I am not sure whether Freddie ever took vocal technique lessons. But as far as I know, he never declared having taken lessons overtly. What we do know is that while in India, he was part of the school choir, which must have given him quite a lot of experience; and I imagine that during that period he was most likely to have learnt some vocal techniques. If this was not the case, Freddie´s voice was a natural gift. Undoubtedly, the fact that he took piano lessons since he was a kid must have helped him acquire a fine musical sense and, thus, it must have helped him at the time of singing as well.

    We can say that Freddie Mercury always had a very light voice, even for a tenor. I know of very few masculine singers with high timbres such as that of Freddie´s (One of them is Jeff Buckley, another extraordinary singer). But it is also true that the voice undergoes changes throughout the years. Freddie´s voice had always been high, but towards the end of his career, it gradually became harder and lower .

    That is why I am dividing his vocal history in three main periods; the first one goes from 1972 till 1974 ( The first three albums); the second period comprises the years 1975 through 1980; the third and last, from 1980 to 1991.

    Before recording his first album like Queen, Freddie took part in two tracks. One of them was called "Goin' Back", and the other was "I Can Hear Music". In these two songs, his voice was much too high. He sang with his chest and head registers with too high a timbre for a man. When listening to it for the first time, it is very hard to tell it is the voice of a man. In "Goin´Back", he sings mostly over the F4, while in "I Can Hear Music" , the key note is a G4. His voice almost sounds like a woman´s. In the following albums, he keeps a very light timbre.

    In the album called Queen, the songs that clearly show this tendency are "Liar", "Doing All Right", "The Night Comes Down" and "My Fairy King"

    In Queen ll this high timbre becomes more noticeable. Clear examples of this are the songs "White Queen", "The Fairy Feller´s Master Stroke", "Nevermore", "The March of the Black Queen", "Funny how love is" and "Seven Seas of Rhye".

    In Sheer Heart Attack, his voice becomes a little lower (just a tone, or one tone and a half), which does not mean that he now sings low; he still keeps a tendency towards the high tones. The songs "Killer Queen" ("Brighton Rock" does not count because it is sheer falsetto), "In the Lap of the Gods" (Please note that in this song, the main track with Freddie´s voice has a rather behind tempo in a relation of 1.00 to 0.80. If you have at hand some digital audio edition program, (I used Steinberg Nuendo) you can accelerate it and you will notice the difference), "Lily of the Valley" and "In the Lap of the Gods…Revisited" you can clearly feel this tendency. In "Lily of the Valley" Freddie shows a little of his vast vocal range, getting from B2 to C5.

    In the following records, from A Night at the Opera to The Game, his voice appears to have stabilized a little. There are no songs now in which he makes use of too light or too low a timbre. In spite of this he still has a tendency towards an almost feminine timbre in various tracks, such as "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Love of my Life", "You Take my Breath Away", "Good old-fashioned Lover Boy, "The Millionaire Waltz", "Seaside Rendezvous", "My Melancholy Blues" and "Play The Game".

    If we come to look at it in detail, we can appreciate that the songs in which he uses a higher timbre than usual are all compositions of his. We can deduce from this that the other members of the group do not want Freddie to distort his voice to sing the songs they have composed.

    From The Game on, Freddie´s voice becomes harder and much lower. But this fact does not prevent him from reaching the high tones. I am not sure whether this has to do with his change in appearance or way of thinking, but from that album on, Freddie drops that tendency of singing permanently in falsetto to try and reach the highest tones with his full voice.

    But as his voice has been getting lower and lower throughout the years, he finds it harder than before. This leads us to think that while his voice was becoming lower, he made extra efforts to sing in those high tones. This is perfectly well demonstrated in "Another One Bites The Dust", where he sings relatively low in almost all the first stanza, to start singing one octave higher then, now, with head voice. In the part that says "…out of the doorway the bullets rip…" he is already shouting with all his strength, and gets to one of the highest notes he has ever sung in all his career, which is an E5. You can listen to a segment of this song in the Highest and Lowest Notes section.

    In the coming albums, Freddie´s voice reaches the lowest point. It is in this period where Fred dares reach almost impossible notes with his chest or head register, though in every case he does so by shouting.

    In the album The Works, he does this in the track "It´s A Hard Life", "I Want to Break Free" and "Keep Passing the Open Windows". Simultaneously, he comes back to a lighter timbre in "Is This the World We Created".

    In the album called A Kind of Magic, you can appreciate Freddie´s new tendency, which is that of using much less falsettos and reaching the highest notes with his most resonant register, losing sweetness on the way, but winning power and volume. This is particularly noticeable in almost all the songs, like, for example "One Vision", "A King of Magic", "One Year of Love", "Princes of the Universe", "Friends Will Be Friends" and "Who Wants to Live Forever". In "Pain Is So Close to Pleasure" he resorts back to the falsetto, using it in almost all the song.

    Such is the tendency in The Miracle. Except for a few passages done in falsetto, he makes use of his most resonant register throughout the album. "I Want it All", "Breakthru", "Rain Must Fall", "The Miracle", "Kashoggi’s Ship", and "Scandal" are examples of this. In "Hang On In There" and "Was It All Worth It", Freddie reaches the second highest note with his head voice, an E5.

    Innuendo is to be dealt with separately. This album puts all the tendencies together. In some songs like "Don’t Try So Hard", he sings almost all the song in falsetto and light head voice. In "This Are The Days of Our Lives", he sings with a bit lighter timbre than in the rest of the songs, but this is due to the fact that the song requires a sweeter voice. "I’m Going Slightly Mad" is sung in too low a tone for Freddie, possibly the lowest since "Another One Bites The Dust"; the same issue with "Ride The Wild Wind". "Innuendo" and "The Show Must Go on" are two intelligent cocktails that posses both sweet and powerful voices. In "Innuendo", he reaches the third highest note with his head voice during his career with Queen, an Eb5, but this is not the only time he does this; he also reaches it in "Let’s Turn it On", "The Hitman" and "All God's People". "All God's People" is a vocal marvel. Freddie reaches his highest notes in this song: C5, D5, Eb5, E5, and a career-high F5.

    All in all, this has been a general panorama of what Freddie Mercury’s voice was during his 21- year- long career with Queen.