Composer REACTS to Dream Theater Mike Portnoy Counting off Meters for The Dance Of Eternity 

- How many time signatures and tempos are in the Dance of Eternity? - Yes.

It's like the band walked into the studio, saw a Sudoku puzzle and decided to make a song out of it.

Rehearsing for 6 months? These guys are machines They've wrote , composed and started the recording process of the whole TRAIN IF THOUGHTS in 3 weeks !

Keep an eye out for the third liquid tension experiment. The first two were released at the end of the nineties. Dream theater related

Mike Portnoy, John Petrucci and John Myung met when they were enrolled at the Berklee College of Music in Boston and then founded Dream Theater. Mike Mangini taught at Berklee. Jordan Rudess went to Juilliard School of Music. I don't know about James LaBrie his musical education, but yes it's safe to say that they all read music and have a very thorough understanding of tempo and meter changes.

When someone say: "I'm a progressive metal drummer" You gotta respect that guy/girl. The nightmare of the drumming tempo changing is insane in almost every single song. Dream Theater is so hard to play

Scenes from a Memory was DT's absolute peak. Thank you so much for sharing this behind-the-scenes glimpse!

I miss Portnoy in DT, was so lucky to see them live with that classic line up, unbelievable

And that's only the last two minutes.. 😨

I'd just like to point out that this is not entirely what Dream Theater's about. None of their songs are as crazy as Dance of Eternity, it really is a class of its own. They do have songs (mostly the bridge sections) which can get pretty crazy, reminding of dance of eternity but most of their songs do in fact have a structure (verses and choruses, intros and outros, etc). They have songs ranging from soft catchy ballads to complete brutality. They're also known for their epics. I'd be super happy to see you react to their longer songs such as A Change of Seasons or Count of Tuscany or Stream of Consciousness or Nightmare to Remember or Octavarium or Illumination Theory or ...(I could go on forever but I'm gonna stop now)

I've been playing guitar for 3-4 years and I've always wanted to play this song. Ever since a few months ago I realized that I could and it's a blast to play through this.

And that’s just the last 2 minutes of a 6 minute track I saw them on tour Feb last year, they played Scenes From A Memory in full, including this song

Your joy for the musicianship radiates and it’s amazing to watch!

"Um, not quite my tempo." Lars Ulrich

Mike Mangini, current drummer of Dream Theater has a PhD, and is a Proffesor in Berklee College of music. His knowledge of music is amazing, he played Dance of Eternity and all curve balls that Jordan Rudess threw at him during his audition to replace Mike Portnoy. Dream Theater is about musicianship to an extreme level. They all have degrees, they are all pitch perfect by training and by studying it and practicing like mad men. Anyways, you are not an old man, Dream Theater dudes are about 50 all. Mike is 57. Petrucci is 53. Myung is 53. Rudess is 64. LaBrie 57.

They actually record very quickly. The first Liquid Tension Experiment record was written AND recorded in only 7 days - September 20-25, 1997. It’s 3 DT members and Tony Levin.

I saw this on his Liquid Drum Theater DVD. It's crazy. Also The Dance of Eternity, one of my favorite Dream Theater songs. 🤘

Awesome!! You make this hard days turn better. Thanks from Spain!

Mike Portnoy is so good at sharing his knowledge with sympathy for the less musically educated. In general, it seems the better you are, better you are at sharing because you're confident in your ability and like the idea of helping people to make the next generation. And they acknowledge their influences which keeps the past alive.

You'd be amazed at how quickly these prog geniuses put these albums together. They often go in with nothing, then three or four weeks later they have a 160-minute, double album masterpiece written and recorded. It's unreal.

I bought Scenes from a Memory the day it was published here in Italy, still listening to it.

Watching this video is actually how I was introduced to DT. I went out and bought the CD the next day.

this is why Mike Portnoy is one of the best five drummers in the history... wow!

Like the content, and as a 90s/00s Dream Theater fan, I can't recommend Haken enough. British prog rock, similar to DT. There's an amazing live version of their song Celestial Elixir on RU-vid. Keep rocking! EDIT: Nvmd, found the Earthrise video you did. 😁

they were on those years, beautifuly INSANE, music so magical and fun to hear

My dude, I think you'll enjoy the larger orchestral compliment of Overture from disc 2 of Dream Theater's Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence album. It's just beautiful.

