Queen (band)

Queen is a British rock band which came to popularity during the mid-1970s, and have amassed an enormous worldwide fanbase that continues to exist to this day. They have sold an estimated 190 million records around the world and, in their home country of Britain, remain second only to The Beatles in terms of sales and collectability (though in 2005, they actually exceeded the number of weeks spent on the British chart by The Beatles).

Members Of The Band As Instrumentalists

It's well known that in the basic line-up, Deacon played bass, Taylor played drums, Mercury played piano and May played guitar. But, like their heroes The Beatles, Queen members explored different kinds of instrumental functions throughout their career.

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Roger Taylor was quite good at the guitar, in fact in the late 1980s he formed a parallel band in which he was the rhythm guitarist instead of the drummer. Occasionally he played bass for his own songs with Queen (e.g. "Sheer Heart Attack"), and he knew some notes at the keyboard, although mostly he used synths for atmospheric effects. Still, he reportedly composed many songs at the piano because he didn't know how to play it well, and therefore he came up with nonstandard ideas when he played. He admitted that he didn't even know the names of some of the chords in "Radio Ga Ga".

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Freddie Mercury was a pianist with the ability to cover many different styles and performances. Mostly he used grand pianos, but throughout the years he occasionally played upright jangle and electric piano. He was an experienced synth player and programmer as well: the orchestral interludes of "Was It All Worth It" were completely composed, arranged and played by him in a Korg M1 keyboard, as well as the string sections of "Bijou". Mercury was often self-deprecating about his guitar skills, introducing "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" by "I only know three chords" jokes. However, he would write on guitar occasionally, especially in the early days. It's unknown if he could play bass or drums to any extent, but it's been confirmed that he came up with very elaborate parts for them on various songs. In fact he composed the bass-line of Roger's "A Kind Of Magic", and programmed many rhythm parts in his first solo album, Mr. Bad Guy.

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John Deacon played guitar in addition to bass, taking over rhythm parts in many albums, as well as several acoustic performances. Reportedly he could keep basic drum patterns and, even if he never mastered his keyboard abilities, he would occasionally play synths on his own compositions and often composed at the piano, playing an electric one on his top ten hit "You're My Best Friend". He took over double-bass roles sometimes; reportedly Brian May had told him to play it on "'39" as a joke, but some days later John appeared at the studio with the instrument and he had already learnt how to play it.

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Brian May played piano and ukelele in addition to guitar. He played rhythm instruments less than the other Queen members, but occasionally he did some bass or drum parts in his solo albums, and within the band he composed some parts for bass and drums, like in "Sweet Lady" or "Teo Torriatte". He added some special instruments here and there, but most of them were via studio tricks; for example, to nail the harp parts of "Love Of My Life", he played each chord separately in a different take, then the producer merged them to form the entire part.

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