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Dream Theater => Dream Theater => Topic started by: Zook on February 25, 2019, 03:27:18 PM
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Ever since Mangini took over the drums, he's been compared and ridiculed for his style of playing. I myself have said I prefer Portnoy because his drumming has personality and liveliness. Mangini's playing is more precise and subdued, labeling him a drum machine by many. Watching the YouTube Portnoy-wannabe drummer and seeing him add MP's signature fills where there weren't any before made me realize just how much Portnoy did overplay. I mean, I love it, but I believe that style is really what is missing from newer Dream Theater, and I wonder if that is what fans are really clamoring for when they cry, "bring Portnoy back" and "Portnoy was the soul of DT" or whatever.
I'm glad they finally let MM write with them though. The difference is huge.
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I'm not sure "spoiled" is the right word. Portnoy had his own thing going, and MM is a completely different type of drummer (to my non-musician ears). I think the big factor is that Dream Theater plays to a click with Mangini, which means the shows are a little more precise, and less energetic (subjectively). Whereas with Portnoy, they were a lot looser, and that added to the energy level.
It's just a preference thing. I "prefer" MP's style and DT's live vibe with him, but I don't dislike Mangini and the band now either. It's just different.
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They're both great drummers and I love both era's of DT. 😎
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Portnoy also did tend to not play the drums as they are recorded on the album.
That's where I thought he got lazy in the later years of DT.
Also, it's why im glad they got Mangini know his TS and Groove.
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I'm happier with Mangini's drumming. MP never bothered me and I loved his live vibe but I never really missed him when he left. To me DT is JP & JR, their work got me into DT and I think they're the only irreplaceable members, for my taste.
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I'm happier with Mangini's drumming. MP never bothered me and I loved his live vibe but I never really missed him when he left. To me DT is JP & JR, their work got me into DT and I think they're the only irreplaceable members, for my taste.
DT will always be JP and JM for me.
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They're both great drummers and I love both era's of DT. 😎
No argument there, and this certainly isn't an MP vs MM thread.
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I prefer Portnoy... the kits he used just allowed for way more dynamics and he was very creative player.
Mangini does some things that make me go "whoah" but I prefer the style of Portnoy.
Both are great but I do think we have lost a little of the songwriting power with Portnoy's departure. Although I like the musical style and direction they have taken with DT, TA, and D/T way more than the 4 preceding albums so maybe it was just a change that needed to be made.
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Portnoy also did tend to not play the drums as they are recorded on the album.
Whatever personal issues they may or may not have aside, I suspect that is a big reason why John Myung is reportedly happier now with Mangini. Given how much he practices, I am sure it was maddening for Myung to have his partner in the rhythm section go off script on a regular basis live.
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I prefer Portnoy... the kits he used just allowed for way more dynamics and he was very creative player.
Mangini does some things that make me go "whoah" but I prefer the style of Portnoy.
Both are great but I do think we have lost a little of the songwriting power with Portnoy's departure. Although I like the musical style and direction they have taken with DT, TA, and D/T way more than the 4 preceding albums so maybe it was just a change that needed to be made.
Of course...MP had the personality
I love Mangini due to his personality and how he finally got to have his dream drum placements.
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Portnoy also did tend to not play the drums as they are recorded on the album.
Whatever personal issues they may or may not have aside, I suspect that is a big reason why John Myung is reportedly happier now with Mangini. Given how much he practices, I am sure it was maddening for Myung to have his partner in the rhythm section go off script on a regular basis live.
I agree...I bet Myung likes to jam his heart out to, but its hard when the drummer keeps doing unexpected things.
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Honestly I never really noticed him playing that differently live. Was this something he did just at non filmed shows?
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Portnoy also did tend to not play the drums as they are recorded on the album.
Whatever personal issues they may or may not have aside, I suspect that is a big reason why John Myung is reportedly happier now with Mangini. Given how much he practices, I am sure it was maddening for Myung to have his partner in the rhythm section go off script on a regular basis live.
I agree...I bet Myung likes to jam his heart out to, but its hard when the drummer keeps doing unexpected things.
An old Egyptian bass player from a popular Jazz band once told me "My biggest enemy is a drummer who thinks he needs to be creative" :lol
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As drummers, I liked both, but prefer MM. I can just flat out hear the precision and talent in what he does. Whether or not it’s true, as I’m no drummer, I kinda get this feel that MM could play anything MP can come up with no issue, but I’m not sure MP could do what MM can. To me, D/T is something that highlights just how off the charts MM’s talent is...
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I honestly have never cared. MM is the drummer now and the band seem happy to finish their careers with him, and I have no problem with him. I loved Portnoy too, but really makes no difference to me at all. It's the music and the songs I care about. I mean it's been almost 10 years and I can't believe people still carry on about it. (not you Zook, I know which angle you are coming from.)
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I wonder if Petrucci secretly hated the Finally Free outro
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Honestly I never really noticed him playing that differently live. Was this something he did just at non filmed shows?
I have an example, though it's more nitpicky and doesn't truly affect the flow of the song: compare the studio version and the Live at Budokan versions of the intro to As I Am. There's a clear development in the drum fill patterns in the studio version and, in the live version, MP plays the 4th and final fill third, inventing something else for the fourth and final fill live.
It doesn't change much, but it's just a recorded example of how he would go off-script at times if you were curious.
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Portnoy also did tend to not play the drums as they are recorded on the album.
Whatever personal issues they may or may not have aside, I suspect that is a big reason why John Myung is reportedly happier now with Mangini. Given how much he practices, I am sure it was maddening for Myung to have his partner in the rhythm section go off script on a regular basis live.
This. Something that really stood out to me were the amazing bass and drum parts in DT12, like JM and Mike took special time crafting their parts together, just listen to the solo sections on TLG and STR, or THAT part after the slow break in IT. The new album has a very tight rhythmic section too. As a bassist and drummer myself, these things speak tons to me about the great musical chemistry between Mike and John.
As good as a drummer Portnoy is, he's more of the "look at me" kind instead of a "let's groove out butts of" kind.
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Honestly I never really noticed him playing that differently live. Was this something he did just at non filmed shows?
I never noticed if either. In fact I thought he was very true to the original and if anything added a bit extra. Definitely never thought he was lazy in the least bit though.
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I have an example, though it's more nitpicky and doesn't truly affect the flow of the song: compare the studio version and the Live at Budokan versions of the intro to As I Am. There's a clear development in the drum fill patterns in the studio version and, in the live version, MP plays the 4th and final fill third, inventing something else for the fourth and final fill live.
It doesn't change much, but it's just a recorded example of how he would go off-script at times if you were curious.
I seem to remember MP saying that it was an honest mistake on his part and he didn't mean to flip those parts around. He knew he screwed up
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Well, yes. Not in a bizarre way like the Portnoy-boy but in a certain sense yes.
I like him less today than I ever did. I don't know, people change.
I give an example with another musician: Brann Dailor.
I'm sure I've already uttered the phrase "I love Mastodon and the drummer is my favorite band member". Ten years later I found myself thinking, "Wow, Brann, can you play less?" :lol
Anyway, different musicians.
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Mike Portnoy is one of the best composers of drum parts ever. My all-time favorite drumming album is AWAKE, because MP's drum composition skills there were immaculate. No wasted hits whatsoever. He assigns drum parts that are distinct and fit for every section. MP may have fallen under my radar because of the flash of Metropolis Pt. 1, but boy, does MP know how to write drum parts. It stayed that way up to FII. Peruvian Skies and Trial of Tears has those signature "distinct drum part for every section" style of composition.
Later on, though, MP became enamored with the flash. It first hit me with that snare fill in Fatal Tragedy (you know what I'm talking about). It's like my first experience of MP really trying to call attention to himself instead of playing for the song. Of course, there's the Finally Free outro.
By the time SDOIT came out, I am already getting distracted by a lot of MP's "look-at-me" drumming. The hi-hats in Misunderstood. MP's drum exhibition during Jordan's solo in Blind Faith. First time I heard it, I was going, "Damn it, Mike, I am focusing on what Jordan's doing!"
But the fans love the flash. When asked to name favorite MP drum parts, many fans point to the flash. The air-drummable stuff. The TDOE, the Finally Free, Blind Faith, TGD, HTF flashy stuff. Nobody points to Awake. MP still produced a lot of composition gems, like the SDOIT song, and 8VM. There are songs that balanced composition and flash, like Stream of Consciousness. But I guess MP wants to give what the fans want, so he just drummed to the air-drumming crowd, and he lost me by the time Systematic Chaos came out. I remember many fans going gaga over his drumming in the final third of TCoT, and I freaking can not understand why such drumming that's competing with JP's guitar was fawned over. I mean, listen to how Mangini supported JP in the AWE outro.
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I have an example, though it's more nitpicky and doesn't truly affect the flow of the song: compare the studio version and the Live at Budokan versions of the intro to As I Am. There's a clear development in the drum fill patterns in the studio version and, in the live version, MP plays the 4th and final fill third, inventing something else for the fourth and final fill live.
It doesn't change much, but it's just a recorded example of how he would go off-script at times if you were curious.
