This may seem like a silly question, considering the complexity of a lot of their music, but I couldn't find a definitive answer. Could Freddie, John, Roger and Brian read music?
Many legendary musicians, such as The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix had little to no knowledge of music theory - I'm interested to know if any of the Queen members also fall into this category. Thanks!
Both Fred and Brian had to learn to sight-read in order to pass their piano exams. As to whether or not they preserved those skills after childhood, it's unlikely according to what they claimed themselves.
Roger was in a choir - now, choirs normally use sheet music for rehearsals and stuff, but there are plenty of members who never ever learn to read music properly in spite of that, Rog could easily have been one of them.
John, as far as I know, learnt to play the recorder in school - same story.
When composing and arranging vocal harmonies, Frederick was reportedly keener on jotting down the names of the notes rather than actually scoring them with crotchets and quavers and G- and F-clefs.
I remember Roger saying that when he writes music he doesn't see a reason to know names of the chords if the music is good enough. He can play the guitar so I would be surprised if the didn't know what E major or C minor means.
Brian said in some interview that he can read music although very slow. I think it was one of the recent interviews.
Freddie, when saying about LOML, "It was written for piano. I forgot that version already and if you ask me to play this on piano I wouldn't be able to do it. Sometimes I have to look into the sheet music" This is a quote from Georg Purvis' Queen The Complete Works but I have Polish version so I suppose it's not exactly how it was written.
John, I have no idea.
The 2nd part of question is actually extremely interesting! How much did they know about theory of music? Brian and Freddie had some interest in classical music and they said it many times. Looking on the music they created and how they arranged it they had to know some theory. How much? I'd love to know. I'm sure Freddie knew about a dominant seventh chord because he used in BoRhap between 1st and 2nd "To me" in the intro!
Sebastian wrote:
Both Fred and Brian had to learn to sight-read in order to pass their piano exams. As to whether or not they preserved those skills after childhood, it's unlikely according to what they claimed themselves.
Roger was in a choir - now, choirs normally use sheet music for rehearsals and stuff, but there are plenty of members who never ever learn to read music properly in spite of that, Rog could easily have been one of them.
John, as far as I know, learnt to play the recorder in school - same story.
When composing and arranging vocal harmonies, Frederick was reportedly keener on jotting down the names of the notes rather than actually scoring them with crotchets and quavers and G- and F-clefs.
Freddie could sight read,but he didn't need to,as most of his stuff was plucked from the air it seems.I am sure the Doctor could,as I remember an interview about Ga Ga in 1984 when Roger said he would 'have to ask Brian' about some of the complicated chord structure.John,of course,could easily read and compose.
jrd1951 wrote:
I am sure the Doctor could,as I remember an interview about Ga Ga in 1984 when Roger said he would 'have to ask Brian' about some of the complicated chord structure.
Understanding chord structure doesn't necessarily mean you can read, though. You can know that a G7 chord is the combination of G-B-D-F without knowing where to find those notes on a staff.
What I find fascinating is that the majority of people who have written most of the most beloved songs of the past 50+ years could barely read music, if at all. It's almost as if the technical side erodes away the creative side. The balance, like in most things, is somewhere in the middle.
I remember an interview where Freddie says something on the lines of that, when he had to play old songs, he would ask some dude who would have transcriptions of this old songs. Which confirms the fact that he was able to read music at late stages.
I wish I had the actual source, forgive me about that. And also about my terrible English, hehe.
I'm sure it's on record somewhere that Freddie had grade 4 piano, in which case he'd have been able to read music to a basic standard for these exams. I'm sure it's also on record that Brian passed his Grade 7 piano, in which case he'd be able to read music to a higher standard than Freddie. That is based purely on the piano exams and nothing else.
I'd be surprised if Roger and John couldn't read at least a basic melody line with chords above it, but I too remember the quote from Roger saying he doesn't know the names of complicated chords - I think he was referencing Radio Gaga in particular.
To be honest it doesn't matter whether they could read music or not. Yes the complexity of the guitar parts and the vocal harmonies suggest that there might be some study of counterpoint involved, but all of that stuff can also be done by ear. Remember, it took them quite a long time to make one album. The music isn't complicated when compared to the Well-tempered Clavier or the Art of Fugue, but it's more complicated than most rock music. They could have feasibly listened to their play-backs over and over and composed a 2nd, 3rd, 4th part harmony by ear in rehearsal mode.
Then, there's also a chance that they can all read music incredibly well and just choose not to let on for the sake of I dunno what. Rick Wakeman said that he thinks Freddie was better because he didn't have such a great knowledge of music theory. Yeah, tell that one to Mahler, Rick!
It's possible to have a decent knowledge of music theory without being able to read music.
You could have an excellent understanding of English language grammar without being able to read books...