Handling of forces

• Sung by Freddie Mercury - tenor

• Lead/backing vocals, piano, electric guitars, honky tonky, bass guitar, drum kit

• Guitar techniques: slides, bends, pull offs, vibrato

• Recording techniques: overdubbing, reverb, panning

• Killer Queen in verse-chorus form

Melody

• Text is syllabic

• Backing vocalists use mixture of word e.g., bar 8 (ooh, ah)

• Melody starts mostly conjunct wit small leaps of thirds or fourths

• Altered descending sequences (bar 7-8) - Verse and chorus combine both conjunct and wide angular leaps in melodic line

• Leaps often feature a rising major sixth (bar 6-7), however there are some anomalies (octave leap bar 62)

Texture

• Main texture homophonic

• Use of imitation (70-80 “wanna try? You wanna try?)

• Use of layering

• Three part texture during guitar texture

• Use of panning (42 - backing vocals “ba, ba, ba, ba, anytime”)-

• Antiphonal (more than one group of instruments of voices (67-8 “she’s all out to get you)

Harmony and Tonality

• The song is in Eb major

• Song opens in C minor and ends in Eb major.

• Tonality of the song is at time quite ambiguous

• Many passing modulations within the piece strengthened with perfect cadences but contrasted by parallel shifts to new keys

• Majority of chords are in root position, with some being in second or third inversions

• Use of dissonance (bar 30 “spoke just like a baroness”)

• Seventh chords (bar 8)-

• Circle of fifths (bar 20-1 “insatiable an appetite”)

• Use of altered/extended chords (F11 chord guitar solo bar 47)-

• Use of pedal (27-30 “she never kept the same address”)

Tempo, Rhythm, Metre

• Moderato tempo of 112 dotted crotchet bpm

• Time signature is 12/8 with compound quadruple time

• Swung feel to the song

• Occasional inserts of 6/8 bars to extended phrases

• Every verse/chorus features an anacrusis (upbeat)

• Frequent uses of syncopation (16 “gunpowder, gelatine”)

• Use of triplets (18 “guaranteed to blow your mind”)