Brian May Killer Queen Isolated

Isolated tracks of Brian May's guitars and Freddie Mercury's vocals on the solo section of "Killer Queen".

[deluge]

I love how clearly you can hear May's technique. Especially his vibrato.

[cannibalaaron]

One of the greatest guitar tones in the history of rock

[leokimvideo]

The coin pick gives Brian a great individual sound

[michaellittlewood]

I'm still taken back that he made that guitar with his father. Magnificent.

[stanislavmigra]

I love how dirty it sounds in isolation and how perfectly it sits in the mix.

[wwemagazine]

"Brian May Killer Queen Isolated"

0:36 Freddie Mercury: "Nobody's gonna stop me, Honey"

[xD-hirv]

Fascinated with how he made that cat sound 0:38, timed with "playful as a pussycat"...so genius

[adamo]

How he harmonizes the two guitars over one another is sheer brilliance

[bossfan]

I believe that Brian never played a note he didn't intend to play. All of his solos, etc fit the songs so perfectly, and yet are not just boring scale variants. Like he spent weeks composing them.

[aydenburris]

The classical influence is so noticable in his guitar playing, it's amazing

[fauhwn]

i love how he kind of merges the guitars together, it sounds lovely like all of his solos

[mayorrodgers]

May’s sound is just so unique. With electric Guitar distortion can often hide mistakes. His setting is such that you can here is a pic attack extra clear. It’s like each note is “gritty”. A brilliant guitarist.

[wreedtipton]

did anybody other than me notice that there was two red specials at the end

[KRAZEEIZATION]

A very unique guitarist. Not only could he blast out big riffs, he also had the ability to do incredibly fiddly bits and glue them together with amazing harmonies. On record the guitar parts form a whole that sound unreal. Frank Zappa was asked in the mid 70s who he admired in the guitar world and he said Brian May was the only guy that was doing anything new with the instrument!

[arnesaknussemm]

Arguably the most distinctive guitar sound of them all.

[manman]

As a kid, years before I ever learned to play guitar, this solo and that amazing tone coming out of a tiny AM radio speaker just spoke to me. Still does. Easily in my top 5 fave solos of all time.

[motorwayt-s]

Damn I really love the Red Special's tone, I hope I can get my hands on 1 one day

[christophercowan]

pure metal head here and this is one of my all time favorite solo's!! Love the style and crispness.

[zurtle]

You can really hear the influence of Rory Gallagher on his tone with that snippet. Thank you!

[Casey-P-O]

I can't think of any guitarist that I love and respect more than Brian May, and I'm truly obsessed with guitar. I play for sometimes 5 hours every day, but usually 3 hours minimum.

I like guitar players who can shred and fusion guys. I even like punk, soul, and country guitarists. I've learned a lot of classical pieces from Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart, as well as a lot of jazz transcriptions I did for school. I learn from many guitarists of every style I can find (I highly recommend doing this, even if you don't love the genre) and I love to push myself to get better and better.

That being said, Brian May's guitar parts aren't very complicated to play. They aren't extremely hard to learn or anything, but they're perfect. Learning his guitar parts can be extremely valuable, in my opinion. I really respect the way he composes and plays. He's all about melody and harmony and playing with intention and feel. He's super expressive and original. He's got his own sound and it's amazing. Everything he plays seems like it belongs in the song and he doesn't do too much. It's basically perfection lol