My high school indoor percussion group did a version of this back in the day, and I recall brains almost breaking when we were learning it, the meters were simplified but it still took some heavy lifting for 15 year olds on mallet instruments to wrap our heads around.

When you said “Gave you Anxiety” I swear I thought I was the only one!

Im happy to hear that he says "SEV". So many players are so stubborn about counting it that way and insist on counting it at seven.

Hi, I'm from Bulgaria. This is totally normal music for me 😀 just check some Balkan folk music!

I'm getting ready to hit the sack and I wanted a shortish video to watch. Wow! This was mind blowing. I get laughed at all the time for being a fast talkies and no way could I begin to keep up with the speed or changes! Its crazy. DT has been one of my favorite bands since I hear pull me under in the 90's. Saw them in the early 2000's at tower theater and they were amazing. Thank You for doing this it was very eye opening.

check out his side project liquid tension experiment "acid rain" there will be other songs requested but petrucci's 3 minute solo seals the deal for me

Hahaha I wanted to suggest this just to show the crazy sigs here! Glad to see it!

That was great. I smiled the whole time.

Please listen to LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT: When The Water breaks (live) 🙏🙏🙏🥺

Love it! I play prog rock, working on a tune with a ton of these kinds of changes. I ended up writing a "guide" midi track (staff view, because I'm old)....then playing it a bunch to figure it out. We'll be tracking soon (maybe this weekend), but yeah, playing it live will take an additional bunch of time to rehearse.

I love seeing these types of videos! I love knowing how progressive music is made by different bands. Because Tool don't even use a metronome. They leave it sound natural and live as well. So it's a different process when they write. And I know DT come from Berkeley or something. Basic they know the ins and outs of music in general. Composing, writing, everything. DT is still a band I keep putting aside for later. I gotta get to them already but there's so much music to dive into. I did listen to Train of Thought. Love that album.

As a drummer, I must say it must have been very hard to write this piece of music, but when I was learning to play it, I looked at the song musically not technically and I did not find it impossible the way it seems in the video.

I remember commenting about this on your initial reaction to The Dance of Eternity. If it was my suggestion that motivated you to check this out, then I'm happy I was able to direct you towards it!

I have that Portnoy video of his in the studio with all of that. As a drummer myself, I can't keep up. I love your response to this as well.

I know this Clip since years and I loved your reaction XD

More than 10 years since he left the band and there's still videos talking about him and the things he did in DT, Mike is beyond tecnique, speed, he is a legend, people will talk about him in 50 years or more and he will inspire hundreds of drummers for next generations

Dream Theater - Octavarium

The magical thing is that it's still very melodic so it's a nightmare "only" on paper. That's the genius.

I wonder how he denotes different tempos and remembers the exact tempos live, really cool! Thanks man!

I've been revisiting Images & Words very heavily as of late. Under a Glass Moon & Take the Time especially,.

hahahaha I love Mike Portnoy so so much. Thats INSANE!!! No mortal humans could ever think of that and then to be able to PLAY that!

You should definitely check Arch Echo! They're just as nerdy as DT but with a modern twist and that additional fusion vibe which makes the end result sound awesome!

Dance of Eternity, must be one of the hardest musics to play for any musician,not only the drummer.

youtube recommended me this and i'm glad it did

Someone must’ve mentioned to you already that the album Dance of Eternity is on, Scenes From a Memory, is quite possibly one of the best ever. If you have yet listened to it from start to finish do yourself a favour and undertake this life changing event. Thanks for all your “work” doing these vids. 😊

I have friends that will allow me to blast this kind of music in a car but you know they are waiting for it just to end... Dear Decomposer thank you for everything. This few minutes a day I listen to you are a few minutes I am waiting for. Keep doing what you're doing. Aloha! PS. I'm patiently waiting for you to get familiar with Riverside.

You may also enjoy some of Mike’s work with Neal Morse on his solo records - Tracks like Author Of Confusion, Thoughts Part 5, The Creation, The Door, The Conflict ... or Transatlantic (All Of The Above, Stranger In Your Soul). Neal is an incredible composer & Mike Portnoy’s most frequent collaborator since Dream Theater.

This is how i will teach my son to count from 1 to 10.

That song is brutal, and that's not even the entire song it's a 6 minutes long that feels more like 9 minutes & it has 108 time signature changes.

man... been raving about this video since before youtube existed! would have loved to see your very first reaction to it as soon as you openned the link :D :D :D Still good though, you got my sub and thumbs up!

So glad you enjoyed this!

