DT15: A View From The Top Of The World (Timeline for DT15)

[erwinrafael]

Mike Mangini posted on his Facebook page which he mostly uses to promote his drum lessons and tutorials. That is why he sounded technical. He has drummers in mind as the audience so he talked in terms of what would make drummers excited.

Mind you, he said in subsequent comments that he came up with the fill not based on numbers but based on a shape he saw his movements taking in the drum set. He only broke it down in numbers afterwards.

I find it neat how he sees patterns and shapes in music. And found a way to describe these patterns and shapes.

Yup, his target audience wasn't specifically for Dream Theater fans.

I found his comment!

"glad to see so many people psyched up for this. My technical description proves that the explanations are needed and that's what I intend to do in my classes. The anomaly of it is that it was done by shape and feeling and then evaluated for actually what I played in some of these spots. I'm finding all kinds of gems as I listen and learn. And strive onward and forge forward ..."

[BeatriceNB]

It's not useless though, and that's an important point in this conversation that seems to be repeatedly missed.  You can attribute it to whoever you want - me or Mangini or Paul Stanley or any of the thousands of people that have said it - but "I like what I like".   For me personally, there's very little of this "objective" stuff - complexity, song lengths, who wrote it - that make a difference in what I end to listening to on the regular.  I'm not that one dimensional, and most humans aren't*.  I like things with deep theory, I like things that are nothing BUT feel, I hate things with theory and I hate things that are nothing but feel.  It's not about EITHER of those things for some people.  This idea that it's a binary two-variable equation - one or the other - is the REAL myth.   

In my opinion that's why bands like Led Zeppelin and The Beatles and Pink Floyd are still talked about; they didn't make these distinctions; you had complex symphonies, if you will (The Song Remains The Same, A Day In The Life, Echoes) alongside simple "Squeeze the lemon, baby" blues and "Love Me Do" skiffle and "Alan's Breakfast" musique concrète, and all that mattered is that one got lost in the music.

* I'm not suggesting you or anyone else IS one-dimensional; I would ask you - and be honest - did you make a CONSCIOUS decision to like what you like, or did it really happen that you liked it, you were drawn to it, and figured out why later?   Is there ANYTHING musically you like/listen to that doesn't fit the set pattern?

I like many different things, even stuff like Noise and Free-Jazz hit a sweet spot for me. I don't think there's any set way that I go about music (although I try to understand why I like or dislike things). But Mangini is one of my favourite drummers (next to Marco Minnemann and Deantoni Parks), and I love reading/listening to him talk about complex ideas; I'm austitic, and I have some kind of synesthesia, when Mangini talks about shapes and movements, I get it, and it inspires me. Applying polyrhythms to odd time sigs to create a sense of metric modulation is an idea that has been on the back of my head for months too, so I'm hyped to see how he implements it for the opening of the album.

If he talked about how a song feels or grooves, it means nothing to me, like, literally nothing. You can describe movie scenes to someone, but if you tell them "yeah, the movie is sad and then it gets really emotional", it doesn't paint any picture in their head.

And yes, I agree that it's a myth that it's about "feeling vs theory", and many musicians that know a lot of theory would then say "I just play what I'm feeling at the moment", they just have the vocabulary to explain what they do (like Mangini mentioned in his post), and know how to break "rules" to create textures and effects.

As for Zeppelin, I don't like them so I can't really comment. The Beatles I'm only familiar with a couple of albums, but I know some info about them. And Pink Floyd I can write books about their music and its influence on me. But for the last two, not knowing theory wasn't an excuse to not being creative and explore ideas/concepts; sure they weren't writing in 23/16 to explore how to use prime numbers polyrhythms or something, but it was still complex music in other aspects, and it could be talked about with "academic" terms if someone wanted to.

[erwinrafael]

So just to get in the mood of anticipating the new album, I made a playlist of MM-era songs that would sort of "simulate" the songs on AVFTTOTW by song length.

OTBOA
TBP
STR
LNF
S2n
AWE
IT

Pretty good album. 

[Kotowboy]

So just to get in the mood of anticipating the new album, I made a playlist of MM-era songs that would sort of "simulate" the songs on AVFTTOTW by song length.

