Based on your own experience, is Bohemian Rhapsody hard to do on the piano?
Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the most difficult pieces to play on the piano. It was not even known by all members of Queen until Brian May and Roger Taylor started working on it. But they knew that the song had to be performed live in some form or another.
Brian said, “When we did it live for the first time I think people really didn’t know what they were listening to, because there was no piano track on our album.” The song ended up being played at every concert with different keys and tempos because its performance required so much stamina from Brian and Roger that they could not do it live without having a backup plan in case something went wrong during the performance. As for myself, I love playing this piece because of its versatility which means you can play it in many different ways depending on your skill level.
This is what always gets me when I play Bohemian Rhapsody.
I am very bad at counting all of those little notes that you see in circled in pencil. I have not been able to play this section correctly since I printed out the sheet music in May.
This, however, may not be a problem for you. For me, it is the most difficult part of the song. Top of off with a different rhythm going on in the bass clef.
Other than that, I think it is a fairly easy song to learn, and it is even more easy if you know what it sounds like prior to learning it.
Go for it.
- Julie Perkerson
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Vid Cuddihy
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Been playing the keyboard in front of audiences for over 30 years.
I have no idea who wrote the arrangement in Stevie Pulliam ‘s answer. So I can’t comment on that. Playing what Freddy Mercury played on the album is not all that difficult to a trained player. There are only a couple of strange parts:
- The crossover – Freddy played the upper octaves at the beginning using a crossover technique. Not so easy to strike that clean, especially if you stand on stage instead of sitting.
- The walk-up. There is an octave walk-up at about 4:50 that can be tricky if you tend to play the song faster when live.
- The key changes. The different parts of the song switch in and out of different keys. That can throw a ‘feel’ player like myself, but if one was playing from sheet music, it shouldn’t be a problem.