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In Queen, the vocal harmonies are made a
hundred percent by Freddie, Brian and Roger. There are very few songs in
which the choirs are made only by Brian and Roger (except for the songs
composed after Freddie’s death); on the other hand, Queen composed many
songs where Freddie does all the choirs on his own.
The
three member singers of Queen (since John Deacon, the bassist, has
declared that he did not participate in the choirs since he could not sing
a single note) possessed light enough pitches, and tenor voices: the three
were used to singing over the C4, although we can note that Brian
did it with certain difficulty, since he carried his chest voice and head
voice to the maximum in all the high tones, a situation which might have
cost him the loss of his voice had he been the leader voice of Queen.
Freddie has a pure sharp voice.
Roger has a rougher pitch, a ripping voice, and Brian sings with a tone
that stumps it all. Brian has a very similar pitch to that of Paul
McCartney. If we listen to the song '39' from A Night At The
Opera, we can barely notice the difference. They do not only have a
similar pitch, but their ranges are practically equal, with the difference
that Brian is not used to singing in falsetto, and Paul has the tendency
of forcing the voice to get to the high notes (just as Freddie did in his
moment), or of simply passing to falsetto (although
he favors the latter).
Roger Taylor has greater facility for the high tones, he has a great
falsetto voice. He is the one that produces the classical screams in the
choirs of Queen. Roger is the one that reaches the tones over the F5,
the High F, more easily. In the culminating part of the operatic section
in 'Bohemian Rhapsody', Roger produces the famous Bb5 in the
end.
Brian May, on the other hand,
has greater facility for the low tones than for the high ones; but when it
comes to speaking, he has the lightest pitch of the four members of Queen.
He does not possess a great vocal technique (though he does have a great
voice) and he forces the vocal cords a great deal to reach the high notes.
Along with Freddie, he performs the lowest notes in the most complex
harmonies ('The Fairy Feller' s Master - Stroke', 'Bohemian Rhapsody',
'Somebody To Love', 'The March Of The Black Queen').
The
unique and unrepeatable Freddie Mercury, is the only member of
Queen that participates in all the choirs, since he has some very
penetrating highs, and reaches good lows. He sings the low tones in 'Somebody
To Love', for example.
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