On The Backs Of Angels
The Bigger Picture
Surrender To Reason
Lost Not Forgotten
Signal To Noise
At Wits End
Illumination Theory

Pretty good album. 

Just so people don't have to work it out.

[nobloodyname]

So just to get in the mood of anticipating the new album, I made a playlist of MM-era songs that would sort of "simulate" the songs on AVFTTOTW by song length.

On The Backs Of Angels
The Bigger Picture
Surrender To Reason
Lost Not Forgotten
Signal To Noise
At Wits End
Illumination Theory

Pretty good album. 

Just so people don't have to work it out.

You know something? I appreciate you doing that. Thank you.

[Kotowboy]

I really don't like abbreviations. Ok if you're on a mobile and it's a pain to type - but on a computer keyboard - it's not difficult typing out the whole title.

For example is TOT trial of tears or train of thought?

is SDV Strange Deja Vu or Space Dye Vest ?

Is SS Sacrificed Sons or Solitary Shell

[Wim Kruithof]

I really don't like abbreviations. Ok if you're on a mobile and it's a pain to type - but on a computer keyboard - it's not difficult typing out the whole title.

For example is TOT trial of tears or train of thought?

is SDV Strange Deja Vu or Space Dye Vest ?

Is SS Sacrificed Sons or Solitary Shell

Couldn't agree more. I do not like it, besides, a lot of times it takes a while for I've figured what track they're talking about. Thanks for you post above.

[Kotowboy]

1. On The Backs Of Angels
2. The Bigger Picture
3. Surrender To Reason
4. Lost Not Forgotten
5. Signal To Noise
6. At Wits End
7. Illumination Theory


I hope that A View From The Top OTW is better than the example above. They're all quite medium tier Dream Theater song in my opinion.

[Kotowboy]

Ouch! I'm guessing we're gonna stick to "DT15" when referring to this album..

I don't like the artwork, I guess I'm not the first one to say that.

I thought they hit a sweet spot with the song durations on D/T but I guess they're reverting. At least the folks who wanted longer songs are happy, there was some disgruntled folks on the last album cycle due to short songs.

Otherwise hooray for new DT music! DT15 era, here we go!

With all due respect, reverting to what exactly? DoT had some more concise songs, but every album has been completely different, from experimental, to concept, to rock opera to you name it. Many albums have a bit of a theme and there are song lengths all over the place. I don’t think it’s a case of “we found a sweet spot”, now we’ll just go with that”. I think the very nature of prog is to do things differently 

I think reverting as in - roughly 7-8 track albums with mostly 7,8,9 min songs and then a giant one at the end

a la Train of Thought, Octavarium, Systematic Chaos, Black Clouds and Dream Theater.

[jayvee3]

Ouch! I'm guessing we're gonna stick to "DT15" when referring to this album..

I don't like the artwork, I guess I'm not the first one to say that.

I thought they hit a sweet spot with the song durations on D/T but I guess they're reverting. At least the folks who wanted longer songs are happy, there was some disgruntled folks on the last album cycle due to short songs.

Otherwise hooray for new DT music! DT15 era, here we go!

With all due respect, reverting to what exactly? DoT had some more concise songs, but every album has been completely different, from experimental, to concept, to rock opera to you name it. Many albums have a bit of a theme and there are song lengths all over the place. I don’t think it’s a case of “we found a sweet spot”, now we’ll just go with that”. I think the very nature of prog is to do things differently 

I think reverting as in - roughly 7-8 track albums with mostly 7,8,9 min songs and then a giant one at the end

a la Train of Thought, Octavarium, Systematic Chaos, Black Clouds and Dream Theater.

Yea, I don’t know, I think that’s stretching it. I just don’t think there’s a reverting or specific formula. Images and Words only has 8 tracks, all decent length, and rocks. Self titled to me is significantly underrated with a great epic and also rocks. I don’t really know if I’d say In the Name of God is a “giant track” from ToT in comparison, but that’s another album I love again regardless. I just think they do what they feel and what fits on different albums. And the truth is, some of those albums I love, some with more tracks like FII, Awake and Scenes I love. I just think there are so many ways to get to an end goal on an album, but I think across their catalogue, DT have shown they have gotten there in so many different and interesting ways…

[gzarruk]

Is SS Sacrificed Sons or Solitary Shell

Status Seeker.