I seem to remember MP saying that it was an honest mistake on his part and he didn't mean to flip those parts around. He knew he screwed up
It's in the commentary track on the Budokan drumcam DVD. He says something like, "man, it's a massive show, and I mess up the intro!".
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Mike Portnoy is one of the best composers of drum parts ever.
Hell is definitely freezing over today, folks! :lol
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Mike Portnoy is one of the best composers of drum parts ever. My all-time favorite drumming album is AWAKE, because MP's drum composition skills there were immaculate. No wasted hits whatsoever. He assigns drum parts that are distinct and fit for every section. MP may have fallen under my radar because of the flash of Metropolis Pt. 1, but boy, does MP know how to write drum parts. It stayed that way up to FII. Peruvian Skies and Trial of Tears has those signature "distinct drum part for every section" style of composition.
Later on, though, MP became enamored with the flash. It first hit me with that snare fill in Fatal Tragedy (you know what I'm talking about). It's like my first experience of MP really trying to call attention to himself instead of playing for the song. Of course, there's the Finally Free outro.
By the time SDOIT came out, I am already getting distracted by a lot of MP's "look-at-me" drumming. The hi-hats in Misunderstood. MP's drum exhibition during Jordan's solo in Blind Faith. First time I heard it, I was going, "Damn it, Mike, I am focusing on what Jordan's doing!"
But the fans love the flash. When asked to name favorite MP drum parts, many fans point to the flash. The air-drummable stuff. The TDOE, the Finally Free, Blind Faith, TGD, HTF flashy stuff. Nobody points to Awake. MP still produced a lot of composition gems, like the SDOIT song, and 8VM. There are songs that balanced composition and flash, like Stream of Consciousness. But I guess MP wants to give what the fans want, so he just drummed to the air-drumming crowd, and he lost me by the time Systematic Chaos came out. I remember many fans going gaga over his drumming in the final third of TCoT, and I freaking can not understand why such drumming that's competing with JP's guitar was fawned over. I mean, listen to how Mangini supported JP in the AWE outro.
Very well put! Maybe I wouldn't agree on "ever", but he has indeed composed some very fitting drum parts in the earlier days, and it kind of went downhill after (and somewhat during) SFAM. My favourite drum part by MP is the one in the bridge in TTT ("The unbroken spirit..."). Very creative.
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Mike Portnoy is one of the best composers of drum parts ever.
Hell is definitely freezing over today, folks! :lol
Exhibit A of a perfect drum composition: The Mirror
Exhibit B: Peruvian Skies
Exhibit C: Trial of Tears
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I never had a problem with the Finally Free outro, as an album closer, it's quite bombastic and dramatic.
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Mike Portnoy is one of the best composers of drum parts ever.
Hell is definitely freezing over today, folks! :lol
Exhibit A of a perfect drum composition: The Mirror
Exhibit B: Peruvian Skies
Exhibit C: Trial of Tears
Oh, I absolutely agree with you :tup
I'm just not sure I've ever heard you say anything positive about Portnoy's playing before :biggrin:
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Def prefer MP.
MM is most boring (musically) DT member to date imho...
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Mike Portnoy is one of the best composers of drum parts ever.
Hell is definitely freezing over today, folks! :lol
Exhibit A of a perfect drum composition: The Mirror
Exhibit B: Peruvian Skies
Exhibit C: Trial of Tears
Oh, I absolutely agree with you :tup
I'm just not sure I've ever heard you say anything positive about Portnoy's playing before :biggrin:
Well, it depends on who is this MP we are talking about. :lol
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I have an example, though it's more nitpicky and doesn't truly affect the flow of the song: compare the studio version and the Live at Budokan versions of the intro to As I Am. There's a clear development in the drum fill patterns in the studio version and, in the live version, MP plays the 4th and final fill third, inventing something else for the fourth and final fill live.
It doesn't change much, but it's just a recorded example of how he would go off-script at times if you were curious.
I seem to remember MP saying that it was an honest mistake on his part and he didn't mean to flip those parts around. He knew he screwed up
It's in the commentary track on the Budokan drumcam DVD. He says something like, "man, it's a massive show, and I mess up the intro!".
Appreciate the correction!
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Mike Portnoy is one of the best composers of drum parts ever. My all-time favorite drumming album is AWAKE, because MP's drum composition skills there were immaculate. No wasted hits whatsoever. He assigns drum parts that are distinct and fit for every section. MP may have fallen under my radar because of the flash of Metropolis Pt. 1, but boy, does MP know how to write drum parts. It stayed that way up to FII. Peruvian Skies and Trial of Tears has those signature "distinct drum part for every section" style of composition.
Later on, though, MP became enamored with the flash. It first hit me with that snare fill in Fatal Tragedy (you know what I'm talking about). It's like my first experience of MP really trying to call attention to himself instead of playing for the song. Of course, there's the Finally Free outro.
By the time SDOIT came out, I am already getting distracted by a lot of MP's "look-at-me" drumming. The hi-hats in Misunderstood. MP's drum exhibition during Jordan's solo in Blind Faith. First time I heard it, I was going, "Damn it, Mike, I am focusing on what Jordan's doing!"
But the fans love the flash. When asked to name favorite MP drum parts, many fans point to the flash. The air-drummable stuff. The TDOE, the Finally Free, Blind Faith, TGD, HTF flashy stuff. Nobody points to Awake. MP still produced a lot of composition gems, like the SDOIT song, and 8VM. There are songs that balanced composition and flash, like Stream of Consciousness. But I guess MP wants to give what the fans want, so he just drummed to the air-drumming crowd, and he lost me by the time Systematic Chaos came out. I remember many fans going gaga over his drumming in the final third of TCoT, and I freaking can not understand why such drumming that's competing with JP's guitar was fawned over. I mean, listen to how Mangini supported JP in the AWE outro.
I don't have a problem with that at all. It adds a cool backdrop to the solo. And sometimes that kind of stuff can enhance the solo section. I think of that crazy unison solo in In the Name of God...you know the one. ;) Had Portnoy and Myung played that straight, I am not sure I would dig that part that much, but what Myung and Portnoy are doing there makes it 50 times better. And then there are times where just playing it straight under a solo is the way to go, like how Mangini plays it during the outro solo in A New Beginning.
Speaking of In the Name of God, you mentioned favorite Portnoy drum parts, and one of my favorites of his is right after that unison section. It ends, they bust back into the main riff, JP does that note alone for a split second, and then when the full band comes back in, the way Portnoy attacks his snare with extreme aggression is pretty bad ass. :metal
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But the fans love the flash. When asked to name favorite MP drum parts, many fans point to the flash. [...] Nobody points to Awake.
Maybe in your circle of friends, but in mine the opening of 6:00 is traded as one of *the* MP moments.
Speaking of which, I got the impression the opening of PBD was in a similar vein to the 6:00 opening, but it also shows the difference between MP and MM.
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Since we are talking about our MP favorite moments. I became a DT fan during the SC album, and the first time I payed attention to the drums and said "WOW" was during the guitar solo for Constant Motion, and that is still my favorite MP drum. That guitar solo is not that interesting, and without MP doing what he does I think it that section would have been as bad as the solo for TDEN.
Some of my other favorite parts are the intro for Lines in the Sand, Never Enough, The outro for Finally Free, Actually a lot of FII.
I have yet to have a favorite Studio MM moment, but I certainly been awe at some of his live performances.
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Actually a lot of FII.
LITS, 4:08-4:30. Absolutely unbelievable.
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Honestly I never really noticed him playing that differently live. Was this something he did just at non filmed shows?
I have an example, though it's more nitpicky and doesn't truly affect the flow of the song: compare the studio version and the Live at Budokan versions of the intro to As I Am. There's a clear development in the drum fill patterns in the studio version and, in the live version, MP plays the 4th and final fill third, inventing something else for the fourth and final fill live.
It doesn't change much, but it's just a recorded example of how he would go off-script at times if you were curious.
Do we know this is "off script"? I've been burning my CDs to a harddrive (lossless) and I decided to burn my DVD audio as well, so for the past week or so I have been ass-deep in live Dream Theater from about 1992 to 2006 or so, and if "exactly like the record" is the standard, MP is not the only offender, and I would posit that he's not really the WORST offender. If you watch the docs that seem to come with 90% of the live DVDs (they're gold, by the way, and I'm uisually not into those kinds of things) there is almost ALWAYS a clip of him at soundcheck going "hey; are you going to stick with the two beats of F# or do you think you're going to go for a beat and three quarters of Bb?" Meaning, I think there's improv, but I think there's a fair amount of discussion about the possibilities within that improv.
I don't necessarily agree with the idea that there was no "there" there, but I think the band was a lot more on the same page than history is trying to present at this point. It might not have been sustainable, I grant you, but the idea that Portnoy was a loose cannon and driving the train at 165 mph to the cliff and they were saved by the bell on September 8th, 2010 and now everyone can breath a sigh of relief I don't think is accurate.
