Brian May Explains Guitar, Sixpence, Phase & Cello Tone and Echoplex Delay Originally broadcast in 1978 with DJ Mike Read as part of the Pop Quest TV programme
@@RicCrouch Yeah, and he is a great example of both scientific knowledge and exquisite artistry in a beautiful mix. He knows his techie stuff 100% and then uses it to let the guitar sing!
4:25 You can see the disappointment in Brian's face when the presenter tells him they’ve ran out of time. Because he surely wanted to do a demo of the delays and thought he wouldn’t be able to. Then at 4:31 you can see the massive relief of Brian with that smile and laugh when the presenter tells him to do the demo.
Absolute genius on display for all to see. My Dad got to hobnob with Brian when Queen stopped into our home town around 1980-1981 (it was either "Jazz" or "News of the World" they were touring for), and Brian just happened into the venue where my Dad's band at the time was playing. After the set he moseyed on into the closet that was the dressing room and just sat and hung out with them. The following night, everybody had guest list status and backstage passes, and Dad always said that Brian was one of the friendliest, most charming, and pleasant "rock star" types he ever met. He and Roger were the outgoing ones and Freddie and Deaky were the quiet ones, according to him. How's that for cool?
We got to hang out with him around that time. Queen was one of my absolute favorite bands and it gave me the greatest joy to get to spend time asking questions about music and life. He is genuinely as bright, thoughtful, and engaging as he seems to be. He's the real deal!
That is very cool indeed. Brian May is cool. He always seems a genuinely humble nice bloke that built a guitar with his dad, formed a band that wrote some of the best rock songs that will never date. Oh and and he's an incredible guitarist. I play and can play some of his stuff note for note but I still sound nothing like him. And therein lies the genius of the guy👍
Brian wrote a book , complete with schematics, about how he and his father , an electrical engineer, built his guitar. Brian is a very blessed man to have a father like that...must say I'm kinda jealous. From an enthusiastic youth to respected musician and Ph.D. astrophysicist.
I heard in an interview that despite the bands successes, world touring, radio plays etc. that his father still never really took it all that seriously until he saw the band in person at Madison Square Garden and that's when he got it.
Where Ed was always content with “good enough”, Brian was always compelled to actually make things work with precision and make the most of the whole instrument.
EVH? Is that a joke? To put Brian May and Tom Scholz together in the same sentence and engineering context as EVH is shameful. The quality, precision, know-how, design, innovation, talent, etc. of May and Scholz, in an engineering capacity, exceed Eddie by an incredibly extreme amount. It’s like lumping together Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, and your middle school science teacher together as a peer group of physicists. Eddie’s aggressive, drunken, drug-addled tinkering was grade school level at its absolute best. Void of purpose, absent of skill, and a vast majority of the time, detrimental in effect.
His home made guitar has served him rather well!! The notes he played were straight from some of those early Queen albums, and then he launches into a bit of Brighton Rock live version solo to demo the delay effect. Fantastic insight.
I know, right? Poor kid had to make his own guitar and effects because he couldn't afford to get the store bought ones! I hear he make a few pounds playing music somewhere.
I think Mike Read is a great interviewer. He was respectful, and let Brian speak. He also seemed genuinely interested in what was being said. Too many interviewers are there for themselves, and too far up there own posteriors!!
Queen was my first ever gig at age 8 ! They toured Australia in 84 and I went with my Aunty , I knew who they were but didn't really know many songs I can still remember the smell, the heat and how loud it all was. Glad I got to see Freddie and John play , but I wish I was just a few years older as I became a mega fan in my teens My second gig which I also went to with my Aunty was Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. My Aunt loved showing me music and would watch me as my little brain took it all in. It worked as I have been a music teacher on and off for most of my adult life.
@@TigerGreene Cheers! My Aunty may have taken photos but people didn't really care about photos and videos back then , people LIVED the experience. I will NEVER understand people who buy a ticket to a show to stand there holding a cellphone in the air ???
It's just so cool how he's initially just futzing around, just bits and pieces of generally unremarkable samplings of his gear and stylings, then out of nowhere it's full Brian effing May and you hear every genuine signature bit of his sound in symphony. Awesome.
Brian may is insane, this man is an astrophysicist who built his own guitar and was the guitarist for arguably the biggest band in the world, not to mention his godly music ability to gel notes together like glue.
Awesome video, I can’t seem to get enough of Brian’s educating skills along with his out of this world playing while melding with the red lady ! 🎸❤️✨Thanks James!
Fabulous! Brian May is such a modest guy, considering what a fabulous virtouso he is.. Then there's the astrophysics on top! A multiplex polymath and a nice person all in one.. Very rare. 🌟🎶🌜🌟👍
Brian makes my heart smile. A fellow astronomer, a guitarist and a fan of heavy rock. The Echoplex playing is one of my all time favourite guitar sounds.. now even more fun with digital fx pedals.
Jim Burns used this circuitry way back on his 1962 Vibra Artiste DeLuxe guitar all three Burns Tri Sonic pickups were wired in series as on Brian May's guitar but he used only three 3way toggle switches instead of six 2way slide switches. A much more elegant solution. Burns vibrato (or tremelo if you prefer) units were also very advanced and well engineered.