[Stadler]

Question for the drummers here:  When you play to a click, with the technology today can you adjust the time in real time on stage? Whether during a song or in between songs?   Or is it a decision indelibly made prior to the show, and you live with it?

If you were going to do this, then why use a click? 

Well, the click would be to keep relative time; so that you're playing at the same "pace" at point A of the section than you were at point A.  I can see many reasons why you might want to speed up or slow down a section, but still have the rigidity of a click WITHIN that section.  Feeling the crowd, feeling your fellow musicians...  I've long said that was the magic of Led Zeppelin (and why so many cover bands and copycats SUCK).   Bonham and Page in particular would ebb and flow songs based on the moment.   I forget the song - Dave From Manchester can remind me, because he pointed it out to me - where Bonham is wildly fast in one section, but it WORKS, because the band is with him and it all comes to root in the resolution of the song.   Stairway is another example. 

[Stadler]

It's too fast to pick up the slight anomaly of being 3:2 of 7 that fits over 4 of the main 7 notes with 3 of the real 7/16 notes left for the end of the fill.

Oh my god who cares.  This is literally my only problem with mangini. He never once has talked about how a song FEELS. It's always about the polyrhythms and time signatures.

It's almost that because of the subjective, culture-based experience of music, feeling is not a thing. It's just a myth by bad musicians to justify their laziness and illiteracy. Theory analysis are the closest thing to any "objective" analysis of music, as a tool of teaching (and yes, I'm aware that music theory and its perception are bound to the subjective experience of humans). For people who actually care, Mangini doing rundowns of his ideas and compositional process is the closest that we have to seeing what is inside his mind when playing, saying "this grooves and has FEELING brooo" is useless information.

I don't want to look like a snob who only cares about theory, not at all, and many of my musical heroes don't have an extensive knowledge of music theory (or any at all). But Mangini was a teacher and one of the best music schools, and has an impressive grasp of complex concepts and can execute them flawlessly, it would be a waste if he only talked using meaningless terms.

It's not useless though, and that's an important point in this conversation that seems to be repeatedly missed.  You can attribute it to whoever you want - me or Mangini or Paul Stanley or any of the thousands of people that have said it - but "I like what I like".   For me personally, there's very little of this "objective" stuff - complexity, song lengths, who wrote it - that make a difference in what I end to listening to on the regular.  I'm not that one dimensional, and most humans aren't*.  I like things with deep theory, I like things that are nothing BUT feel, I hate things with theory and I hate things that are nothing but feel.  It's not about EITHER of those things for some people.  This idea that it's a binary two-variable equation - one or the other - is the REAL myth.   

In my opinion that's why bands like Led Zeppelin and The Beatles and Pink Floyd are still talked about; they didn't make these distinctions; you had complex symphonies, if you will (The Song Remains The Same, A Day In The Life, Echoes) alongside simple "Squeeze the lemon, baby" blues and "Love Me Do" skiffle and "Alan's Breakfast" musique concrète, and all that mattered is that one got lost in the music.

* I'm not suggesting you or anyone else IS one-dimensional; I would ask you - and be honest - did you make a CONSCIOUS decision to like what you like, or did it really happen that you liked it, you were drawn to it, and figured out why later?   Is there ANYTHING musically you like/listen to that doesn't fit the set pattern?

I think you missed the point. There's nothing wrong with having an emotional connection to music that isn't theory-heavy (see highlighted part), but simply saying "this has x feeling" is less useful in describing music we haven't heard yet, because feeling isn't set in stone & depends on the person - it isn't inherent to the music. On the other hand, whether you care about theory or not, theory tells us more about the music because it's more objective & can hone in on little details.

As she said, it would be a waste to have the theory knowledge & still insist on exclusively using vague & subjective terms (which they haven't even stopped doing alongside the theory stuff, so it's not like anything is lost).

I didn't miss the point;  it's not "less useful" because that implies that the "theory" is MORE useful, and that's what I'm pushing back on.  They are the same level of useful, depending on the person.   In that way, they are BOTH subjective.