Me? I'm still first-day buying DT, and I'm going to see them this tour (again) because I love LaBrie, I love Petrucci, I love Rudess, and I love the music. I do prefer the style and impact of Portnoy's drums, but that's a feel thing. I don't go in for "better" or "worse" (I don't think it's debatable that Bruce Kulick is a more technically accomplished player than Ace Frehley, but Ace is the original and that's the essence of Kiss to a VAST majority of people) but for how I feel listening. I've written this before but I feel like Mike P's talent is taking something that is in 15/13 time and making it groove and flow like it's 4/4, and Mike M's talent is taking something in 7/8 time and making it feel like it's 15/13. It all depends on what you're in for. I prefer the former.
EDIT: To be fair, though, I do think there is something to the idea that Mike started to view DT as "his" Anthrax (i.e. he's the bandleader, he does the lyrics, the backing vox, the this, the that, and he needed to be seen as a hip metal drummer ala his friend Benante). I think he started to play out a little more and the metal side took over; whereas I&W and Metropolis were awesome amalgamations of all things DT, almost uncatagorizable, as we get past 6DOIT, it becomes "the metal album", the "U2 album", the "this album", the "that album". The approach changed, even the look changed (as it did for all the members; they never looked like an over-the-hill biker gang back in 2007; now all the promo pictures look almost identically faded out and they're all in black looking like they have beef to settle with SAMCRO)... I'm looking forward to hearing the new album (I don't do snippets anymore) because all I'm hearing is that it might be a step back to that more mish-mash approach, which I'm all in on.
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You haven't heard the new album?
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Actually a lot of FII.
LITS, 4:08-4:30. Absolutely unbelievable.
Yep, that is good stuff.
And in the annals of drum fills you air drum every single time, I would submit the drum fill between the bolded words in the line, "Helps us to understand the turbulence deep inside," from Losing Time/Grand Finale (from 6DOIT). Unless I am driving and that hits when I am turning or unable to do it for fear of crashing :lol, I cannot not air drum that fill. So simple, yet so good.
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Maybe in your circle of friends, but in mine the opening of 6:00 is traded as one of *the* MP moments.
Yes, but that is part of the flash. Do you know somebody who would point to the brilliance of the drumming in The Mirror? Or Scarred?
Speaking of which, I got the impression the opening of PBD was in a similar vein to the 6:00 opening, but it also shows the difference between MP and MM.
They are both drum solo intros, but the feel of the songs themselves are very different, so how could they be comparable? Can you do a groovy drum intro ala-6:00 given the music of PBD? What is more comparable is the drum intro of Paralyzed, which if the band only decided to start with instead of the riff would be similar to what they were going for with 6:00.
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Honestly I never really noticed him playing that differently live. Was this something he did just at non filmed shows?
I have an example, though it's more nitpicky and doesn't truly affect the flow of the song: compare the studio version and the Live at Budokan versions of the intro to As I Am. There's a clear development in the drum fill patterns in the studio version and, in the live version, MP plays the 4th and final fill third, inventing something else for the fourth and final fill live.
It doesn't change much, but it's just a recorded example of how he would go off-script at times if you were curious.
Do we know this is "off script"? I've been burning my CDs to a harddrive (lossless) and I decided to burn my DVD audio as well, so for the past week or so I have been ass-deep in live Dream Theater from about 1992 to 2006 or so, and if "exactly like the record" is the standard, MP is not the only offender, and I would posit that he's not really the WORST offender. If you watch the docs that seem to come with 90% of the live DVDs (they're gold, by the way, and I'm uisually not into those kinds of things) there is almost ALWAYS a clip of him at soundcheck going "hey; are you going to stick with the two beats of F# or do you think you're going to go for a beat and three quarters of Bb?" Meaning, I think there's improv, but I think there's a fair amount of discussion about the possibilities within that improv.
I don't necessarily agree with the idea that there was no "there" there, but I think the band was a lot more on the same page than history is trying to present at this point. It might not have been sustainable, I grant you, but the idea that Portnoy was a loose cannon and driving the train at 165 mph to the cliff and they were saved by the bell on September 8th, 2010 and now everyone can breath a sigh of relief I don't think is accurate.
Me? I'm still first-day buying DT, and I'm going to see them this tour (again) because I love LaBrie, I love Petrucci, I love Rudess, and I love the music. I do prefer the style and impact of Portnoy's drums, but that's a feel thing. I don't go in for "better" or "worse" (I don't think it's debatable that Bruce Kulick is a more technically accomplished player than Ace Frehley, but Ace is the original and that's the essence of Kiss to a VAST majority of people) but for how I feel listening. I've written this before but I feel like Mike P's talent is taking something that is in 15/13 time and making it groove and flow like it's 4/4, and Mike M's talent is taking something in 7/8 time and making it feel like it's 15/13. It all depends on what you're in for. I prefer the former.
EDIT: To be fair, though, I do think there is something to the idea that Mike started to view DT as "his" Anthrax (i.e. he's the bandleader, he does the lyrics, the backing vox, the this, the that, and he needed to be seen as a hip metal drummer ala his friend Benante). I think he started to play out a little more and the metal side took over; whereas I&W and Metropolis were awesome amalgamations of all things DT, almost uncatagorizable, as we get past 6DOIT, it becomes "the metal album", the "U2 album", the "this album", the "that album". The approach changed, even the look changed (as it did for all the members; they never looked like an over-the-hill biker gang back in 2007; now all the promo pictures look almost identically faded out and they're all in black looking like they have beef to settle with SAMCRO)... I'm looking forward to hearing the new album (I don't do snippets anymore) because all I'm hearing is that it might be a step back to that more mish-mash approach, which I'm all in on.
I've been duly corrected by fellow board members that this was an honest flub by MP and not an intentional rearrangement. Just for the sake of clarity!
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Actually a lot of FII.
LITS, 4:08-4:30. Absolutely unbelievable.
Yep, that is good stuff.
And in the annals of drum fills you air drum every single time, I would submit the drum fill between the bolded words in the line, "Helps us to understand the turbulence deep inside," from Losing Time/Grand Finale (from 6DOIT). Unless I am driving and that hits when I am turning or unable to do it for fear of crashing :lol, I cannot not air drum that fill. So simple, yet so good.
The reverse drum fill in The Glass Prison for me. Love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O__pcncOpNw
1:24
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I never minded MP's "overplaying" it's when he started to become stale and seem to mail it in. Honestly in my opinion was only his last 2 albums, even at that I loved the beginning of Systematic Chaos. For me it was his ever increasing "vocals" and his look at me attitude. But from I and W for a very long time he was in my top 5 favorite drummers, second only to Peart and Bruford.
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You haven't heard the new album?
I have several times, but as crazy as Mike is on the album, it never strikes me as overplaying. There are fills, but there aren't FILLS.
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You haven't heard the new album?
I have several times, but as crazy as Mike is on the album, it never strikes me as overplaying. There are fills, but there aren't FILLS.
I think rumbo was responding to Stadler. ;)
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Speaking of which, I got the impression the opening of PBD was in a similar vein to the 6:00 opening, but it also shows the difference between MP and MM.
They are both drum solo intros, but the feel of the songs themselves are very different, so how could they be comparable? Can you do a groovy drum intro ala-6:00 given the music of PBD? What is more comparable is the drum intro of Paralyzed, which if the band only decided to start with instead of the riff would be similar to what they were going for with 6:00.
The two are obviously not very similar in style, but rather in function in the song, as the buildup to the song where the sole focus is on the drums. I just think it displays how MP and MM approach something like that differently. MP chose a groovy run, whereas MM went for something non-groovy but incredibly hard to play. (that missed hihat hit is driving me nuts though)
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I admittingly know diddly squat technically about drumming. So if Mangini is doing incredibly difficult stuff, I'm not really noticing it. Portnoy's fills (as predictable as they have become) still float my boat and I have listened to parts of D/T and said "damn there should be a fill in there" when Mangini is playing it straight. Not nearly as much air drumming to MM as MP.
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You haven't heard the new album?
Nope; my Amazon purchase was inexplicably delayed. The only thing I heard so far was that short video with what seemed to me to be a montage of bits from the album. I loved it, but I put no stock in it, because I have yet to hear a snippet that really accurately presents an albums (correction: there was one; the snippet I heard for DTP's Transcendence). I hated the snippets from ADOTE (probably my favorite MM-era DT album) and my classic go-to is HATING "Tattoo" from Van Halen's ADKOT, which later turned out to be my album of the year for 2012 (and I LOVE Tattoo in the context of the album).
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I admittingly know diddly squat technically about drumming. So if Mangini is doing incredibly difficult stuff, I'm not really noticing it.
The beginning of PBD is crazy difficult to play, and I think it's fair to say that only MM can play it like that, because (I believe) he hits the hihat with one hand only.
You haven't heard the new album?
Nope; my Amazon purchase was inexplicably delayed.
But ... that's crazy! It's like not opening the presents on Christmas Day saying "I'm kinda busy, I'll get to it". I mean, you clearly purchased the album, so it's not like you would be stealing it, so why wouldn't you grab it from one of the myriad places in the meantime so you can listen to it?
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OK, I respect MP 100% for what he did to Prog Metal (and he inspired one of my fav drummers), but, I said sometimes, his only good performance, to me, is WDADU, and the only time he sounded good (hate his overly loud drums).