If you really want to blow your mind, look up "instrumedley" on the Dream Theater: Live at Budakon" DVD. It is a medley of their most popular 3 or 4 instrumentals in one composition played live. It has "Dance of Eternity" "Erotomania" and I think "The Great Debate" It is amazing.

God I love this video. Glad you reacted to it!

What dazzles me more is that portnoy didn't read music while he was playing. He memorised it all in his head!!!

It's wild how complex their music can be on the breakdown, and there's certainly a lot of homework that went into getting this good - they are, after all, a bunch of Berkeley guys - but they've actually said that because they know the math so well that most of this feels fairly straightforward to them. The mind boggles!!!!! 😂

Good thing he can play it faster than he can read it out loud 😂🤣

Hey, glad you enjoyed that video as much as I figured you would. That song has got to be a beast to pull off live, but I saw them do it a number of times, always flawlessly! Stoked to see that you have Anesthetize queued up! Still have to plug for the live version. Audio quality on par with the studio version, and you get to see the band play, especially Gavin Harrison. Here's a fresh link: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iBfY86cktN0.html

I consider this song the "Black Page" of 2000 years!! Thanks for the video!!

I love that clip, mike's fucking crazy! What works for me when I TRY to play something more pogrey is to learn the math behind the song first, like study and really pay attention to the tempo and build a simple drum pattern. Then when you got that you have to start feeling it and incorporate cool shit on the groove, maybe even change it all together with something that sounds better, but at that time you'll have the tempo in you so you can improvise more comfortably

Look up a video of Portnoy explaining the "shrink and grow" rhythm section from Fatal Tragedy.

When this song came out 20 years ago, I was in music school. This was my favorite song, and I studied it my spare time. I'll never forget the day an entire panel of teachers spent 3 complete hours explaining 7/8 time to an auditorium full of bewildered students. Some of them were crying, because they thought it was impossible. I was crying because I learned how to count to 7 when I was in preschool, and I wanted my 3 hours back.

1:54 onwards You really meant it when you said you'd get anxious from it. DAMN.

I love Dream theater, they're my main inspiration for the piano. I recommend you to react to the Mexican band The warning. 3 sisters very talented, very young and they kick buts, they sing in English

There's a band called Frost* that I think you'd be pretty interested in. They're a prog band, but their lead singer/keyboard player has worked on a lot of chart-topping pop hits in the UK (so a very accomplished composer/songwriter in multiple genres). For a particular song, I'd recommend either Black Light Machine or Hyperventilate.

Great stuff man. Thanks for that.

Bro love your vids so much keep up the great content

Music is something else indeed.

Love is The Dance Of Eternity.

I've learnt to play it on bass, it's bloody nuts

I didn’t expect this reaction. Haha. Nice.

Screw counting. When I learned this song, way back, I learned it by heart. It’s IMPOSSIBLE to memorize all the metrics. At least for me. Ah. And I’m not able anymore to play this song 😂

Mike portnoy has got a son named Max, you should check out his band it's called *Tallah* They have a million music videos and all their songs are good, it would be a really cool follow-up to this video.

Critics: “metal music is over arranged” Dream Theater: “Hold my beer”

Most bands have a few time signature changes (if any) plus songs around 3 to 5 minutes. Dream theater makes songs with tons of time signature changes, and songs as long as 20 minutes!

Geebz! I guess I was kind of an “early” follower...that said I’m really enjoying your interpretations! The joy you find in it is probably my favorite part!

Portnoy has some cool insights on his drumming dvd's from his earlier years about this concept with counting he uses. He thinks of phrases as a total or the individual beats added up to a section. He honestly explains prog/math rock for a drummer very well. Take a phrase.. lets say 11 beats long and you can make many different divisions of that 11. Divisions in the practical sense more than mathematical. Not every phrase needs to be equal in length like dividing equally in math. A phrase of 11 can be broken down into many different combinations to still equal up to 11.... (7+4, 3+3+5, 5+6) As simple as this seams this is actually very high level for many drummers. The benefit i see to this personally is allowing yourself to play parts that seem intricate to the ear but by breaking them down are very easy to play. That said it requires massive mental focus to be able to play songs like this note for note. MP will always be one of the best for keeping it original to the parts on the record.