[Stadler]

It seems like a lot of people forget that there some people in the world for whom the “feel” and the “passion” for what they are doing IS wrapped up in the difficulty of it.

It’s like some of you think that a mathematician is incapable of being deeply passionate and (gasp) “feel” something very deeply emotional about math. And that passion can be expressed in what they are doing.

Exactly. The worst thing is that what you mentioned should be obvious, but it isn't.

I love how people feel they have the right to judge the actions of others as unfeeling (and this is very common in music). They are HUMAN BEINGS doing some activity and someone comes along and thinks he/she is capable of dehumanizing the other person, thinking that there is no feeling there. Who does "the judge" think he/she is to have that power? It is an absolute arrogance!

Haha, you mean like some of the people here seem to feel they have the right to judge posts/opinion here as "disrespectful" and off topic and what not?   I agree: absolute arrogance!     

(I kid, sort of, but not really.)

I don't know if you were referring to my post judging kotowboy's "ong who cares" as disrespectful. If so, I think it's much easier to deem that as disrespectful to MM compared to the "this part has feel/is purely technical" discussions. They're not even in the same ball park, afaic.

But, hey. I'm excited about the album. I'm excited that MM sounds excited.

I'm unexcited by the heavy judgement that's taken place wrt the art and MM's post, tbh. Big buzzkill for me. It's a long time til October. Think I'll be staying away from this thread for a while. Not sure I can stand the inevitable shitshow that will take place after publicity shots etc are revealed.

Well, it WAS meant in jest, and while its your garden to tend, I'm not sure why someone else's opinion matters that much.  I love Kiss and there are people here that do not hesitate to make it known that they wouldn't torture their ex-wives with Kiss, let alone listen themselves.  Haha, I laugh and move on; either way I still like it. 

But the point for me is, it's not up to anyone but the person disrespected to decide whether it is or not (and sometimes not even then). 

[Stadler]

Ouch! I'm guessing we're gonna stick to "DT15" when referring to this album..

I don't like the artwork, I guess I'm not the first one to say that.

I thought they hit a sweet spot with the song durations on D/T but I guess they're reverting. At least the folks who wanted longer songs are happy, there was some disgruntled folks on the last album cycle due to short songs.

Otherwise hooray for new DT music! DT15 era, here we go!

With all due respect, reverting to what exactly? DoT had some more concise songs, but every album has been completely different, from experimental, to concept, to rock opera to you name it. Many albums have a bit of a theme and there are song lengths all over the place. I don’t think it’s a case of “we found a sweet spot”, now we’ll just go with that”. I think the very nature of prog is to do things differently 

And of course, the fact that the "song lengths are all over the place", and yet we still, as a collective, like it, kind of puts paid to the notion that the song lengths are of any meaning whatsoever when discussing the relative quality - even speculatively - of the work we're discussing.

[Stadler]

It's not useless though, and that's an important point in this conversation that seems to be repeatedly missed.  You can attribute it to whoever you want - me or Mangini or Paul Stanley or any of the thousands of people that have said it - but "I like what I like".   For me personally, there's very little of this "objective" stuff - complexity, song lengths, who wrote it - that make a difference in what I end to listening to on the regular.  I'm not that one dimensional, and most humans aren't*.  I like things with deep theory, I like things that are nothing BUT feel, I hate things with theory and I hate things that are nothing but feel.  It's not about EITHER of those things for some people.  This idea that it's a binary two-variable equation - one or the other - is the REAL myth.   

In my opinion that's why bands like Led Zeppelin and The Beatles and Pink Floyd are still talked about; they didn't make these distinctions; you had complex symphonies, if you will (The Song Remains The Same, A Day In The Life, Echoes) alongside simple "Squeeze the lemon, baby" blues and "Love Me Do" skiffle and "Alan's Breakfast" musique concrète, and all that mattered is that one got lost in the music.

* I'm not suggesting you or anyone else IS one-dimensional; I would ask you - and be honest - did you make a CONSCIOUS decision to like what you like, or did it really happen that you liked it, you were drawn to it, and figured out why later?   Is there ANYTHING musically you like/listen to that doesn't fit the set pattern?

