for drummers, guitarist, and keyboardist: hardest DT song to play?

[caseyavh]

first of all im new to this website, ive been listening to dream theater since 2007, its my favorite band and im glad to be a member of this site. DT is my favorite band and ive devoted myself to playing every DT song exactly how mike portnoy (and mike mangini) play them.

anyways, the hardest song for me to play is a fortune in lies. the rudiment at (3:13-3:35) is really difficult to learn (im trying to learn it right now).

thanks DTF!

[FlyingBIZKIT]

Should be in the DT-section or Musicians section but to answer your question, definitely The Dance of Eternity.

[philmcson]

From the named songs, I'd say Dance of Eternity is definitely the hardest one (based on what patterns I hear in the songs). But I haven't tried to play any one of them. I managed to catch the groove in Build me up, break me down (maybe I should work on improving the footwork a little) and will be covering The root of all evil (one pedal, yay! ) and Wither (bit of messy hihat work but otherwise easy imo).
Now, with you saying you'll be playing every song exactly like them, that's great but hopefully you won't torment yourself memorizing whether they hit the 17" or the 19" crash at *that* particular point. To me, it's more about having fun and catching the groove than looking at drum covers on youtube and trolling like, "but hey, at 0:25 he hits the gong and you've hit the china!!!" 

[Elite]

I think this should belong in the Musicians subforum, BUT;

You ask in the title for the hardest song to play yet in the poll you ask which one is hardest for drums. I don't know that, but I know it for guitar:

For me, it would be Blind Faith, because the unison is fucking difficult. The Glass Prison is also a good contender, but that's mainly because of the stamina needed to play it all the way through and the solo around 10:25 contains a stupidly hard and fast run.

[caseyavh]

my apologies for posting in the right section, im a newbie. yes i would like to know the hardest for drums but i am also curious what would be the hardest for guitars and keyboards as well. and also getting a set exactly like mike portnoy's monsters would be VERY EXPENSIVE so of course i cant play the exact things he has, i just try to match everything he plays.

the dance of eternity is probably the 2nd hardest, because it has the most time signature changes and tempo changes.

[caseyavh]

my apologies for posting in the wrong* section. lol sorry

[Elite]

The Dance of Eternity actually isn't very difficult at all to play on the guitar, funnily enough.

[Tick]

You excluded bass and vocals? Unfair!

[black_biff_stadler]

Can we just kill off the musicians subforum anyway? Nobody ever goes there and musicians would actually talk a hell of a lot more about playing if those kinds of topics were in either GMD or GD. It's not like it'd be that big of an intrusion anyway since I'd venture to say at least 20-30% of the forum plays an instrument or sings in the first place and that's a VERY conservative estimate.

[Elite]

I like the Musicians subforum for what it is. My only bother with it is the random guitar cover video's by people with post-counts in the single digits every once in a while. Maybe instead of killing it off, people could be prompted more to take a look there. And to be fair, the Reviews subforum is far more inactive than the Musicians one.

[black_biff_stadler]

The fact that the reviews section is less active does nothing to change the fact that the musicians subforum is tragically underused for a forum with as many musicians as DTF has.

[Adami]

The musicians forum has some pros and cons.

Pros: It does a little bit to stop GM from having a bunch of guys who show up to post a video of them playing Pull me Under and then never posting again.

Cons: Because it's mostly guys playing vids of Pull Me Under covers or whatever, then when posters like myself put something in there, only 3-4 people will ever hear it.

[tofee35]

Casual Drummer here...

My vote goes to Glass Prison but I'd put it in a tie with Dance of Eternity depending on a drummer's style. They're totally different songs on the drums. The DoE is getting tons of votes. The thing about DoE is that the individual rhythms and fills aren't overly difficult by themselves. It's more of a memory and transition thing. The tempo is right in any rock drummer's wheelhouse. If you're familiar with MP's bag of tricks, then this one has all of them x 10. I voted Glass Prison because the double bass patterns and speed are very difficult to attain and maintain. If you don't play regularly or physically focus on keeping your double bass stamina and timing up, you can lose it pretty quick. Again, two really difficult songs for totally different reasons. It's a matter of individual drummer styles. I'd vote Beyond This Life over both of them if it were an option. That song's got a plethora of both speedy double bass patterns and complex rhythms. I'd love to see some videos of forumers playing some of these difficult songs. It'd be fun(ny) and/or impressive!