The problem with overplaying is not overplaying per se, is that MP knows like 5 or 7 fills, and uses them everywhere. To the point I could make a MP drums generator sampling the BC&SL stems. Just look at Blake Richardson: dude adds tons of fills and syncopated lines, but his style is so diverse it feels fresh every time. Mangini did the same exact thing on TA: syncopated lines, blast beats, Pop 4/4 (ANB), odd time signatures, and even Broadway musical drum fills (Wicked comes to mind).
I understand why people prefer MP, but, I have never been a fan of his "clown+llama" style, not at all. Since MM joined the band, they seem to have a chill vibe; man, they're old, they can't follow the Rock & Roll life forever (that only works for The Rolling Stones, haha).
Mangini is superhuman, not only with his speed, the band chose him for a reason. Marco Minnemann is also one of my favourite drummers, but, his style doesn't fit in DT at all; he's improvisation-friendly and you can see that, and DT is like the opposite of that nowadays.
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I admittingly know diddly squat technically about drumming. So if Mangini is doing incredibly difficult stuff, I'm not really noticing it.
The beginning of PBD is crazy difficult to play, and I think it's fair to say that only MM can play it like that, because (I believe) he hits the hihat with one hand only.
You haven't heard the new album?
Nope; my Amazon purchase was inexplicably delayed.
But ... that's crazy! It's like not opening the presents on Christmas Day saying "I'm kinda busy, I'll get to it". I mean, you clearly purchased the album, so it's not like you would be stealing it, so why wouldn't you grab it from one of the myriad places in the meantime so you can listen to it?
In that sense, I have it; I have access to an immediate download when I buy. I'm just not set up that way, YET. 99% of my listening - literally, 99% - is on CD in the car, or on my home system. Part of the burning I've been talking about is to set up my system so that it can be virtual and do what you're suggesting.
But I'm old, so baby steps. :)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsmQWV8Iro
I believe it's note per note drum cover of PBD :tup
I'm always amazed how this youtube musicians can learn to play these difficult songs apparently overnight.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsmQWV8Iro
I believe it's note per note drum cover of PBD :tup
I'm always amazed how this youtube musicians can learn to play these difficult songs apparently overnight.
What the hell! That looks insanely hard and he did it 2 days after release. I was still trying to understand the song after 2 days :o
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What the hell! That looks insanely hard and he did it 2 days after release.
I ... kinda doubt he only had the album for 2 days at that point.
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A good exemple on "overplaying":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqr6O7shCrw
The final solo (06:00-07:40).
The original song ends with a beautiful guitar solo, while bass and drums make a simple groove and keyboard an equally simple accompaniment.
In the YouTube version the drummer chose to turn the end of the song into a guitar solo plus a kind of "drum solo". The nice bass + drums simple groove is over.
At the end of the day is about a choice.
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Ironically, from what I remember, this guy above covered almost the rest of the Astonishing, faithfull to the original arrangements.
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Were we spoiled by Portnoy's overplaying?
No.
We got used to it. It was part of what he did in DT.
As a drummer for 35 years (I'm almost 42 and started playing when I was 6), one of the most difficult things to do is play to the music within the song. Don't let yourself be way out front but don't sound like you just had a lesson learning how to play the snare on the 2 and 4. The temptation is to throw in fills and chops because we want to be noticed. TBH it's fun to do and it sounds really cool. But, does the song call for that? That's the ultimate question a drummer must decide when they compose for a song.
In my earlier years of drumming I was totally into the over the top & virtuoso type players. I was enamored with the fills. MP scratched my itch because DT was the musical marriage of prog, rock, and metal. I liked prog and I liked metal so DT was a great fit for me to get all of that in one band.
As a drummer, I think Awake is MP's best work. His drumming fits the songs best on that album. I don't think he overplayed much, if at all. His playing was creative and fresh. Not saying his playing on other albums isn't good because it is. I think he started really going overboard with the 2hands up/2feet down fill on SFAM. That became his thing. Kinda like Zakk Wyle with pinch harmonics on the guitar. It wasn't new in drumming but it became his signature fill (hence the "bag of tricks" reference in the Liquid Drum Theater video). He got into doing a lot of the 32nd note fills too. He started to "fill it up" in areas where, in my honest opinion, it wasn't needed. Think about the fill on top of the keyboard solo in Blind Faith. It's an awesome fill and it sounds incredible but did it work there? Opinions vary.
His playing became bland to me on Systematic Chaos and BCSL. His drumming was good (always has been) but it was predictable. When we don't know what else to do, we do what we know to do. So, fill it up he did. I always thought he would have greatly benefited from a drum teacher just to get a different view of the instrument and to be inspired to go to another level of playing. But doing the things he was doing for the band in addition to drumming may have taken precedent over spending time to get to another level of playing & composing. Maybe the break he was wanting for the band would have been good for him not just to do other projects but to reinvent himself behind the kit.
In no way am I the best drummer in the world. In no way is this a diss of MP. I've been a fan since 1994 and have much respect for him. He gets gigs today because he's a good drummer. He nails it in studio and live. He's a professional. People seem to want him on their recordings or on tour because they know what they're going to get and they are confident that MP will deliver. I'm just sharing my honest thoughts in regards to the OP's question.
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^ Interestingly enough, that was when the band started self producing....I feel like they really needed to be reined in as a whole during the post ToT era.
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His playing became bland to me on Systematic Chaos and BCSL. His drumming was good (always has been) but it was predictable. When we don't know what else to do, we do what we know to do. So, fill it up he did. I always thought he would have greatly benefited from a drum teacher just to get a different view of the instrument and to be inspired to go to another level of playing. But doing the things he was doing for the band in addition to drumming may have taken precedent over spending time to get to another level of playing & composing. Maybe the break he was wanting for the band would have been good for him not just to do other projects but to reinvent himself behind the kit.
As a fellow skinbeater I share the same opinion but I started to feel that already in the Train of Throught days, that's when I started to loose interest in DT and MPs predictable playing was a part of it.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsmQWV8Iro
I believe it's note per note drum cover of PBD :tup
I'm always amazed how this youtube musicians can learn to play these difficult songs apparently overnight.
That first 16th note pattern is nasty and of course it's with the lefty. :eek
Actually a lot of FII.
LITS, 4:08-4:30. Absolutely unbelievable.
Yep, that is good stuff.
And in the annals of drum fills you air drum every single time, I would submit the drum fill between the bolded words in the line, "Helps us to understand the turbulence deep inside," from Losing Time/Grand Finale (from 6DOIT). Unless I am driving and that hits when I am turning or unable to do it for fear of crashing :lol, I cannot not air drum that fill. So simple, yet so good.
The reverse drum fill in The Glass Prison for me. Love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O__pcncOpNw
1:24
Most of the fills you guys talk about except Kev is pretty much variations of this kind of fill that MP has done for ages: https://youtu.be/Ab2uWmHaw-o?t=57
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As a fellow skinbeater...
That's a new one. Are you the masseuse that Robert Kraft visited?
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As a fellow skinbeater...
That's a new one. Are you the masseuse that Robert Kraft visited?
:zydar:
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsmQWV8Iro
I believe it's note per note drum cover of PBD :tup
I'm always amazed how this youtube musicians can learn to play these difficult songs apparently overnight.
That first 16th note pattern is nasty and of course it's with the lefty. :eek
Actually a lot of FII.
LITS, 4:08-4:30. Absolutely unbelievable.
Yep, that is good stuff.
And in the annals of drum fills you air drum every single time, I would submit the drum fill between the bolded words in the line, "Helps us to understand the turbulence deep inside," from Losing Time/Grand Finale (from 6DOIT). Unless I am driving and that hits when I am turning or unable to do it for fear of crashing :lol, I cannot not air drum that fill. So simple, yet so good.
The reverse drum fill in The Glass Prison for me. Love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O__pcncOpNw
1:24
Most of the fills you guys talk about except Kev is pretty much variations of this kind of fill that MP has done for ages: https://youtu.be/Ab2uWmHaw-o?t=57
On a side note, Todd Sucherman in that clip is an absolutely underrated rock drummer; check out some of his stuff on the tubes. I would love for him to get with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson for some stuff now that Neil P. has retired. He'd be a great fit for those guys. I'm not sure if he'd leave Styx to do it, but I'm also not sure why the heck he wouldn't! I mean it would be Geddy and Alex.
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.
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I like his fill on The Spirit Carries On.
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Mangini doesn't stand up while he plays, and he doesn't do those awful falsetto vocals. I liked MP's backing vocals until seeing him during the Medley thing on Chaos in Motion. He ruined Octavarium.
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Speaking of which, I got the impression the opening of PBD was in a similar vein to the 6:00 opening, but it also shows the difference between MP and MM.
They are both drum solo intros, but the feel of the songs themselves are very different, so how could they be comparable? Can you do a groovy drum intro ala-6:00 given the music of PBD? What is more comparable is the drum intro of Paralyzed, which if the band only decided to start with instead of the riff would be similar to what they were going for with 6:00.
