Masters Thesis on Scenes From a Memory

[scheater5]

Hi guys,
I guess this also serves as my "hello world" message to the forum.  My name's Blake, and on forums I go by Scheater5.  I'm finishing up my masters in music theory at City College in New York City, and I just (literally just now) sent in my thesis for final review, which I wrote on Act 1 of Scenes From a Memory.  I thought the community, and perhaps the band, would be interested in my work.  I'm not here promoting anything - it hasn't been published and probably won't be for a while, I just wanted to share what I've been doing with people who might be interested. 

Any of you who are also on the Mike Portnoy forums might remember me from a while back when I wrote a paper on hypermeter and metric dissonance in Dream Theater's music.  I'll include that paper as well (though looking back...well, I guess if you're improving, you always cringe at past work).  Hope you guys enjoy. 

Scenes From a Memory and Progressive-Metal Tonality
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxzY2hlYXRlcjV8Z3g6ZjVhOThjZGRkNGMwYmFk

Metric Dissonance in the Music of Dream Theater
https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=ZGVmYXVsdGRvbWFpbnxzY2hlYXRlcjV8Z3g6NDY3N2E4YjdiZjlmZTQ5NQ

[FretMuppet]

I like 

[scheater5]

Thanks man!  The whole idea of "popular music scholarship" is such a new one, there hasn't been much work done yet, and I see alot of potential for scholarship in Dream Theater's music, so hopefully this will lead to some more work, either by me or other people.

[jsem]

All I can say about your work is: 

[scheater5]

@jsem - Thanks!  Glad you like it.

[FretMuppet]

You have quite some talent in writing, its pretty impressive

[MajorMatt]

From the bits I've read it's impressive stuff, I'd love to get round to reading the whole thing sometime!

[lonestar]

The intro was fascinating, and a very good read.  The musical theory stuff, though, goes waaayyyy over my non musical head.

[scheater5]

@MajorMatt @lonestar - thanks guys!  It's pretty theory heavy, though quite a bit of it you can grasp with only minimal theory knowledge.  The hypermeter paper is much harder in that respect!  Theory-heads will want to pay special attention to the Beyond This Life chapter.

[The Silent Cody]

Wow  that is really impressive thing... I'm impressed  

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

Unbelievable. Your work is amazing, man. Thank you for sharing it. 

[Dynia]

Amazing   I have just finished reading  intro and 2 next chapters from the one about SFAM, a really good read.  Great job  

[Aniland]

Wow. Terrific stuff.

[JediKnight1969]

Who are you? Stephen Hawking? This is so fucking scarily awesome, I can't even start to understand it! Shit, I feel so stupid but at the same time so fucking proud for being a fan of this band. I remember the first time I heard about them: one friend call me and said: -"someone lent me this CD I think you could like" (it was I&W). -"I'm gonna put 10 seconds of each song for you to listen". Once he finished I told him: -"I want that CD". Love at first listening. Thanks DT for existing. Love you forever.

[Super Dude]

Thanks man!  The whole idea of "popular music scholarship" is such a new one, there hasn't been much work done yet, and I see alot of potential for scholarship in Dream Theater's music, so hopefully this will lead to some more work, either by me or other people.

I love you.  Welcome.

[Implode]

This is great stuff! I will be sure to read through all this when I have the time. I love seeing tonal analyses of my favorite pieces.

[scheater5]

@JediKnight1969   You put me in lofty company.  That is high praise, indeed!  Nah, man, not Stephen Hawking (though I dig his books - he puts astrophysics in language even a liberal arts major can understand!...sorta), just a grad student and DT fan.

[Blazinarps]

I tweeted this to TheYtseTimes, hopefully they retweet it for all DT fans to see. Really impressive stuff.

[scheater5]

@ SuperDude - Thanks man, I really would love to see more work done in popular music scholarship.  Even now, I occasionally get people who stick their noses up at the thought of me being a "heavy metal scholar." 

@Implode - Glad you like it.  I hope you enjoy reading the rest of it - like I said a few replies up, theory heads should pay special attention to the Beyond This Life chapter.

@Blazinarps - Thanks!  That would be great!  I understand full well how busy they are, but I'd love to know the band's reaction if they caught wind of this, so the more it gets out there the better.

[Super Dude]

I had a problem reading the first one, in which all pages after page 8 are blurred out.  Is that purposely that way so we don't steal your work?

[scheater5]

@Superdude - No, that's just how Google Docs works.  It loads up blurred versions of the pages except the one you are on and maybe a few surrounding it.  Give it a second and it should buffer the next page.  If you continue to have problems please let me know.

[zxlkho]

This is amazing.

[JediKnight1969]

@JediKnight1969   You put me in lofty company.  That is high praise, indeed!  Nah, man, not Stephen Hawking (though I dig his books - he puts astrophysics in language even a liberal arts major can understand!...sorta), just a grad student and DT fan.

Brilliant and humble too...

Forgot to say that SFAM is for me one of the best albums ever recorded by any band. I put that jewel together with Sgt Pepper's, Dark side of the moon (actually most of Beatles and Floyd), Close to the edge, Machine head, Rising... Top 10 I'd say.

Thank you for your great work.

[MajorMatt]

I'd love to know the band's reaction if they caught wind of this, so the more it gets out there the better.

I tweeted this thread out to JR, he's a busy man so may not respond at all, but I thought I'd give it a go! 

[scheater5]

@Major Matt - Thanks man!  One of these days I'm gonna have to get me one of those twitter things...

[blackngold29]

I tweeted this to TheYtseTimes, hopefully they retweet it for all DT fans to see. Really impressive stuff.

Got it. Was going to retweet it, but it's so good I'm going to write a post about it in the next few days.

Really incredible stuff!

[scheater5]

@blackngold29 - Glad you liked it, and thanks for the support.

[JediKnight1969]

Did you see this guys?

https://flabonde.free.fr/DTSFAM.htm

[ricky]

damn scheater5, that was fucking amazing. really, that whole thing was phenomenal.

is it too late to edit it, bro? i think i might have caught a typo on page four.

i just wanna help ya out, for real.


"Through a combination [of] hypnosis and speaking to people in the present"...

am i just reading it wrong?

edit - first sentence in the last paragraph on page four.

[chrisbDTM]

i like the part where you saw in BTL that they dont use the tri-tone for the part of the newspaper article that is true, meaning that the tri-tone represents deceit



cool stuff

[sirbradford117]

Does anybody have/know of a complete, QUALITY transcription of the whole album?  I would kill to get my hands on it and dissect it...

[Super Dude]

Brad, are you a musicologist?

[kennedymichael]

This is exactly why I'm a DT fan.  I think it's awesome when someone with alot of musical knowledge can do such an extensive "deep dive" on just one part of their music.  An album over 10 years old now has just become new again.  I'll be listening to it over and over again to look for all the things pointed out.

Thanks very much for sharing!  I know just enough about music to be able to keep up - although I have to read sections serveral times.  Anything less than an "A" is unacceptable in my book.

[Aramatheis]

Very very nice Blake!

Thanks for sharing 

[sirbradford117]

Brad, are you a musicologist?

Nope, I'm a church musician by profession.  But I do have 2 degrees in music, so I do have a good knowledge of theory and junk.