Queen - We Are The Champions Pt.2 - Solo - Guitar Lesson

About We Are The Champions Pt.2 - Solo

The guitar solo from "We Are The Champions Pt.2" puts you squarely in F major, and the challenge is less about speed than about phrasing and sustain. Brian May's style leans heavily on melodic bends, vibrato control, and a vocal quality that takes real patience to nail. Every note needs to sing, which means sloppy vibrato or rushed bends will undercut the whole thing. Getting the feel right is actually harder than getting the notes right. Use the Practice Toolbar to loop individual phrases slowed down, so you can hear exactly where each bend resolves and match your pitch carefully before bringing it back up to tempo. Queen built their guitar sound on layered parts and a very deliberate sense of dynamics, so treat each phrase as a complete musical statement rather than a run of notes to get through. Tone matters here too: a clean, slightly compressed sound with natural amp breakup will serve you far better than heavy distortion.

• The solo sits in F major, so knowing the F major pentatonic and natural minor patterns across the neck will give you the right vocabulary for the bends and runs.
• Brian May's signature vibrato is wide and controlled, applied from the wrist and arm together, and matching it is the central technical challenge of this solo.
• Looping the solo slowed down in the Practice Toolbar is especially useful here, as the phrasing has subtle rhythmic placement that is easy to miss at full speed.