The two are obviously not very similar in style, but rather in function in the song, as the buildup to the song where the sole focus is on the drums. I just think it displays how MP and MM approach something like that differently. MP chose a groovy run, whereas MM went for something non-groovy but incredibly hard to play. (that missed hihat hit is driving me nuts though)
But the other song is technical while the other is groovy, so doesn't that dictate more how the drum intro would shape up rather than the approach of the drummers?
Again, I think the better comparison is Paralyzed, where the riff was based on the drum pattern so they could have arranged it with a solo drum intro if they wanted. Or better is Challenge Accepted in the Into The Great Divide album. That is a groovy drum intro, not a technical one, which fits well with the spirit of the song.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTsmQWV8Iro
I believe it's note per note drum cover of PBD :tup
I'm always amazed how this youtube musicians can learn to play these difficult songs apparently overnight.
That first 16th note pattern is nasty and of course it's with the lefty. :eek
Actually a lot of FII.
LITS, 4:08-4:30. Absolutely unbelievable.
Yep, that is good stuff.
And in the annals of drum fills you air drum every single time, I would submit the drum fill between the bolded words in the line, "Helps us to understand the turbulence deep inside," from Losing Time/Grand Finale (from 6DOIT). Unless I am driving and that hits when I am turning or unable to do it for fear of crashing :lol, I cannot not air drum that fill. So simple, yet so good.
The reverse drum fill in The Glass Prison for me. Love it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O__pcncOpNw
1:24
Most of the fills you guys talk about except Kev is pretty much variations of this kind of fill that MP has done for ages: https://youtu.be/Ab2uWmHaw-o?t=57
On a side note, Todd Sucherman in that clip is an absolutely underrated rock drummer; check out some of his stuff on the tubes. I would love for him to get with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson for some stuff now that Neil P. has retired. He'd be a great fit for those guys. I'm not sure if he'd leave Styx to do it, but I'm also not sure why the heck he wouldn't! I mean it would be Geddy and Alex.
Yea, he's one of my favourite drummers these days. I'm glad though that he's more recognized than ever and his name is spreading.
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To me Hell’s Kitchen does it. Every single hit counts in that song. That MP at his best IMO.
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To me Hell’s Kitchen does it. Every single hit counts in that song. That MP at his best IMO.
Yes, great part. Also the beginning of Misunderstood. MP from the start was a big part of why I got in DT. Then things changed. Maybe he just hit a wall. Maybe he was so burnt out on being the voice and "leader" of DT that he put the drumming on the back burner. It was like he was bored with just being the drummer where I thought he did an amazing job for a long time.
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For the life of me, I can't tell the difference between one drummer and another. I don't know how to play the drums, so it all sounds like a wash if background noise to me, and I couldn't identify any individual fill or moment that stands out anywhere in the DT discography, aside from maybe the opening of 6:00. I know both Portnoy and Mangini are among the best drummers in the world, and I respect both of them greatly, but their instrumental contribution to the band is the one I understand the least.
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To me Hell’s Kitchen does it. Every single hit counts in that song. That MP at his best IMO.
Yes, great part. Also the beginning of Misunderstood. MP from the start was a big part of why I got in DT. Then things changed. Maybe he just hit a wall. Maybe he was so burnt out on being the voice and "leader" of DT that he put the drumming on the back burner. It was like he was bored with just being the drummer where I thought he did an amazing job for a long time.
The beginning of Misunderstood? That play your hi hats activrely while the others are playing somber music kind of drumming?
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I agree about Hell's Kitchen and Misunderstood. Portnoy's playing in both of those songs is tremendous and very tasteful.
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People have mentioned ‘Blind Faith’ as an example of over playing.....for me.....Blind Faith is the pinnacle of MP’s playing. It’s the ‘perfect song’ if you want to showcase his drumming capability and style. I think his drumming in that song is PERFECT.....perfectly compliments every section of music and it’s utterly beautiful, powerful and virtuosic. Blind Faith remains a top 5 DT song of all time, because they all are on point in that song.
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People have mentioned ‘Blind Faith’ as an example of over playing.....for me.....Blind Faith is the pinnacle of MP’s playing. It’s the ‘perfect song’ if you want to showcase his drumming capability and style. I think his drumming in that song is PERFECT.....perfectly compliments every section of music and it’s utterly beautiful, powerful and virtuosic. Blind Faith remains a top 5 DT song of all time, because they all are on point in that song.
YES. People who want minimalist, understated drumming in prog are listening to the wrong genre.
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To me Hell’s Kitchen does it. Every single hit counts in that song. That MP at his best IMO.
Yes, great part. Also the beginning of Misunderstood. MP from the start was a big part of why I got in DT. Then things changed. Maybe he just hit a wall. Maybe he was so burnt out on being the voice and "leader" of DT that he put the drumming on the back burner. It was like he was bored with just being the drummer where I thought he did an amazing job for a long time.
The beginning of Misunderstood? That play your hi hats activrely while the others are playing somber music kind of drumming?
Yes. There are more than just high hats though. It's very tasteful I think. I'm more of a Mangini fan than a Portnoy fan but I have to give credit where credit is due.
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I just re-listened to Misunderstood and I feel like those octobans in the beginning don't belong there. But that's just me.
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I just re-listened to Misunderstood and I feel like those octobans in the beginning don't belong there. But that's just me.
Octobans always belong.. listen to how tasty they sound!
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I just re-listened to Misunderstood and I feel like those octobans in the beginning don't belong there. But that's just me.
Not just you.
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People have mentioned ‘Blind Faith’ as an example of over playing.....for me.....Blind Faith is the pinnacle of MP’s playing. It’s the ‘perfect song’ if you want to showcase his drumming capability and style. I think his drumming in that song is PERFECT.....perfectly compliments every section of music and it’s utterly beautiful, powerful and virtuosic. Blind Faith remains a top 5 DT song of all time, because they all are on point in that song.
Agreed, great playing by Portnoy here. He really drives the song here and elevates it. It’s over the top, no doubt, but so is the everything else in that song! Portnoy pretty much crushed everything from SDOIT through 8VM in my book.
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I just re-listened to Misunderstood and I feel like those octobans in the beginning don't belong there. But that's just me.
I like them. What doesn't belong there is the entire end of the song.
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I just re-listened to Misunderstood and I feel like those octobans in the beginning don't belong there. But that's just me.
I like them. What doesn't belong there is the entire end of the song.
But it's the end of the song that musically made sense compared to the octobans given what the narrative of the song.
People have mentioned ‘Blind Faith’ as an example of over playing.....for me.....Blind Faith is the pinnacle of MP’s playing. It’s the ‘perfect song’ if you want to showcase his drumming capability and style. I think his drumming in that song is PERFECT.....perfectly compliments every section of music and it’s utterly beautiful, powerful and virtuosic. Blind Faith remains a top 5 DT song of all time, because they all are on point in that song.
Agreed, great playing by Portnoy here. He really drives the song here and elevates it. It’s over the top, no doubt, but so is the everything else in that song! Portnoy pretty much crushed everything from SDOIT through 8VM in my book.
Over the top to the point that one doesn't notice Jordan's solo unless you focus on it. And that is not the point of the rhythm section.
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As for overplaying I’m the finally free outro, I think it’s right there at the line of being almost too much when putting the whole album into context. It brings this uncertain tension that seems to go nowhere because of the fade out, but it sets the listener perfectly for what happens next. You can picture Nicholas just getting home and relaxing, but you as a listener are not relaxed because of that unresolved tension from the outro. Maybe the drumming it’s a bit too much, but the desired effect is reached quite perfectly.
Now the last minute of About To Crash from 6DOIT, he could’ve chilled with the double kicks. It adds nothing to JP’s melodic soloing. Or maybe that’s part of the “inner turbulence”.
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Now the last minute of About To Crash from 6DOIT, he could’ve chilled with the double kicks. It adds nothing to JP’s melodic soloing. Or maybe that’s part of the “inner turbulence”.
That’s a cool way of seeing it, and it actually makes sense, but everything makes sense if we start over analyzing like that :lol
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Warning: rant ahead. Decided to put on DT12 yesterday, and it still doesn't excite me like other DT albums do. I know all the tunes at this point, I've warmed up to the first few tracks, but the rest is just OK or samey, but decent metal tunes. I really don't like the closing epic, it's not well put together, but it has a lot of cool parts. It's a heavy riffy song that has these two sections of music in the middle that do not belong, with a nice secret ending which should have been longer. It is a big red flag that Portnoy was the master arranger in the music. Even now with DOT, and I like the new album, there are still these moments of technicality for the sake of it, or crazy time signatures everywhere, without regard to how it affects the flow of the song. Same with ADTOE which I also enjoy. It's why I don't think Planet X is super amazing, at least a full album of them, it's all head music with a dash of jazz thrown in. I still also hear moments in DOT where it's like "oh that's a thing they do now" whether it's chord progression choices, or whatnot.