I like many different things, even stuff like Noise and Free-Jazz hit a sweet spot for me. I don't think there's any set way that I go about music (although I try to understand why I like or dislike things). But Mangini is one of my favourite drummers (next to Marco Minnemann and Deantoni Parks), and I love reading/listening to him talk about complex ideas; I'm austitic, and I have some kind of synesthesia, when Mangini talks about shapes and movements, I get it, and it inspires me. Applying polyrhythms to odd time sigs to create a sense of metric modulation is an idea that has been on the back of my head for months too, so I'm hyped to see how he implements it for the opening of the album.

If he talked about how a song feels or grooves, it means nothing to me, like, literally nothing. You can describe movie scenes to someone, but if you tell them "yeah, the movie is sad and then it gets really emotional", it doesn't paint any picture in their head.

Thank you for sharing that post; there's a lot of insight in there and I appreciate that.   I'm not autistic (to my knowledge) though my son is, and my daughter has a form of synesthesia - and again, not to my knowledge on the spectrum - so I wonder if this is a matter of all of us, regardless, identifying or connecting with different things.   And that's really my point here.   There's no objective way of identifying any of that.   It is all subjective, by definition, because it's all down to the specific user.  I don't care whether people "value" song-lengths or not, as long as they recognize there's no value to that beyond "they prefer it".  I think some people here have a little difficulty understanding that because THEY value it, personally, that doesn't mean it has any value outside of that.  You don't strike me as being snobbish, but just look in the various threads around here that are about music that might have a more commercial angle to it - Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift come to mind - and the snobbery of others is pretty well apparent, when at the end of the day, what we like is in large part dumb luck. 

[Dedalus]

I like many different things, even stuff like Noise and Free-Jazz hit a sweet spot for me. I don't think there's any set way that I go about music (although I try to understand why I like or dislike things). But Mangini is one of my favourite drummers (next to Marco Minnemann and Deantoni Parks), and I love reading/listening to him talk about complex ideas; I'm austitic, and I have some kind of synesthesia, when Mangini talks about shapes and movements, I get it, and it inspires me. Applying polyrhythms to odd time sigs to create a sense of metric modulation is an idea that has been on the back of my head for months too, so I'm hyped to see how he implements it for the opening of the album.

If he talked about how a song feels or grooves, it means nothing to me, like, literally nothing. You can describe movie scenes to someone, but if you tell them "yeah, the movie is sad and then it gets really emotional", it doesn't paint any picture in their head.

And yes, I agree that it's a myth that it's about "feeling vs theory", and many musicians that know a lot of theory would then say "I just play what I'm feeling at the moment", they just have the vocabulary to explain what they do (like Mangini mentioned in his post), and know how to break "rules" to create textures and effects.

As for Zeppelin, I don't like them so I can't really comment. The Beatles I'm only familiar with a couple of albums, but I know some info about them. And Pink Floyd I can write books about their music and its influence on me. But for the last two, not knowing theory wasn't an excuse to not being creative and explore ideas/concepts; sure they weren't writing in 23/16 to explore how to use prime numbers polyrhythms or something, but it was still complex music in other aspects, and it could be talked about with "academic" terms if someone wanted to.

Nice post. 

Very interesting to see your point of view. And I totally agree with what you said about theory and vague and pointless terms like feeling.

The analogy with the useless description of the movie was interesting.

[Peter Mc]

So just to get in the mood of anticipating the new album, I made a playlist of MM-era songs that would sort of "simulate" the songs on AVFTTOTW by song length.

On The Backs Of Angels
The Bigger Picture
Surrender To Reason
Lost Not Forgotten
Signal To Noise
At Wits End
Illumination Theory

Pretty good album. 

Just so people don't have to work it out.

Signal To Noise is actually called S2n, just to be a pedantic asshole!

[Trav86]

So just to get in the mood of anticipating the new album, I made a playlist of MM-era songs that would sort of "simulate" the songs on AVFTTOTW by song length.

On The Backs Of Angels
The Bigger Picture
Surrender To Reason
Lost Not Forgotten
Signal To Noise
At Wits End
Illumination Theory

Pretty good album. 

Just so people don't have to work it out.