You have to have to have to check out Night Verses! Their play-thru videos of Copper Wasp and Earthless are great places to start. Just a parade of amazing grooves. Also, the guitarist Nick DePirro has been releasing absolutely incredible solo music every month on Bandcamp that will get your blood pumping!

have you ever heard haken? based your other reaction videos, i'm sure you would be blown away by them, no matter what song you choose. if i had to throw some ideas out there, falling back to earth, puzzle box, cockroach king, or the point of no return are all great

I have an interesting group you should check out, they actually go by two names. Secret Chiefs 3 (Horsemen of the Invisible), and Estradasphere (The Silent Elf of Yesterday). The latter is more dark metal and a journey.

eh ehh eh eh fire! fire! FIRE! FIRE!

Its so funny, I know the count perfectly from listening the song a million times, its crazy seeing the technical element.

You should check out either The Count of Tuscany or Illumination Theory(live in Boston) by dream theater both are amazing songs, wonderfully composed!

Welcome to the Flying Circus :D (LOVED THIS!!!)

On the commentary dvd of live scenes from new york, they described how they created the song, it didn’t take that long and they usually record it quite effortlessly and in parts, each one go in, record his part and that’s it, but they do comment that when they got to rehearsing for the tour, that was when they realized just how difficult the song really was, they had to put some effort to get it right live, very interesting commentary, recommended. 👍

At 3:02 he laughs in 6/8

Just amazing

Check out Sons of Apollo! Another phenomenal Prog Metal band with Mike, Derek Sherinian, Ron Bumblefoot Thal, Billy Sheehan and Jeff Scott Soto.

If you feel like discovering something new and listen to something outside of the realm of English music, there was a very prominent prog band in Quebec in the 1970s called Harmonium; their magnum opus is their third (and technically last) album, L'Heptade, which is a prog rock marvel. If you were to pick only one track from it... Look up "Le Premier Ciel" (11:24). "Comme Un Sage" (13:53) is great too, but a bit on the slower side.

Mike took music theory in high school and a year at Berklee. Hence, how he can count it out.

I play this and many DreamTheater songs (the Drums) . . . . . I rarely count, it's just listening to the melody to help you situate timing in the big scheme of the song, then just follow the melody with the drums trying to be creative.... then using a lot of feeling, musical feeling. . . . and I do get the job done, and if I do practice a lot, I could get it perfect. Is not bragging at all (I have many many MANY years playing the drums and other instruments, so there is not much to brag about but a lifetime of training....). what I mean is that you don't have to count... no need to, once you get the feeling of the song.... and I believe that if you try to count, you'll get it wrong. The way they composed it, I may be wrong, but I believe is either the guitars or the drum was soloing and the other instruments following until they got somewhere; after that, they polished it and to try and get it right to be repetitive interpreting it, well, then they transcribe it to notation or Score...... It could be very interesting to listen to Portnoy or Petrucci or Myung. . . . . or the master Rudess to really tell how this happens... Cool that you made this video! 👍 That part of DT songs also is not easy until you get it by heart... then it is fun to play and easy. Everything is easy once you understand it. . . . . ..

The best wtf about how little Dream Theater rehearses was Derek Sherinian comparing their rehearsal schedule before a tour (6-8 days to play 2-3 hour shows that change every night) vs his stint with Kiss, who rehearsed for SIX WEEKS to play the same easy show night after night.

I was never a fan of DT until the last 10 years or so.. reason being, their music seemed to be written for only THEM to enjoy; the average listener was left out of most of the compositions because they were brutally difficult to follow. After listening to them for a while, I'm still in utter AMAZEMENT at their sheer musical prowess, but still enjoy listening to Rush (old Rush, not the new stuff) because its at least a little more palatable to the ears. However, you can take nothing away from DTs compositions, musically; they're simply amazing. I prefer the slower stuff like "Hollow Years" myself, but being a musician, I just have to give credit when its due because these guys are just STUNNING to watch. I just got through re-watching Live at Budokan last night, and that was back in '04... jeez!

Questo per capire quanta ricerca, quanto studio, quanta teoria, quanta TECNICA c'è dietro le composizioni di questo stratosferico e seminale gruppo, i Dream Theater ... questo per chi li critica : "troppo tecnici, senza sentimento..." ... invidiosi non sarete mai capaci di arrivare a cotanto sapere ed allora gettate fango ... DT IMMORTALI !!!

You can definitely check out 'Omega - Gyöngyhajú Lány (HQ)' (it's a hungarian band). Something really just OTHER, also something quite old. Popular song in eastern Europe, but not sure if in rest of the world so. Anyway good job, wish you all the best!