Brian has always been very appreciative of modern guitarist's , were it was from the 80s up til now & has done some of his own descriptions of certain lead guitarists like Nuno Nuno Bettencourt as just one & he was very vocal with regards to his praise towards Nuno... I think it was the " Extreme " bands song " Get The Funk Out " & how he praised Nuno's ability to keep taking his solo higher & higher & for a very gifted humble man but he forgets that he was & still as innovative guitar player... That's shows you the respect when he praises modern guitarist's , as without being disrespectful many can be too full of themselves & it's refreshing to here someone like Brian who was refreshing in his praise of fellow lead guitarists that has seen the baton past on to them & they have played with a certain amount of restraint so they weren't classed as shredders... There's no doubt shredders of the lead guitar are amazing but that only really works Live as the lead guitar , like the bass guitar & other instruments should always serve the song or it gets too busy & then you miss the part when the solo from the lead guitarists become bogged down & cluttered by over indulgence by a lead guitarist but thankfully many over the many decades have known not to get carried away in their own little world... The lead guitarists can easily fit into a specific song & with the right guitarist it can become an amazing song but a small percentage ruined their solo's by forgetting that a great solo also needs to serve the song... There's an amazing rendition with Brian May/Steve Vai/Nuno Bettencourt & greats of the lead guitar playing " Bohemian Rhapsody " with predominantly all lead guitarists that I'd be here all night typing who is in it this rendition of " Bohemian Rhapsody " Yes there's a piano playing along with a drummer & bassist that enter into this instrumental of " Bohemian Rhapsody " & it shows us how much " Bohemian Rhapsody " has inspired so many to pick up & play an instrument that suits them... Within this upload there's no vocals as Nuno & the other guitarists play where the vocals would be & in itself its an amazing piece of music that clearly gives a nod & praise to such an iconic cult song that is " Bohemian Rhapsody " & Brian clearly was a main ingredient within that song & many others... Like what many comments have said & that was Brian too was on another level as a guitarist but to build your own guitar with the help of your father that doesn't sound like any other lead guitar then & now is on yet another level & the distance sounds Brian can get with his guitar shows us that his guitar is a one in a million with regards to the sounds only that guitar can deliver & it became another reason as to why " Queen " become one of the biggest bands in the world as each member brought something new to their whole collective & they game us song's that will never ever be forgotten...
That 1st glimpse of the phase pedal caught my attention. At the end of the clip they show it clearly - i HAVE that exact Roto-Phase in the basement! Now I gotta dig it out. Never really played with it!
I'm pretty sure this was 1976, around the time of A Day At The Races...during that time the guitar playing of Brian was garnering a considerable amount of interest. I read an interview with Freddie years later and he was talking about this time period and how Brian's popularity eclipsed everyone else in the band. '75-'78 were the years of nifty guitar solos...listen to any of the hit pop/rock songs of that time and they all had one. Brian May was THE guitar god for a while...then Eddie Van Halen showed up (April '78 debut album) and the era of the speed shredder was born.
What a soft-spoken and well-mannered person Mr. May is. Somehow, even though Freddie was a musical genius and a shining star on stage, I liked Brian better.
It's admirable that he's so musically intelligent, and a genius in the Science world, but still he keeps his guitar playing accessible and enjoyable. When he could be endlessly, mathematically noodling like those Joe Satriani type players.
I'm always disappointed when people feel the need to put down other musicians just to raise another one up. It's fine if Satriani isn't your cup of tea, but I don't see any reason to tarnish his skill and accomplishments because of that.
@@MrBromansa I disrespected Satriani because I'm pure EVILL!! Actually I was just comparing a melodic soloist vs a technical soloist. I needed an example or the comparison woulda been boring.
@@chrisandrew6633 Okay, but why Satriani? He's more than capable of doing melodic solos ("Always with Me, Always with You") - Yngiew Malmsteen would've been a better a choice for you. I still dislike putting down other technical guitar players like Yngwie or Tosin Abasi (the latter of whom I vastly prefer for his skill and melodic facility), but your point would've been more salient if you had.
Brian is another like Les Paul and Eddie Van Halen, an innovator coming up with ways and using effects he's come up with that nobody else thought of, id call him a musical genius just like Les and Eddie and Hendrix, not many of those but they are extremely important to the rest of us non genius folk.
As a guitarist and with Brian being one of my influences and favourite players.... I'm sure I'm not the only player who gasped and loved how he played up to a fifth on one fretted note! And how big is that echolex tape loop. Great stuff. Great post and clip.
he wound his own pickups too. no one else could get his tone until he released a commercial version. a genius in so many ways. astrophysicist too as if being one of the best guitarists of all time wasn't enough!
@@carolramsey6287 well, yes and no. Yes, he and his father did initially make their own pickups, but weren't happy with how they turned out, so they then got the Tri-Sonics.
there is nothing as satisfying as building something yourself and then using it for its purpose. the younger generation is missing out on the joy of tinkering around with stuff --- building a coffee table out of pallet wood, or growing your own food and canning it, or just taking apart an old tv and looking at the parts inside.