Signal To Noise is actually called S2n, just to be a pedantic asshole!

I thought that too, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be a pedantic asshole. 

[The Letter M]

So just to get in the mood of anticipating the new album, I made a playlist of MM-era songs that would sort of "simulate" the songs on AVFTTOTW by song length.

On The Backs Of Angels
The Bigger Picture
Surrender To Reason
Lost Not Forgotten
Signal To Noise
At Wits End
Illumination Theory

Pretty good album. 

Just so people don't have to work it out.

Signal To Noise is actually called S2n, just to be a pedantic asshole!

I thought that too, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be a pedantic asshole. 

Uhm, actually, it's "S2N" with a capital "N", per the album's back cover.



-Marc.

[Dedalus]

So just to get in the mood of anticipating the new album, I made a playlist of MM-era songs that would sort of "simulate" the songs on AVFTTOTW by song length.

On The Backs Of Angels
The Bigger Picture
Surrender To Reason
Lost Not Forgotten
Signal To Noise
At Wits End
Illumination Theory

Pretty good album. 

Just so people don't have to work it out.

Signal To Noise is actually called S2n, just to be a pedantic asshole!

I thought that too, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be a pedantic asshole. 

Uhm, actually, it's "S2N" with a capital "N", per the album's back cover.



-Marc.

You win the "Pedantic Asshole" contest

Congratulations.

 

[The Letter M]

So just to get in the mood of anticipating the new album, I made a playlist of MM-era songs that would sort of "simulate" the songs on AVFTTOTW by song length.

On The Backs Of Angels
The Bigger Picture
Surrender To Reason
Lost Not Forgotten
Signal To Noise
At Wits End
Illumination Theory

Pretty good album. 

Just so people don't have to work it out.

Signal To Noise is actually called S2n, just to be a pedantic asshole!

I thought that too, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be a pedantic asshole. 

Uhm, actually, it's "S2N" with a capital "N", per the album's back cover.



-Marc.

You win the "Pedantic Asshole" contest

Congratulations.

 

Well, my username is based on a tiny printed Easter egg in Rush's Power Windows liner notes, how could I *not* be a pedantic asshole?

Also - a win is a win. 🏆

-Marc.

[Dedalus]

Well, my username is based on a tiny printed Easter egg in Rush's Power Windows liner notes, how could I *not* be a pedantic asshole?

Also - a win is a win. 🏆

-Marc.

 

It was a wonderful comment.

Deserved victory. 

[gzarruk]

I hope they release track 5 as the first single, so I can learn how to transcend time and listen to the album earlier.

[BeatriceNB]

It's not useless though, and that's an important point in this conversation that seems to be repeatedly missed.  You can attribute it to whoever you want - me or Mangini or Paul Stanley or any of the thousands of people that have said it - but "I like what I like".   For me personally, there's very little of this "objective" stuff - complexity, song lengths, who wrote it - that make a difference in what I end to listening to on the regular.  I'm not that one dimensional, and most humans aren't*.  I like things with deep theory, I like things that are nothing BUT feel, I hate things with theory and I hate things that are nothing but feel.  It's not about EITHER of those things for some people.  This idea that it's a binary two-variable equation - one or the other - is the REAL myth.   

In my opinion that's why bands like Led Zeppelin and The Beatles and Pink Floyd are still talked about; they didn't make these distinctions; you had complex symphonies, if you will (The Song Remains The Same, A Day In The Life, Echoes) alongside simple "Squeeze the lemon, baby" blues and "Love Me Do" skiffle and "Alan's Breakfast" musique concrète, and all that mattered is that one got lost in the music.

* I'm not suggesting you or anyone else IS one-dimensional; I would ask you - and be honest - did you make a CONSCIOUS decision to like what you like, or did it really happen that you liked it, you were drawn to it, and figured out why later?   Is there ANYTHING musically you like/listen to that doesn't fit the set pattern?

