10 INCREDIBLE Guitar Secrets In Rock Songs You Totally Missed
4. Brian May's Jazziness - Good Company
Brian May's guitar playing is as integral to Queen's sound as Freddie Mercury's voice. Throughout the band's tenure, May's use of different guitar harmonies made every single guitar solo sound like a mini symphony going on in your headphones. It was one thing for May to layer harmonies on top of each other, but when working on A Night At The Opera, his ambition grew even stronger.
When going through potential songs, the band started work on one of May's songs inspired by the Dixieland jazz bands he had heard as a kid. With its unusual chord changes and proper song structure, May knew that "Good Company" needed something more than just a traditional guitar solo. Instead of contributing a lyrical guitar phrase, the break in the middle of the song is the sound of May using countless guitar tracks to emulate the sound of a jazz band, from the brass section to the percussion ensemble.
Though any listener can pick out everything from a trombone sound effect to an assortment of bell sounds, you have to keep in mind that every single sound of that section is coming straight from May's amplifier. The solo may have been impossible to reproduce live, but with "Good Company" completed, Brian May had gone the extra mile to become one of rock and roll's most adventurous musical thinkers.