“WHITE QUEEN (AS IT BEGAN)
Brian May / 4:37
Musicians
Freddie Mercury: lead vocals, backing vocals
Brian May: electric and acoustic guitars
John Deacon: bass
Roger Taylor: drums
Recorded
Trident Studios, London: August 1973
Technical Team
Producers: Queen, Roy Thomas Baker
Sound Engineer: Mike Stone”
“Brian May wrote “White Queen (As It Began)” at Imperial College when he was still a student.
Liking a girl in his class, Brian spent three years not daring to speak to her. He wrote this song inspired by her.
While he was writing, May was readingRobert Grave’s book The White Goddess, (Graves famed for I Claudius which became a BBC drama staring Derek Jacobi) which deals with the figure of women in art according to their social position, sometimes depicted as a virgin, a mother, or a queen.
Brian used a 1930s Hallfredh (hairfred) acoustic guitar which is set up to sound like a sitar
In the 1983 Guitar Player interview, Brian May explained how he had modified his Hallfredh: “I made it sound like a sitar by taking off the original bridge and putting a hardwood bridge on. I chiseled away at it until it was flat and stuck a little piece of fret wire material underneath. The strings just very gently lay on the fret wire and it makes that sitar-like sound.”
White Queen guitar lesson
No comments:
Post a Comment