Hi, is it confirmed that Roger played -ALL- the drums on the studio version, or was it actually part of the orchestra section by( Michael Kamen /Brian May/National Philharmonic Orchestra) ? Maybe bits and pieces of the drums played/arranged by the orchestra/ Kamen/May ?
Thanks in advance.
Sebastian · Member since
Whether it's 'confirmed' or not is definitely not an absolute matter as there's no way to know for sure (other than, say, footage of the original recordings, and even then one could quibble that they could've been staged). Evidence is prone to different margins of error, including (in fact, chiefly) witness testimonies, as people's memories can easily fail or play tricks on them.
Queen scholar Philipp Nothaft dissected the song quite well and wrote an article about it here: http://www.queensongs.info/studio/who-wants-to-live-forever.html
Now, considering he wrote that roughly 12-14 years ago and he only had the album, single and video versions to work with (that was even before the DTS mixes), it's both a great piece of research but also liable to have some understandable errors. For instance, IIRC, the final chorus has a three-part harmony (DTS tracks show them rather clearly). Phillip also assumes the computer drums were the first thing that were recorded together with the synth ... well, they may well have been, or not... it's like saying the song was recorded on 17th November 1985: a shot in the dark through and through.
Anyway, up until anyone comes up with a better analysis, I think his is by far the best... and yeah, according to him, percussion's split between Roger, a computer, and whoever was part of the NPO line-up at the time.
musicland munich · Member since
Very interesting Link and a informative read ! Thank you Sir :)
