UPDATE! Just made a video play-through of this arrangement, check it out:

Queen is getting a new generation of fans via the Bohemian Rhapsody movie, and as a music teacher I couldn’t be happier! Their music is full of interesting quirks and complexities and is fun to learn and play.

After learning some of their easier songs (Another One Bites The Dust, Crazy Little Thing Called Love) with one acoustic guitar playing student, she proposed tackling Bohemian Rhapsody! It seemed a bit daunting at first, but we got through it over a few lessons, and here’s what we ended up with.

As a piano-based ballad, many of the chords don’t lend themselves to easy guitar fingerings, but nevertheless it is possible to strum through this song. Most of the guitar transcriptions online either focus on nailing Brian May’s lead electric guitar lines, or they are tricky arrangements of the melody + chords + fingerpicking for solo guitar; I’m not really sure if a good chord chart for this song exists. So here’s my best shot at it!

The voicings in TAB are just suggestions: there is no chordal guitar in the original throughout most of the song, so these are suggested voicings that could work well on acoustic guitar in particular. Ignoring the suggested guitar voicings in the tabs and reading the chord symbols at the top, this chart could also be used as a lead sheet for piano or any other chordal instrument.

This YouTube video by David Bennett was extremely useful in helping to figure this out. Anyone interested in the music theory behind “Bohemian Rhapsody,” it’s a great watch!

Click to download PDF: Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody (Rhythm Guitar Arrangement / Chordal Lead Sheet)