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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.
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