skiffle-influenced '39.

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Brian didn't restrict his abilities to one instrument. During his Queen days he performed ukelele (Good Company) and sometimes piano, detaching on a soft and gentle style (All Dead All Dead, Save Me, Dear Friends). He recorded some other instruments here and there (maracas, banjo, etc), including the harp on Love Of My Life, which was recorded in overdubs and mixed to sound as one performance.

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May was an excellent singer too. His wide vocal range went from notes around low A (110 Hz) to very high tenor Ds and Es (mostly in his solo career). Occasionally he contributed falsetto parts as well (Ogre Battle, Why Don't We Try Again). In some Queen songs, such as Good Company or She Makes Me, he sang all the vocals.

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