I like many different things, even stuff like Noise and Free-Jazz hit a sweet spot for me. I don't think there's any set way that I go about music (although I try to understand why I like or dislike things). But Mangini is one of my favourite drummers (next to Marco Minnemann and Deantoni Parks), and I love reading/listening to him talk about complex ideas; I'm austitic, and I have some kind of synesthesia, when Mangini talks about shapes and movements, I get it, and it inspires me. Applying polyrhythms to odd time sigs to create a sense of metric modulation is an idea that has been on the back of my head for months too, so I'm hyped to see how he implements it for the opening of the album.

If he talked about how a song feels or grooves, it means nothing to me, like, literally nothing. You can describe movie scenes to someone, but if you tell them "yeah, the movie is sad and then it gets really emotional", it doesn't paint any picture in their head.

Thank you for sharing that post; there's a lot of insight in there and I appreciate that.   I'm not autistic (to my knowledge) though my son is, and my daughter has a form of synesthesia - and again, not to my knowledge on the spectrum - so I wonder if this is a matter of all of us, regardless, identifying or connecting with different things.   And that's really my point here.   There's no objective way of identifying any of that.   It is all subjective, by definition, because it's all down to the specific user.  I don't care whether people "value" song-lengths or not, as long as they recognize there's no value to that beyond "they prefer it".  I think some people here have a little difficulty understanding that because THEY value it, personally, that doesn't mean it has any value outside of that.  You don't strike me as being snobbish, but just look in the various threads around here that are about music that might have a more commercial angle to it - Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift come to mind - and the snobbery of others is pretty well apparent, when at the end of the day, what we like is in large part dumb luck. 

My favourite music related quote is from my favourite musician, and it goes " So you're saying that when I was younger, and wasn't deliberately trying to rip anyone off, my influences somehow showed themselves, but now that I'm older and actually 100% set out to rip someone off, it's either unmistakably my own or sounds like a different artist entirely. Ha ha! Music is dumb". It perfectly encapsulates everything about the subjectivity of music, and the "music is dumb" part is pure art.

I fell in the "ignore theory bro" hole when learning to play guitar, and it really ruined my progress at the start. When I started studying music, a whole new world was shown to me. Sure I won't compose like Mozart for knowing what a I-IV-V progression is, but understanding what it is and how it sounds, I will recognize it in what I'm listening to, and then I can learn from those examples.

[Peter Mc]

So just to get in the mood of anticipating the new album, I made a playlist of MM-era songs that would sort of "simulate" the songs on AVFTTOTW by song length.

On The Backs Of Angels
The Bigger Picture
Surrender To Reason
Lost Not Forgotten
Signal To Noise
At Wits End
Illumination Theory

Pretty good album. 

Just so people don't have to work it out.

Signal To Noise is actually called S2n, just to be a pedantic asshole!

I thought that too, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to be a pedantic asshole. 

Uhm, actually, it's "S2N" with a capital "N", per the album's back cover.



-Marc.

Ha ha, I was too lazy to dig the album out so just went with the original guy’s post and what was on Apple Music.  I suppose, if you’re going to be a pedantic asshole, you should take the time (no pun intended) to get it right!

[Stadler]

It's not useless though, and that's an important point in this conversation that seems to be repeatedly missed.  You can attribute it to whoever you want - me or Mangini or Paul Stanley or any of the thousands of people that have said it - but "I like what I like".   For me personally, there's very little of this "objective" stuff - complexity, song lengths, who wrote it - that make a difference in what I end to listening to on the regular.  I'm not that one dimensional, and most humans aren't*.  I like things with deep theory, I like things that are nothing BUT feel, I hate things with theory and I hate things that are nothing but feel.  It's not about EITHER of those things for some people.  This idea that it's a binary two-variable equation - one or the other - is the REAL myth.   

In my opinion that's why bands like Led Zeppelin and The Beatles and Pink Floyd are still talked about; they didn't make these distinctions; you had complex symphonies, if you will (The Song Remains The Same, A Day In The Life, Echoes) alongside simple "Squeeze the lemon, baby" blues and "Love Me Do" skiffle and "Alan's Breakfast" musique concrète, and all that mattered is that one got lost in the music.

* I'm not suggesting you or anyone else IS one-dimensional; I would ask you - and be honest - did you make a CONSCIOUS decision to like what you like, or did it really happen that you liked it, you were drawn to it, and figured out why later?   Is there ANYTHING musically you like/listen to that doesn't fit the set pattern?

