DT Music analysis

[obaybol]

Good day,

I'm a fan of DT. and trying to study thier musical compositions from all aspects.
ie Scales, modes, Chord progressions, Song structure, progressive elements, etc ..
and I signed here for this mainly, unfortunatly I found NOTHING like this here.

I've done some analysis on there work and of course I've read the Octavarium and Metropolis pt.2 Analysis.
but I've also done some other songs, and parts of songs sometimes.

do you know any topic in this forum discussing any DT's song musically ?

and who is ready to do some analysis as well?
I'm intending to do that.

Ubai

[cthrubuoy]

I'm sure if you start the discussion you'll find many people will join in.

[wolfking]

Good day,

I'm a fan of DT. and trying to study thier musical compositions from all aspects.
ie Scales, modes, Chord progressions, Song structure, progressive elements, etc ..
and I signed here for this mainly, unfortunatly I found NOTHING like this here.

I've done some analysis on there work and of course I've read the Octavarium and Metropolis pt.2 Analysis.
but I've also done some other songs, and parts of songs sometimes.

do you know any topic in this forum discussing any DT's song musically ?

and who is ready to do some analysis as well?
I'm intending to do that.

Ubai

Welcome.  If you state some of your discoveries, I'm sure many of us music heads will join in.

[Jamesman42]

Good day,

I'm a fan of DT. and trying to study thier musical compositions from all aspects.
ie Scales, modes, Chord progressions, Song structure, progressive elements, etc ..
and I signed here for this mainly, unfortunatly I found NOTHING like this here.

I've done some analysis on there work and of course I've read the Octavarium and Metropolis pt.2 Analysis.
but I've also done some other songs, and parts of songs sometimes.

do you know any topic in this forum discussing any DT's song musically ?

and who is ready to do some analysis as well?
I'm intending to do that.

Ubai

Get it started. I'll contribute to discussion when I can.

[Amoniz]

I'm up for it,
it will be a great discussion.

[hefdaddy42]

Yeah, looks like it's been great thus far.

[Jarlaxle]

[wolfking]

[Adami]

Mmmmm  pizza.

[juice]

Welcome to the forum!

[darkshade]

  since no one started on any one specific thing ill start, but i dont want to go into many details of chords, scales, modes, etc than non-musicians wont understand.

WDADU...... whatever, they liked Maiden and Rush a lot. you can figure it out. LaBrie wasnt there yet, and the band had a lot of growing to do.

I&W and Awake are considered by some the 2 best albums by the band. they were young and oozing with creativity. i know ive seen an interview where Petrucci said "back then, we kinda constructed a lot of the songs by mixing lots of different styles, sometimes in one song.) whereas later albums, he said they tried to be more focused on each songs' sound, a sign of musical maturity. clearly it was a great thing to do and no one could imagine those songs otherwise (im sure not every song was "lets play every style of music in one song" of course) but the eclecticism of those 2 albums are what keeps bringing me back to those albums (for the most part)

obviously FII was tampered with and we know that the album could have been a lot different, but for what it was, it was very good, but thankfully it didnt continue

Looking at SFAM, SDOIT, and ToT it's easy to see they were still working off the energy that the Liquid Tension Experiment sessions brought back to the band (IMO LTE is a crucial moment in the band's history) it kicked started their creative juices and that's why SFAM and SDOIT are heralded as 2 of their greatest albums (and ToT not as much, probably for dipping into the excess of the previous 2 albums, and the heaviness of it.)

i find it interesting that their sound has gradually gotten darker on the last few albums. i mean, Awake was dark, but there were plenty of more uplifting moments, and also plenty of rockin' out (6:00 in particular) There's lots of mood on the album, and i think some people mistake this for darkness. i find Octavarium and particularly SC and BC&SL much darker than Awake (ToT is just really heavy, not dark) Octavarium saw a change in the band's direction, though when it was the new album of the the time, i thought the band was going to go in a more symphonic direction, mostly based on SS and the title track. But SC brought the metal end of things (but not the nu-metalish sound of ToT) back, with the Octavarium darkness. SC doesn't really have any "beautiful" moments as just about all their other albums do, but i think that is one of its appeals. BC&SL feels like they knew what they wanted to do, and has the best elements of the last couple of albums, with some new twists of course. The thing is BC&SL has still not fully sunk in for me when thinking about the canon of DT's music, and probably wont until the new album comes out. but i like the balance of dark, heavy riffs and chorus' and their most beautiful works since SDOIT, and to an extent Octavarium.

