I would say Pain Is So Close To Pleasure (not the solo of course). Maybe the clean rhythm of Friends Will Be Friends is John in his black Telecaster. There's also a kind of clean riff in Don't Lose Your Head which I think sounds more like a Strat than the Red Special. Hence it must be john since Brian said he always used the RS except for Long Away and Crazy Little Thing.
Interesting, but I recall reading a quote where Brian protested the Telecaster because he could make the sounds on his Red Special and have them sound similar.
Any thought into that?
"Hence it must be john since Brian said he always used the RS except for Long Away and Crazy Little Thing"
Or what about Roger then? Maybe he played on Don't Lose your Head
Thanks Sebastian! I can't imagine where he can plays else except PISCTP and FWBF. But what for is Lynton Naiff (strings on "One Year of Love")? Their sleeves from the 80s says not so many! I still don't know if John and Roger plays on Who Wants To Live Forever, because of Orchectra.
Serry Funster wrote: Thanks Sebastian! I can't imagine where he can plays else except PISCTP and FWBF. But what for is Lynton Naiff (strings on "One Year of Love")? Their sleeves from the 80s says not so many! I still don't know if John and Roger plays on Who Wants To Live Forever, because of Orchectra.
yes, from 2:08 to 3:50 there is drums, but I don't think there is any bass guitar, except the left hand of the synth, and the orchestra.
Drums can be by the orchestra's percussionist. Still Roger sings backing vocals, so he is there, either singing & playing, or just singing. John didn't participate. Unless he played one of the synths which would be very weird considering Brian already played the main one, and in the case he didn't want to play the other he would get Freddie or Spike to do it
As for Don't Lose Your Head: yeah theoretically Roger could also play one of the rhythm parts, but he isn't credited.
All these things with synth are so mystic, actually... I'm not a musican and have never try to listen SUCH carefully to Queen music, but I can say when Freddie plays piano and when Brian (they have different styles), but about John and Roger...... Can you name tracks where we can clearly hear the style of Roger's and John' synth playing?
about the "john plays keys" thing:
i might be wrong but i think it is John playing You're my best friend on electric piano (which is not even a good Fender Rhodes)
Rogers keyboard playing is hard to find - even on his own records (Fun in space f.e.) David Richards played at least 50% of the synths there (and it was quite usual he did that on Queens stuff too, f.e. see Scandal, where he plays the bass sample)
So Roger and keyboards.... is not quite clear.... he used to do the drum midi-programming, but thats another chapter
This is something I supposed. Roger and John made programmed playing, but not playing in the usual meaning, that's why I asked about their styles. For me it's very hard to imagine how Roger is playing on any keyboards (and Brian on drums, though on 'FBI', as I remember, he did it)! And sometimes I can't understand why they (Queen) invited session keyboard-players - Freddie and Brian could do all work...
Brian wasn't a keyboard player per se. He was a guitarist who could play piano. But he couldn't handle really hard work as the intro of Death On Two Legs, for instance. The additional keyboardist thing could have been because the songwriter wanted it that way or because Fred wasn't present at that session. And if the recorded part is already good, why cange it
Drums in FBI are programmed. As far as I know Brian didn't play drums, he just programmed them. He did play some bass though.
John apparently wrote several songs in the piano. Best Friend has very simple patterns indeed.
Well, I don't think reason was just in present of Freddie at the studio, because then they could use session drummers, bass players etc., it's maybe just because of different piano playing technique - Fred Mandel's and Freddie's were totally various. But when they used someone to play keyboards on Hammer To Fall - it's really seems unclear for me...
I think there's a lot of famous incorrects by Fan Club. Jacky wrote me that John involved in Who Wants To Live Forever record session, 'like woman or violin' from 'Leaving Home Ain't Easy' sounds were SINGING by Roger (through sampler of course), and Roger sung for 'machine' at 'Back To Humans' and chorus background 'hey hey hey' in 'Ride The Wild Wind', but actually I can hardly say who's singing those 'hey-heys', so there are many things to still work on.
Judging from the way John's hands looked in the "Spread Your Wings" video, I seriously doubt he played piano in "You're My Best Friend" or anywhere else. Maybe something very, very simple.
Farlander wrote: Judging from the way John's hands looked in the "Spread Your Wings" video, I seriously doubt he played piano in "You're My Best Friend" or anywhere else. Maybe something very, very simple.
John (1977): "Freddie didn’t like the electric piano, so I took it home and I started to learn on the electric piano and basically that’s the song that came out of the thing when I was learning to play it. It was written on that instrument and it sounds best on that. You know, often on the instrument that you wrote the song on."