I like many different things, even stuff like Noise and Free-Jazz hit a sweet spot for me. I don't think there's any set way that I go about music (although I try to understand why I like or dislike things). But Mangini is one of my favourite drummers (next to Marco Minnemann and Deantoni Parks), and I love reading/listening to him talk about complex ideas; I'm austitic, and I have some kind of synesthesia, when Mangini talks about shapes and movements, I get it, and it inspires me. Applying polyrhythms to odd time sigs to create a sense of metric modulation is an idea that has been on the back of my head for months too, so I'm hyped to see how he implements it for the opening of the album.

If he talked about how a song feels or grooves, it means nothing to me, like, literally nothing. You can describe movie scenes to someone, but if you tell them "yeah, the movie is sad and then it gets really emotional", it doesn't paint any picture in their head.

Thank you for sharing that post; there's a lot of insight in there and I appreciate that.   I'm not autistic (to my knowledge) though my son is, and my daughter has a form of synesthesia - and again, not to my knowledge on the spectrum - so I wonder if this is a matter of all of us, regardless, identifying or connecting with different things.   And that's really my point here.   There's no objective way of identifying any of that.   It is all subjective, by definition, because it's all down to the specific user.  I don't care whether people "value" song-lengths or not, as long as they recognize there's no value to that beyond "they prefer it".  I think some people here have a little difficulty understanding that because THEY value it, personally, that doesn't mean it has any value outside of that.  You don't strike me as being snobbish, but just look in the various threads around here that are about music that might have a more commercial angle to it - Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift come to mind - and the snobbery of others is pretty well apparent, when at the end of the day, what we like is in large part dumb luck. 

My favourite music related quote is from my favourite musician, and it goes " So you're saying that when I was younger, and wasn't deliberately trying to rip anyone off, my influences somehow showed themselves, but now that I'm older and actually 100% set out to rip someone off, it's either unmistakably my own or sounds like a different artist entirely. Ha ha! Music is dumb". It perfectly encapsulates everything about the subjectivity of music, and the "music is dumb" part is pure art.

I fell in the "ignore theory bro" hole when learning to play guitar, and it really ruined my progress at the start. When I started studying music, a whole new world was shown to me. Sure I won't compose like Mozart for knowing what a I-IV-V progression is, but understanding what it is and how it sounds, I will recognize it in what I'm listening to, and then I can learn from those examples.

Of course that last part is true; that's just expanding one's vocabulary and for me that's never a bad thing.   If it matters to you, I followed a similar path; "I don't need lessons!  Dave Murray didn't take lessons!" and later, playing with people for whom music theory was as fluent a language as English, I felt like I sold myself short.  I DID sell myself short.  Certainly for some, it makes for a richer experience.  But it doesn't, necessarily, make the artist or the underlying work BETTER, any more than understanding how light reflects and refracts makes a sunset any more beautiful to those that find that sort of thing pleasing.

[Staffador]

NEW TEASER FROM THE ALIEN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw-wBAJGo1M

[gzarruk]

NEW TEASER FROM THE ALIEN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw-wBAJGo1M

 

Perfection.

[Enigmachine]

Teaser is phenomenal stuff imo, I love the energy of it. Feels like the most full-on start to a song (and likely the album itself) in a long while.

[BeatriceNB]

I can't believe what I'm hearing, good drums sound in a Mangini era album. Amazing.

[TheLordOfTheStrings]

Teaser sounds incredible. Drums sound amazing. I can’t wait.

[DarkLord_Lalinc]

This is DT at its sonic finest (as far as a measly YouTube video can tell). I'm definitely relieved that we can finally start discussing music and not drum sound lol.

This sounds amazing and the aesthetic looks great.

[GasparXR]

Damn, this album doesn't give any time to ease into the frantic high-energy shit.

[IDontNotDoThings]

Ha ha, I was too lazy to dig the album out so just went with the original guy’s post and what was on Apple Music.  I suppose, if you’re going to be a pedantic asshole, you should take the time (no pun intended) to get it right!

I think iTunes has a weird quirk where you're only allowed to capitalise the first letter of a word, so acronyms & weird stylisations don't work so well.