Don't know if this subject has come up before, and I know Freddie is credited with keyboards on The Miracle, Innuendo and The Miracle; but is he really playing them? It doesn't seem like his style...and sounds more like synths instead of actual piano. Anyone know? Thanks.
Piano (in the sense of acoustic grand, electric or digital) was each time less used and mostly it was used as overdub or for sound reinforcement (e.g. 'The Miracle' song, 'Delilah').
Of course Freddie still was the main keyboardist, but his compositions weren't piano-based anymore. What a pity.
Show - No. It was Brian (using a DX-7).
Beautiful Day - Just the piano is Freddie (recorded in 1980); synths/samplers are most likely programmed by the other three plus David Richards. The oboe part was John's idea.
The Miracle - Freddie indeed.
Surely during the '80s keyboards progressively took the place of piano in Freddies composing framework, according also to the new 'fashion' of '80s music.
The only real exception would be the Barcelona album, which was clearly conceived around a piano. (Songs like Guide me Home or How can I go on could have been some of Freddie's best traditional ballads on a Queen album).
Some of MIH's tracks were taken from old recordings or also solo recordings (Made in Heaven and Born to Love you from Mr. Bad Guy, so here it was Freddie playing the piano). I'm quite sure that it isn't Freddie playing the few chords of Heaven for everyone.. while I keep asking myself what about 'let me live'. The beginning is quite in Freddie's style... but what about the whole song?
:-)
Other interesting question would be... how many song did actually Freddie write himself for The Miracle and Innuendo..?
Guide Me Home and the others in the Barcelona album have piano by Mike Moran, not Freddie.
Let Me Live is completely Freddie's style.
Songs Freddie wrote or co-wrote in Miracle or Innuendo: All of them!, except for Scandal, I Want It All, Invisible Man, Headlong, I Can't Live With You, Days Of Our Lives, Ride The Wild Wind and Show Must Go On. All the post-Innuendo tracks are written or co-written by Mercury too.
I'd definately say Let me live was freddie - his style completely.
His style on the pianso was basic compared to preffessional pianists - but he was unique - like he'd throw in a weird note and change the key so that more than made up for the simplicity of his piano playing compared to say someone like mike moran!
That's why i love playing his music - it's easy relatively speaking but has such an impact, cos it's so dramatic.
The guy that invented keyboards shud be shot - piano rules and pity freddie didn't play more in the later days - i mean on innuendo the only piano played by freddie is basically one or two notes on track 9.
kinda sad really
Sebastian,where you the creator/owner of the "Bechstein Debauchery" with detailed info about intruments Queen used in studio? that was a great site, to bad it's down...
The advent of keyboards in the 80s as the main source of work in later albums, reduced Freddies playing. Thats why I like the Barcelona album so much - its back to Freddie playing again.
On the Classic Albums series, Roger was talking about Freddie's skill as a musician, which he felt was always overlooked because of his vocal and showman skills. He said Freddie was a wonderful musician, but in the 80s, he doubted his ability as a pianist and played less and less.
> The advent of keyboards in the 80s as the main source of work in later albums, reduced Freddies playing.
He didn't reduce his playing on synths, but he did on piano. If they hadn't had Spike and the others, probably Fred would have spent half of the concerts playing synth in a similar way that he spent half of Jazz tour gigs playing piano.
> Thats why I like the Barcelona album so much - its back to Freddie playing again.
Freddie doesn't play there, it's Mike Moran :)
> I heard that the ending of Let Me Live was taken off from another song which was recorded around the same time
Very interesting point. Do you know anything else about it?