more of an analysis of their musical history, but whatever, no one else started anything  

[TheSoylentMan]

I'll take a stab at it. I've never done a formal analysis of their music, but like many folks here I'm a musician & end up analyzing some of their stuff just by listening. A few random "music theory class" observations:

-The middle section of Surrounded is in 9/4. Very creative the way Kevin's repeated 4-note phrase fits over Mike's pattern. Not sure how I would break up that pattern if I were writing it out. Is it just one big 9/4 measure, or a hemiola of some sort?

-For a few bars in Erotomania, there's a 16th-note phrase where each note is played by a different instrument (guitar, bass & organ, but I forget in what order). It's very hard to stay in tempo playing something like that. In fact on the Live Scenes version they get a little bit off by the end of it but recover quickly.

-The intro to The Mirror is a fun one. JP plays the same chug-chug-chug riff throughout, but the underlying rhythm changes from a straight 4/4 to a 12/8, then back to 4/4 but with a 'hiccup' that puts JPs riff on the offbeat instead of the downbeat.

Anyway, those are some of my favorite technical moments that come to mind. There are tons more, which is one of the things that makes DT's music so rewarding to listen to. Would be interesting to hear from some of the folks that actually cover these songs. What was easy/hard to learn, and what did they discover about the music by learning to play it?

[Perpetual Change]

The only thing that immediately comes to mind for me is the "These Walls" skip-a-beat. The verses consist of 3 measures of (I'm guessing, i"m not a big theory guy of stuff in 6/8.) But the 4th measure is only in 5/8. Try counting along, it's fun!

For me, the verses of These Walls represent Dream Theater being technical in such a way that would be unnoticeable to most.

[Gorille85]

The only thing that immediately comes to mind for me is the "These Walls" skip-a-beat. The verses consist of 3 measures of (I'm guessing, i"m not a big theory guy of stuff in 6/8.) But the 4th measure is only in 5/8. Try counting along, it's fun!

For me, the verses of These Walls represent Dream Theater being technical in such a way that would be unnoticeable to most.

I agree and I think that it is important to do so. I mean, funky time signatures are not there to confused or annoyed pop music fans or something like that. It's better to use it to accentuate certain parts, making a riff more heavy/unexpected or simply to create more organic/flowing music.

[Durg]

Great thread.   

Here are some of the things that are interesting to me from a musical standpoint.

1.  The songs that have "movements" or sections.  An example would be from their latest album, A Nightmare to Remember.  It starts with the horror movie music intro, the wedding and car crash section, the beautiful agony section, the instrumental section, the MP screaming/rapping section and then the ending section.  The Count of Tuscany has distinct movements as well.  You rarely have a DT song that is verse 1, chorus, verse 2, chorus, bridge, ending chorus.

2.  As previously mentioned.  Their use of odd time signatures and mixed meter is flawless.  To the untrained ear it might sound normal but many times what they are doing is anything but normal.  Take Voices, for example, in the beginning.  John Myung is doing his thing while the rest of the band blasts out on various odd beats.  I haven't taken the time to really try and figure out what the time signature(s) they're using and what beats they are blasting on but I can imagine that it must have taken then quite a bit of time to get that all perfected.  Everyone would need to be on the same page for sure and then rehearse it alot to make is so seamless.

3.  Everyone knows about John Petrucci's technical abilities with his speed and Mike Portnoy's jaw dropping abilities.  But how about what John Myung does.  I was just recently watching the studio recordings of Dark Eternal Knight on youtube and was blown away with what he was doing.  You don't always hear the complexity in the things he does but he is just as fast and as skilled as petrucci.  I think there are times when I would assume that Petrucci is playing a riff when a closer listen would make me think that it was Myung playing the high strings.

That's all I can think of right now.

[?]

I like how at 2.52 in Another Day the time signature changes for a few seconds. Or at least it sounds like that.