It has nothing to do with 'influences on their sleeves' as we still get that during the Mangini era. I think MP was the filter and arranger, and I still think nothing released since BC&SL is "great". All IMO of course. There's been some good tunes for sure, but I think I still would have been fine with a 5-6 year break instead of getting the last 4 albums, even as I still am in the honeymoon phase of the new album. Imagine the band came back last year with all the ideas they came up with over the past 9 years (all the raw material from ADTOE-DT12-TA-DOT mixed with ideas MP would have, and I don't think he'd be as much about bringing in extreme metal or U2 influences at this point) to make a massive album that would probably have competed with I&W or Six Degrees but with MP on drums. I think the one individual album would be better than the combined forces of the last 4 albums.
The thing with Mangini is he's a tech-metal drummer whereas MP is a prog-rock/metal drummer who had more creative control over the music than just about any other drummer I can think of, and I think that changes a lot of aspects of Dream Theater that I always thought were more unique to the band than other bands out there, prog, rock, metal, or otherwise. Losing Kevin Moore was tough on the band's sound, because he had a styles you don't find in keyboardists post-early 90s, but early Rudess was great. I think after 8vm they just all went through the motions, though. That, and trying to be 'current' messed up their sound. I would have rather the band totally reinvent their sound instead of pushing for the modern metal sound they went for on SC, or the "return to roots" style of the last few albums, which I don't think is accurate anyway as the music now is darker, more brooding. Sure they've brought in lighter, more melodic, major key stuff back on recent albums, but at best it reminds me of that kind of stuff from Six Degrees, not I&W or Awake. But I want the band to be progressive. They don't have to reinvent the wheel or anything, but the last few albums seem"regressive" or just a mix-and-match of what they had been doing with Portnoy on the last couple of albums with him. The Astonishing wasn't this, we can talk further on that if you want. Anyway, I ranted too long, no time to edit.
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Over the top to the point that one doesn't notice Jordan's solo unless you focus on it. And that is not the point of the rhythm section.
Speak for yourself. I had to go back and listen to that part to see what Portnoy was doing underneath JR's solo.
And you are aware that the entire band is almost always doing all kinds of cool things during solo sections, right? That has been their M.O. since the first album. Look, I know you are a Mangini guy, and maybe you think the drummer should always do what Mangini did at the end of A New Beginning (play it straight, which worked very well in that instance), but solo sections with Dream Theater have almost always been "band solos," even if one guy takes the lead at one point or another. They are rarely a band where one guy solos and the rest just play along quietly in the background.
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It's a heavy riffy song that has these two sections of music in the middle that do not belong, with a nice secret ending which should have been longer. It is a big red flag that Portnoy was the master arranger in the music.
First, Portnoy-era DT had plenty of epics that seemed stitched together from unrelated sections. In fact I recall this being a major recurring point of criticism in their later years. It's weird that I've now seen a couple of people bring up Illumination Theory as a negative example for DT's arranging abilities without Portnoy when it's pretty much an outlier in their post-Portnoy discography. They've written 62 songs since Portnoy left and I can only think of two where I've seen that point brought up (PBD being the other), so it hardly seems like a big, recurring problem with their arranging these days.
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I agree that Portnoy started overplaying, especially compared to how Mangini approaches the songs. However I think the mix makes it worse. The drums are mixed SO LOUD on the Petrucci-Portnoy produced albums. It cracks me up when people complain about the Mangini albums having the drums mixed too low. I think we got used to the loud drums on the Portnoy albums, because the drums sit perfectly in the mix on the last few albums.
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but solo sections with Dream Theater have almost always been "band solos," even if one guy takes the lead at one point or another. They are rarely a band where one guy solos and the rest just play along quietly in the background.
This.
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The thing with Mangini is he's a tech-metal drummer...
Careful implying that Mangini isn’t a master of literally everything around here lol.
I tried to make a similar point months ago that just maybe prog isn’t Mangini’s “natural habitat” and it was not well received. I still maintain if you want to hear the best Mangini, check out his stints with Annihilator or Extreme.
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Ironically, it was MP's overplaying that really struck me when I was first introduced to DT. I thought, "This drummer is just as much an important part of the band as the other guys." I felt like MP was speaking through his drums and was not just in the background. It impressed me that he was out front sometimes and making the drums a focal point. I overall miss that.
However, D/T is a BIG improvement. The drums feel like they step out more often and even take the lead sometimes. MP being one of the lead composers really made a difference in the past for the drums. Giving MM a part in the writing process this time definitely payed off.
I think after TOT MP was getting tired in general and that is why his playing lacked the dynamics it used to have. He is still capable but needed some new inspiration.
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Over the top to the point that one doesn't notice Jordan's solo unless you focus on it. And that is not the point of the rhythm section.
Speak for yourself. I had to go back and listen to that part to see what Portnoy was doing underneath JR's solo.
And you are aware that the entire band is almost always doing all kinds of cool things during solo sections, right? That has been their M.O. since the first album. Look, I know you are a Mangini guy, and maybe you think the drummer should always do what Mangini did at the end of A New Beginning (play it straight, which worked very well in that instance), but solo sections with Dream Theater have almost always been "band solos," even if one guy takes the lead at one point or another. They are rarely a band where one guy solos and the rest just play along quietly in the background.
Why would I think that every drummer should always do what Mangini did at the end of ANB? That's not even representative of how Mangini typically drums when another guy is soloing. The outro of S2n is a better example of how he drums under a JR solo. Or R137 of how he drums under a JP solo.
I can not take seriously the comment that JR's keys solo is more noticeable than all those MP hits from 6:54 of 7:30 of Blind Faith. Actually even extending up to 8:22, I can not imagine how somebody would honestly say that MP is not upstaging JR in that portion of the song.
And I am not even comparing MP to MM when I had that reaction. I was comparing this to how MP set the standard on how to drum well without upstaging the keyboard solo with how he drummed underneath KM in Scarred. Or best example yet, how he drummed underneath DS in Trial of Tears. Really, listen to those three keyboard solos and tell me honestly that MP did not overdrum Blind Faith relative to the other songs. Heck, let's even include the JR keyboard solo in the Medicate portion of Octavarium, and it would even pale compared to how he drummed Blind Faith. Which is a sad thing because I think Blind Faith has JR's best key solo in DT.
The thing with Mangini is he's a tech-metal drummer...
Careful implying that Mangini isn’t a master of literally everything around here lol.
I tried to make a similar point months ago that just maybe prog isn’t Mangini’s “natural habitat” and it was not well received. I still maintain if you want to hear the best Mangini, check out his stints with Annihilator or Extreme.
I almost agreed because Mangini is a monster in the Annihilator records.
But his best individual song drumming performance outside DT is Egg Zooming (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXcbXZ_H9BA) by Mike Keneally, a prog song which made him a legend among drummers when it was released in 1998. That's prog, not tech/metal.
Then his best full album drumming performance outside DT is Into The Great Divide (https://open.spotify.com/album/6wrPyQSP6GQOaMne01mH6s?si=T1xFMKpmSmCxcrJH1SEQKQ), which feature drumming gems like Challenge Accepted (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlu0X_sA2ME) and my favorite Under A Starry Sky (https://open.spotify.com/track/7kG6rFmBPkjHznCeHVt9Qe?si=F_bEEbM8QMi8kg_jqYaBCA). Prog not metal.
And he also did a full album of Rush covers (https://open.spotify.com/album/5VLWzpa7aFNh1dGMEZLD7J?si=_n0F-Bv5QpeGVZ97wVze8w) that was well-received.
So I don't think Mangini is a tech-metal drummer. His drumming in S2n should already be enough evidence for DT fans that he is much more than that.
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Over the top to the point that one doesn't notice Jordan's solo unless you focus on it. And that is not the point of the rhythm section.
Speak for yourself. I had to go back and listen to that part to see what Portnoy was doing underneath JR's solo.
And you are aware that the entire band is almost always doing all kinds of cool things during solo sections, right? That has been their M.O. since the first album. Look, I know you are a Mangini guy, and maybe you think the drummer should always do what Mangini did at the end of A New Beginning (play it straight, which worked very well in that instance), but solo sections with Dream Theater have almost always been "band solos," even if one guy takes the lead at one point or another. They are rarely a band where one guy solos and the rest just play along quietly in the background.
Why would I think that every drummer should always do what Mangini did at the end of ANB? That's not even representative of how Mangini typically drums when another guy is soloing. The outro of S2n is a better example of how he drums under a JR solo. Or R137 of how he drums under a JP solo.
I can not take seriously the comment that JR's keys solo is more noticeable than all those MP hits from 6:54 of 7:30 of Blind Faith. Actually even extending up to 8:22, I can not imagine how somebody would honestly say that MP is not upstaging JR in that portion of the song.
And I am not even comparing MP to MM when I had that reaction. I was comparing this to how MP set the standard on how to drum well without upstaging the keyboard solo with how he drummed underneath KM in Scarred. Or best example yet, how he drummed underneath DS in Trial of Tears. Really, listen to those three keyboard solos and tell me honestly that MP did not overdrum Blind Faith relative to the other songs. Heck, let's even include the JR keyboard solo in the Medicate portion of Octavarium, and it would even pale compared to how he drummed Blind Faith. Which is a sad thing because I think Blind Faith has JR's best key solo in DT.
Portnoy did not over drum the keyboard solo in Blind Faith relative to the other songs. Honestly.
