INTERVIEW WITH DENES

A key aspect of this website is the inclusion of song analyses, which was deeply inspired by Denes' work on the same topic. I first run into his writings someday in 2001, when there was only Bicycle Race and I was surprised to see such a detailed commentary. One year later (more or less) a Song Analysis forum was opened and loads of interesting topics arose there.

This is the interview I made to Denes on 7th September 2006, published here with his kind permission:

- How did the Song Analysis Project occur to you?

The idea came from Alan W. Pollack's Beatles analyses which I've found on internet. I wished such articles would be written for Queen too, but there was none. I thought I'd never be able to write something like that and someone more competent should do it. There was no one else volunteering so I had to do it myself. I decided to use a template similar to that of Pollack's, in a less excessive style and level of detail. I had been reading his analyses and made the first prototype for Bicycle Race in March 2001, which afterwards turned out to be one of the hardest Queen songs to analyse.


- Was there any big surprise when you run through the songs, or things were more or less as expected?

There were plenty of them: major and minor ones as well. Many of these are executed too smoothly to notice without closer look. Interesting surprises for me were subtle cross-references between songs, rhythmical tricks, and finding songwriting trademarks for each four members.


- What's the most difficult part when you approach an analysis?

Rhythms often take me extra effort to transcribe. Ambiguous harmony (where you can't say what the key is) also makes me sweat sometimes. To interpret the harmony of predominantly modal/scalar music (Mustapha) is sometimes a complete disaster.


- Most musicians (including Roger Taylor himself) usually mention that music should be only listened to, and not written or commented about. What do you think about that?

Song analysis definitely does not make you enjoy music more. It's good for only fans and musicians who want to be informed about the compositional craftsmanship and creativity of the band.


- Besides The Beatles, there have been some musicological studies about Bruce Springsteen and Elton John. Do you think it's the beginning of people being more conscious that popular music can be as interesting and meticulously detailed as jazz/classical and that it's much more than putting together rhymes and catchy melodies?

There's a chain reaction going on started by loads of Beatles analyses. I am too a part of this chain reaction. It's a weird anomaly why did it take soooo long time to spread onto other major bands, like Queen. By the way many pop songs in songwriting point of view are indeed not much more than putting repetitive catchy melodies and rhymes together.


- Have you ever received negative critics about your project?

Not really. But positive feedbacks came also quite infrequently. Except 2-3 local forum posters and 2-3 guestbook messages I can't remember of anyone directly praising my efforts. It's a question of publicity I think.


- Which kind of preparation did you have for being able to make the analyses?

I have no PhD in music theory. As a kid I had basic formal training though: 1.5 years of piano playing, folk song analysis (in modal and phrasing point of view), and choir singing. For the song analysis I had to start my preparation from a near to zero level. Step by step I learnt the knowledge which is sufficient for this book. I also utilised my music transcribing experience. I have a relatively trained skill to recognise cliché chord progressions by first listen.


- I find that your research (and others like the aforementioned Beatles', Springsteen's and Elton's) can portray a big inspiration for many to try out other bands' analyses; personally, I remember posting my first (November Rain) some years ago in your forum, and for some months last year I was going to make a book about blink-182. As it happened to me, it's possible that some Stones, Metallica, Darkness, etc. fans or experts will start to make their own investigation projects about those bands. What would you recommend for the amateur analyst?

First you have to recognise it's not something hopeless to do. Song analysis surely takes some time to learn. When you're already into the analysis you should not threat ordinary songwriting features as something extraordinary. Do not say "wow" for an inverted chord, or some simple appoggiaturas. One has to be careful not drawing too deep consequences from the observations.


- Besides Queen and The Beatles, have you run through any other band's music profoundly? If so, which were your impressions?

Some of my overall impressions:

- Chart success and musical creativity are very loosely correlated.
- Long radio presence is somewhat more closely correlated with built in musical values.
- Repetitions are key elements of both catchy and boring songwriting.
- Many bands are underrated in terms of creativity.


- As it happens to most famous acts (e.g. Led Zeppelin), there are some emerging imitations and suddenly the press puts many (guilty or not) artists under the "copy" label. It happened to Queen of course, especially after Mercury died. Do you think that such bands have been unfairly accused of copying Queen, or did they do so for some extent?