-tof

[caseyavh]

thanks for all the votes, the dance of eternity seems to be the most difficult to perform for alot of people. i put those 5 up because i figured they are definitley some of the most challenging for drums. anyways im surprised i havnt got any input on a fortune in lies, that snare rudiment is very confusing. im gonna try learning it by slowing down the tempo.

ps if you have mike portnoy's liquid drum theater or in constant motion, youll be able to play the glass prison, this dying soul, the dance of eternity and a few other tracks alot better. he really breaks it down.

[Adami]

As a drummer, I don't really like learning other peoples songs, but it seems that based upon listening to it, the only difficult aspects of TDOE is memorizing it.

[philmcson]

I do, because when I do some exercising with metronome and notes, after a good practice session I like to choose a song or two where I can utilize learnt techniques. Unless my band writes something equally complicated (ha ha ha ha yea right). Also, to me, songs with complicated drum parts are some kind of challenge.

[MetalJunkie]

As a drummer, I don't really like learning other peoples songs, but it seems that based upon listening to it, the only difficult aspects of TDOE is memorizing it.

Memorization tends to be my biggest hurdle when learning any song.

[black_biff_stadler]

The first time I ever had memory be an issue for me was when I was learning Sanitarium's intro solo. None of it was physically difficult but getting to where my brain and hands could work together in a way where my brain could continuously feed my hands the info for the upcoming measure as I was playing the current one was the biggest hurdle.

The way I got over it was to master just the first measure, then add one measure at a time. I wouldn't allow myself to add a new measure unless I could easily play all of the solo that preceded it without fucking up. It took me like 3 hours including punishing myself by not allowing myself to piss for the final hour until I mastered the whole thing but the "one measure at a time" thing made the learning curve very approachable and it's worked pretty well for me ever since.

Don't hold in your piss ever though. It lit a fire under my ass but is obviously a stupid thing to ever do.

[DebraKadabra]

Um... that's bad for your bladder, yo.  Jes sayin.
 
Anyhoo, none of the songs you have listed present any problems for a psuedo singer (aka me) - I'd say that the hardest DT song to sing is either Take The Time or Innocence Faded.

[rumborak]

Don't want to be a dick, but I'm a guitarist and I can play the rudiment in Fortune In Lies. I don't really find it that hard, it just repeats over and over again.

Guitar-wise, TGP is damn hard to play, for various reasons. One being that by the time the solos come around your hand is insanely tired.

[Ultimetalhead]

DOE definitely wins on drums. The time changes so often that it's really fucking easy to get lost. As far as guitar, TGP by a mile. That intro solo is stupidly hard to play clean.

[Elite]

As far as guitar, TGP by a mile. That intro solo is stupidly hard to play clean.

I have to disagree. I'm not saying that it's not hard, because it is. Very hard even, but at least I can play the intro solo clean at about 75% of the original speed. There's other stuff in DT's catalog that I can't play at half the speed they should be played. For me, there's even a far more difficult passage in the same song (I mentioned it in my first comment in this thread); at the 10:25 mark, that guitar solo is so ridiculously fast that I can't do it at all.

[Ultimetalhead]

I really can't think of anything else in their catalog that has made me want to die as much as trying to play that stupid intro solo. Only other thing that came close is the Blind Faith unison.

[caseyavh]

well i finally taught myself how to play the fortune in lies rudiment. its alot of paradiddles, just use windows media player and slow it down, then count the beats. for any drummers who want to know, its 1-3-1-3-1-5-3-1-1-3-5-1-3-1-5-3-1-1-3 (4x). i think its the same for guitar. its really fun to play once you know it  id put a youtube video up of me playing it if i had a drumset lol

oh and sorry singers, id like your input to, i just thought itd be more of a instrumentalist topic. @debrakadabra - i would imagine pull me under being one of the hardest to sing. "all i can do is to set it right!" how does he get that high?? thats the pirate for ya 

[Elite]

i would imagine pull me under being one of the hardest to sing. "all i can do is to set it right!" how does he get that high?? thats the pirate for ya 

Talking about high, how about the 'Pensive Fear' verse in Another Day, the unintelligible verse in Innocence Faded and various stuff in Take The Time. I would imagine all of them to be way harder.

[Naikon]

I'm a drummer, and I'd say physically that The Glass Prison is the hardest song. Dance of Eternity is more about memorizing everything as someone previously said here.