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I just re-listened to Misunderstood and I feel like those octobans in the beginning don't belong there. But that's just me.
Octobans always belong.. listen to how tasty they sound!
Oh yeah baby! Octobans are the weed of sound, you can't overdose :lol
no seriously, listen to the longer fills at the end of Instrumedly at Budokan. Thats MP. I really love MM as well, but his octobans sound shitty in comparison, very roomy and not tasty. Hard to describe. I love his sound (not specially the octobans) on D/T though
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Octobans sounded great on Barstool Warrior intro. :)
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I can not take seriously the comment that JR's keys solo is more noticeable than all those MP hits from 6:54 of 7:30 of Blind Faith. Actually even extending up to 8:22, I can not imagine how somebody would honestly say that MP is not upstaging JR in that portion of the song.
Six Degrees has been my favorite DT album pretty much since release, and I have NEVER felt like MP's drumming upstaged JR in that portion of the song. The thought never entered my mind. And listening to it again to make sure I wasn't missing something, I still feel that way. He breaks into a completely different groove right at the beginning, which is really cool. But it doesn't upstage the keyboards at all. It creates some really cool texture underneath that instrumental part of the song. Sorry you disagree. But your opinion isn't anywhere close to being universally "correct."
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Love Portnoy's drumming on SDOIT and Blind Faith... upstaging? This is DT!
I want all of the guys doing as much technical shit as they can at all times while still keeping good melodies!
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It's a heavy riffy song that has these two sections of music in the middle that do not belong, with a nice secret ending which should have been longer. It is a big red flag that Portnoy was the master arranger in the music.
First, Portnoy-era DT had plenty of epics that seemed stitched together from unrelated sections. In fact I recall this being a major recurring point of criticism in their later years. It's weird that I've now seen a couple of people bring up Illumination Theory as a negative example for DT's arranging abilities without Portnoy when it's pretty much an outlier in their post-Portnoy discography. They've written 62 songs since Portnoy left and I can only think of two where I've seen that point brought up (PBD being the other), so it hardly seems like a big, recurring problem with their arranging these days.
Nailed it.
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Ironically, it was MP's overplaying that really struck me when I was first introduced to DT. I thought, "This drummer is just as much an important part of the band as the other guys." I felt like MP was speaking through his drums and was not just in the background. It impressed me that he was out front sometimes and making the drums a focal point. I overall miss that.
However, D/T is a BIG improvement. The drums feel like they step out more often and even take the lead sometimes. MP being one of the lead composers really made a difference in the past for the drums. Giving MM a part in the writing process this time definitely payed off.
I think after TOT MP was getting tired in general and that is why his playing lacked the dynamics it used to have. He is still capable but needed some new inspiration.
Agreed.
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I would think the only epic would be A Nightmare to Remember sounds stitched together at a couple moments in the second half (guitar/keys solo onward). ACOS and Octavarium aside, nothing wrong with those two epics, the other epics like SDOIT and ITPOE and TCOT all have sections that sound like they belong, or follow a cohesive trajectory. As I said, the individual sections of IT are great, but the ambient and orchestral sections seem thrown in just to make it a longer song. I don't feel like I'm missing anything either, as I like the individual sections for what they are. I think IT would have benefited greatly if the band sat on it for a little while.
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ACOS is my fave DT song but I often see criticism of the disjointed sections. Seems like you’re cherry picking.
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ACOS is my fave DT song but I often see criticism of the disjointed sections. Seems like you’re cherry picking.
It all has purpose though, and is a much better written composition that IT.
ACOS is a tough nut to crack, but nothing feels out of place, no matter how disjointed it sounds. Jordan adding his circus music part live is out of place.
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I think MP was the filter and arranger.
Where did he put his filter on BCSL days? Or in SoA?
About disjointed long epics:
For me it works like this:
I like the epic = "very well composed. It flows naturally".
I don't like the epic = "Disjointed".
If you look for lack of cohesion, you will find it.
As I said, the individual sections of IT are great, but the ambient and orchestral sections seem thrown in just to make it a longer song.
Well, yes. But, IMO it is the same on TCOT.
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Illumination Theory has a very logical structure.
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There are a lot of aspects that make for a well-structured epic:
1. Is there an overall arc to the song or is it just thrown together cool bits?
2. Are the transitions between the sections good?
3. Do the various sections share musical material in a meaningful way?
4. Do the lyrics match the development of the music?
5. Do the lyrics form a coherent whole or are they thrown together from various bits?
Everyone's favorite Octavarium barely even tries when it comes to point 5. Six Degrees hardly fares better. That's what's bound to happen if you just write lots of music first and then split lyricist duties among a number of people with just a very broad theme to link them. A Nightmare to Remember fails hilariously when it comes to point 4. The Ministry of Lost Souls isn't any better, though it is less amusing in its mismatch. Many of DT's epics don't do particularly well when it comes to point 3 (A Change of Seasons, In the Presence of Enemies, The Count of Tuscany, Illumination Theory...).
Compared to (IMO) true masterpieces like Spock's Beard's At the End of the Day or Andromeda's Veil of Illumination it is obvious that DT tend to throw their epics together pretty quickly from unrelated material rather than develop some core material into something bigger. I often like the results anyway, but let's not pretend this approach is the pinnacle of songwriting.
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There are a lot of aspects that make for a well-structured epic:
1. Is there an overall arc to the song or is it just thrown together cool bits?
2. Are the transitions between the sections good?
3. Do the various sections share musical material in a meaningful way?
4. Do the lyrics match the development of the music?
5. Do the lyrics form a coherent whole or are they thrown together from various bits?
^I agree with this. It's not an exhaustive list. But in terms of listing a lot of the key factors, I think you nailed it.
And this:
Everyone's favorite Octavarium barely even tries when it comes to point 5. Six Degrees hardly fares better. That's what's bound to happen if you just write lots of music first and then split lyricist duties among a number of people with just a very broad theme to link them. A Nightmare to Remember fails hilariously when it comes to point 4. The Ministry of Lost Souls isn't any better, though it is less amusing in its mismatch. Many of DT's epics don't do particularly well when it comes to point 3 (A Change of Seasons, In the Presence of Enemies, The Count of Tuscany, Illumination Theory...).
After starting off your post so strong, I'm not sure how you arrived at most of those conclusions. :dunno: But, hey, opinions. :lol
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There are a lot of aspects that make for a well-structured epic:
1. Is there an overall arc to the song or is it just thrown together cool bits?
2. Are the transitions between the sections good?
3. Do the various sections share musical material in a meaningful way?
4. Do the lyrics match the development of the music?
5. Do the lyrics form a coherent whole or are they thrown together from various bits?
Everyone's favorite Octavarium barely even tries when it comes to point 5. Six Degrees hardly fares better. That's what's bound to happen if you just write lots of music first and then split lyricist duties among a number of people with just a very broad theme to link them. A Nightmare to Remember fails hilariously when it comes to point 4. The Ministry of Lost Souls isn't any better, though it is less amusing in its mismatch. Many of DT's epics don't do particularly well when it comes to point 3 (A Change of Seasons, In the Presence of Enemies, The Count of Tuscany, Illumination Theory...).
Compared to (IMO) true masterpieces like Spock's Beard's At the End of the Day or Andromeda's Veil of Illumination it is obvious that DT tend to throw their epics together pretty quickly from unrelated material rather than develop some core material into something bigger. I often like the results anyway, but let's not pretend this approach is the pinnacle of songwriting.
I will derail this thread further, but I would like to support my case that Illumination Theory is a cohesive piece to counter your argument that the various sections do not share musical material in a meaningful way. Reposting my analysis of the structure of Illumination Theory from way back 2014, which has not changed:
IT is very cohesive for me because of the symmetry of the song.
Section 1: Paradox of the Black Light. Slow, majestic, a bit heavy so it is not yet "illuminated". This is an overture to the un-illuminated sections of the song.
Section 2: The heavy riffing section. At first this seems to be just a wanky instrumental but it actually acts as a bridge between Section 1 and Section 3. This serves an important narrative function once we get to the later sections. Note also that it is mostly a standard rocking beat, with some time signature changes only at the end upon approaching the Live, Die, Kill section.
Section 3: Live, Die Kill. The section poses the questions: What are you willing to live for? to die for? to kill for? It is asking for "an answer that begs to be found". The section has two subsections: the first has lyrics playing to a main riff, the second is the instrumental section that has plenty of time signature changes.
Section 4: Embracing Circle, ambient section. If Live, Die, Kill referred to a more down-to-earth plane of existence, to grounded reality, the Embracing Circle is situated in a transcendental plane. The ambient section is formless and lengthy, which signifies that the questions posed in Live, Die, Kill remain unanswered even in a moment of transcendence and it remains quite unanswered for a long time. The length of the section is important because it serves the narrative function of indicating that illumination or enlightenment does not come easily.
BREAK in the Narrative: Now we start to mirror the previous sections.