Even the "original" bands were copying others much. Both Beatles and Led Zeppelin had very long list of incoming influences sometimes bordering to be classified as "rip off". As for Muse and Darkness I think that a song analysis would indicate much less influence from Queen than many expect.

- Something we both seem to share is the interest in songs that can be both sophisticated and accessible at the same time. Which one do you think was the first ever pop/rock masterpiece in that matter?

Combining catchy with sophisticated composing was already present in Classical Music. Think of the numerous classical tunes used as ringtones. As for the RnR era: it was a step by step evolution and after a certain number of steps it was not pop music anymore (for example A Day In The Life or even Innuendo despite its chart success). Of course we can point out some song that were more creative original or sophisticated on certain levels than the others.


- While we're at this point I might as well add: which do you think has been the last pop/rock masterpiece until this moment?

Local radio stations over here filter too much, and I don't watch musical TV channels, thus I'm not very familiar with current situation. There are plenty of catchy songs, plenty of mediocre ones, masterpieces I have not heard on the radio for ages. Writing sophisticated music is not trendy nowadays. The occurrence of a next Bohemian Rhapsody or Innuendo is something completely unexpected now.


- John Deacon's songwriting period covers a fifteen-year span and one song per year (sometimes two). I see that your analyses already include over half of his songs, giving you a very specific insight on his style. How would you describe his evolution from Misfire to My Life Has Been Saved?

Misfire was still a run-up song. But Best Friend was already a classic hit song. The others surely helped a lot. In the late seventies he had a short period of fingerpicking guitar songs. In the eighties he developed a modern funky/soul songwriting style always with strong contribution with Mercury. My Life Has Been Saved shows his more melodic style along with Friends Will Be Friends.


- You seem to be bothered by the loads of ill critics that many reviewers have attacked Queen with. Do you think those are a matter of ignorance (journalists not knowing anything about the subject they're judging) or prejudices (the homophobic factor)?

Unfortunately it used to be "cool" approach among reviewers (definitely under the influence of each others) to put down Queen especially in the US. Some arguments against Queen were just wrong. The creativity of the band is something you can feel and sense unconsciously even without reading any analyses. Little children and the fans of minimalist music genres are less affected by them, and also some reviews revealed that the author has poor sense for the musical values.

People lacking that skill IMHO should have chosen another hobby/profession instead of being music reviewers. There is a strong bias against pop music in favour to rock music (for less extent in the reviews about the sixties) which negatively affects many Queen reviews. I personally don't shame myself to claim that in musical point of view a well written pop song can be the same valuable than a well written rock song.


- Internet is sort of a double-edged sword when it comes to music research (or any kind for that matter); by one side, it allows interactivity, by the other, it's filled with mediocrity. That's one of the reasons why many people believe more strongly in books, even if they (theoretically) can have loads of errors. What would you recommend for readers to tell "good from bad" when they face a cyberspace or printed research?

A good source (for me at least) is informative. Pollack's template is informative. I read other analyses that provided almost no information of the form and functional harmony. Many analyses are strongly affected by bias. I hope my writings won't be so.


- Roger penned a large amount of songs, some incredibly different from one another, and undoubtedly there were some very good gems. Reportedly he sometimes didn't even know the names of some chords he put there. Do you think it demonstrates inspiration is the key to songwriting, or is appropriate knowledge more necessary?

Music theory knowledge is not necessary to write music. Similarly as you don't have to be familiar with grammatical analysis to be able to speak grammatically perfectly. I too had composed music (on a midi sequencer) years ago before and I didn't even know what key I was in, what chords I was using... Once I created a chromatic guitar riff in 10/8 (which I didn't notice back then) without knowing it's in odd metre and what does chromatic mean.


- Finally, before thanking you for your time and valuable answers, do you think your research (and/or those of the similar kind) can/should be part of a songwriter's manual?

There are loads of things that songwriters could learn from Queen. And also many that not. You cannot learn from Queen for example how to sequence a good drum and bass track. Many professional songwriters have the necessary craftsmanship, know 5-10 types of modulation, but when it comes to writing a good song, they usually fail. I managed to reveal the secret of the disorienting rhythms of some Queen songs, but it did not make me able to write one.