Section 5: Embracing Circle, orchestral section. This mirrors Section 4. We are still in the transcendental plane, but unlike Section 4, illumination starts to creep in slowly with the build up of the orchestral part. Illumination climaxes with a moment of enlightenment, signified by the orchestral version of the intro melody. It sort of mirrors Section 1 as well. The end of the orchestral section is an overture to the "illuminated" section of the song, The Pursuit of Truth. It will not serve its proper narrative function if it is placed at the start, because the more heavy-sounding music of Paradox of the Black Light better fits as an introduction to the "un-illuminated" Live, Die and Kill section. The two overtures share the same melody.
Section 6. The Pursuit of Truth. This mirrors Section 3. The section starts with reverse swells, which signals a return from the transcendental plane to grounded reality. After the moment of enlightenment in The Embracing Circle, the song now has answers to the questions posed in Live, Die, Kill. What are mothers willing to live, die and kill for? Their children. Husbands are willing to live, die and kill for their wives. Martyrs are willing to live die and kill for the kingdom. And so on and so forth. The Pursuit of Truth answers the questions of Live, Die, Kill. Still mirroring Section 3, the section also has two subsections: the first has lyrics playing to a main riff, the second is the instrumental section that has plenty of time signature changes.
Section 7: The heavy riffing section. This mirrors Section 2. It follows the same structure and uses the same riff! This serves as a bridge between Section 6 and Section 8. While Section 2 bridged the Paradox to the questions, Section 7 bridged the answers to the Paradox. Like Section 2, this section has a lot of wanky instrumentals and plays to a standard rocking beat, with a change in the tempo at the end approaching the Surrender, Trust and Passion section.
Section 8. Surrender, Trust and Passion. And now we have come full circle. This mirrors Section 1. Section 8 is also slow and majestic, but unlike Section 1, it is uplifting because illumination has already been achieved. Section 1 is titled the Paradox of the Black Light, and the lyrics in Section 8 spell out the paradox. And if I overanalyze the lyrics, even the lyrics here are symmetrical. LOL
Introduce with a paradox:
"To really feel the joy in life
You must suffer through the pain"
Surrender: Lyrics refer to illumination by referencing light.
"When you surrender to the light
You can face the darkest days"
Trust: Middle section, still in keeping the visuality of the Illumination Theory, we refer to opening one's eyes.
"If you open up your eyes
And you put your trust in love
On those cold and endless nights
You will never be alone"
Passion: Mirror the Surrender subsection. Lyrics refer to illumination by referencing bright.
"Passion glows within your heart
Like a furnace burning bright"
Mirror the intro. End with a paradox:
"Until you struggle through the dark
You'll never know that you're alive"
And as one more bit of analysis, which may be stretching a bit. Paradox of the Black Light started with a crescendo drum roll. Surrender, Trust and Passion ends with a decrescendo drum roll.
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This is how I viewed IT. Which is why I don't think I will really understand how it can be described as disjointed. It is very cohesive not just lyrically but structurally as well. The disjoint that some people feel, I think, is because the narrative of the song is really about transitioning from dark to light but ending up in a paradox where light is in the darkness. There is a deliberate disjointedness, from grounded to transcendent, from fast to slow parts. The transitions serve a narrative function.
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^Yup. I love that. It took awhile for Illumination Theory to click for me. But once I understood what it was doing, I then understood that it does it incredibly well. It really is a masterfully done, intensely creative piece of music. Whether it ultimately works for any given listener is another matter entirely. But it is very well done and very well structured--perhaps moreso than any of mega-epics they have done.
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Quote from: erwinrafael on February 21, 2014, 06:56:54 PM
Wow, great write up of IT. Love that song
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Warning: rant ahead. Decided to put on DT12 yesterday, and it still doesn't excite me like other DT albums do. I know all the tunes at this point, I've warmed up to the first few tracks, but the rest is just OK or samey, but decent metal tunes. I really don't like the closing epic, it's not well put together, but it has a lot of cool parts. It's a heavy riffy song that has these two sections of music in the middle that do not belong, with a nice secret ending which should have been longer. It is a big red flag that Portnoy was the master arranger in the music. Even now with DOT, and I like the new album, there are still these moments of technicality for the sake of it, or crazy time signatures everywhere, without regard to how it affects the flow of the song. Same with ADTOE which I also enjoy. It's why I don't think Planet X is super amazing, at least a full album of them, it's all head music with a dash of jazz thrown in. I still also hear moments in DOT where it's like "oh that's a thing they do now" whether it's chord progression choices, or whatnot.
It has nothing to do with 'influences on their sleeves' as we still get that during the Mangini era. I think MP was the filter and arranger, and I still think nothing released since BC&SL is "great". All IMO of course. There's been some good tunes for sure, but I think I still would have been fine with a 5-6 year break instead of getting the last 4 albums, even as I still am in the honeymoon phase of the new album. Imagine the band came back last year with all the ideas they came up with over the past 9 years (all the raw material from ADTOE-DT12-TA-DOT mixed with ideas MP would have, and I don't think he'd be as much about bringing in extreme metal or U2 influences at this point) to make a massive album that would probably have competed with I&W or Six Degrees but with MP on drums. I think the one individual album would be better than the combined forces of the last 4 albums.
The thing with Mangini is he's a tech-metal drummer whereas MP is a prog-rock/metal drummer who had more creative control over the music than just about any other drummer I can think of, and I think that changes a lot of aspects of Dream Theater that I always thought were more unique to the band than other bands out there, prog, rock, metal, or otherwise. Losing Kevin Moore was tough on the band's sound, because he had a styles you don't find in keyboardists post-early 90s, but early Rudess was great. I think after 8vm they just all went through the motions, though. That, and trying to be 'current' messed up their sound. I would have rather the band totally reinvent their sound instead of pushing for the modern metal sound they went for on SC, or the "return to roots" style of the last few albums, which I don't think is accurate anyway as the music now is darker, more brooding. Sure they've brought in lighter, more melodic, major key stuff back on recent albums, but at best it reminds me of that kind of stuff from Six Degrees, not I&W or Awake. But I want the band to be progressive. They don't have to reinvent the wheel or anything, but the last few albums seem"regressive" or just a mix-and-match of what they had been doing with Portnoy on the last couple of albums with him. The Astonishing wasn't this, we can talk further on that if you want. Anyway, I ranted too long, no time to edit.
That's no rant, and you really worded alot of how I feel about post MP. Especially the "doesn't excite me" as much or at all...nailed it.
Well done. It was a polite insight.
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There are a lot of aspects that make for a well-structured epic:
1. Is there an overall arc to the song or is it just thrown together cool bits?
2. Are the transitions between the sections good?
3. Do the various sections share musical material in a meaningful way?
4. Do the lyrics match the development of the music?
5. Do the lyrics form a coherent whole or are they thrown together from various bits?
Very interesting list.
I have no problem with different parts that apparently seem to be conflicting in a song, overall.
Creating tension or conflict is part of an artistic manifestation. Many have complained about the two distinct parts in FITL, but the idea seems to me to be just that. Create a kind of counterpoint.
Sometimes it works for me, sometimes it doesn't. In general, no complaints.
Erwinrafaels: congrats for analysis. You nailed it. Amazing job. :tup
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I didn't say IT is incoherent, I said it doesn't do particularly well when it comes to the various sections sharing musical material. The above analysis is interesting, but it actually supports my point: The only two shared bits that are mentioned are the opening theme returning during the orchestral section and the first riff later reappearing as backing for solos. For a 19-minute piece that is really not a whole lot of shared musical material.
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I didn't say IT is incoherent, I said it doesn't do particularly well when it comes to the various sections sharing musical material.
Right. But it doesn't have to. It isn't trying to do that. It's like saying Master of Puppets doesn't do particularly well when it comes to being a rap song. It's a silly comparison because it isn't remotely trying to be that.
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But structure is also musical material! The fact that there is a tight mirroring structure for me is already a lot of material shared.
Then there is Mangini's hi-hats, cymbals, and snare pattern in the beginning of Section 1 being repeated with a slight variation in the final part of Section 8. You can see this clearly in the BTFW video. But that's too nerdy already. :lol
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But structure is also musical material! The fact that there is a tight mirroring structure for me is already a lot of material shared.
I disagree about the first sentence, but even if I didn't, the structure isn't really as "tight(ly) mirroring" as you claim. The idea with the two halves is interesting, but to get to that point you're basically flattening a lot of it down to "here's a vocal section, then comes a wanky instrumental section". But the two main vocal sections are quite different in structure themselves - the first is verse, verse, chorus, unrelated new verse, chorus, new vocal section that isn't repeated. The second is three verses into a new vocal section that isn't repeated. So they're not a mirror of each other structurally. The instrumental bits that follow the vocal parts also quite different in structure. Yes, lyrically the song has a cool "questions - development - answers" structure in the middle and these bits are bookended by the same riff, but despite your claim, the ending doesn't actually connect to the opening musically. Honestly, I don't even really see how it connects to the rest of the song lyrically. :D Rather than anything "coming full circle" it all just seems tagged on to have a big ending section. Sure, they *named* the instrumental opening theme "paradoxe de la lumière noire" which you can connect to the lyrics of the ending, but that's just a sleight of hand.
But if someone can point out shared musical material that I've missed, I'm all ears! I enjoy these discussions.