Mike Portnoy

A very techuiqal drummer its always hard to learn a dream theater song as its hard to remember all the parts..... iv got there new album systematic chaos its great and so is the dvd that comes with it which was filmed and directed by portnoy........ he seems to always have very larg kits which is not a bad thing but he doesnt use all of it i think some of it is for show.......
 
I think a lot of the older-timers and ignerante peepoll on here are just not willing to accept that there might be a new big dawg on da block

change happens....get used to it

Portnoy rules...

period


exclamation mark


EHH
 
Hey i was just wondering. Should Transatlantic be one of the "performed with" for Mike?
 
Mike Portnoy is nothing less than an AMAZING drummer! If you think he does too much, too little, whatever the case, his drumming is amazing, and his style and technique goes hand in hand with Dream Theater...
Portnoy is just one of those drummers who really is Liquide, and just flows around the kit.
 
Re: Mike Pourtnoy

I dont experiment much with music. The tastes of most are weird to me. Are there any other drummers, who can actually play like him? Im talking about the stuff where his feet are playing 3-4 time, and he cymbal crashes on 4-4 time, or where he plays in a 4-4 time while the band plays in a 3-4 or 6-8. His timing is superb if you ask me. And hes a triple threat. Clean, Fast, and Technical. I know Rush has played weird time sigs before, but its like these guys could care less about a time sig. If the words require a 5-8 in the first measure and a 3-4 or 7-8 in the next, so be it.I think its borderline genious. Any one else play like that, if so who?



To me , the band playing in odd times is too much like listening a metranome. I much prefer to hear bands like king krimson's use of odd times along with meshuggah , or tool .
TO me , they are the bands who make the odd times feel like ther not odd at all .
And anyone with theory backround and 5 years of drumming backround should be able to play like he does , and by that i mean like a metranome.

I could easily play in any odd meter , and i know i can make it sound good , but im sure if your musical taste calls for business over texture and finesse im sure you would prefer portnoy.
 
http://www.virgildonati.com/sounds/OTV/otv-trk01-FULL.mp3

This is Virgil Donati with is band On the Virg. It sounds a little like videogame music but you're going to find that when a munch of nerdy musicians come together to write stuff.

Virgil's drumming is probably one of if not the best in the world. He's in and out of time and then back again to be right on the beat...all I'll say is listen.
 
when you listen too much to any drummer, you start to sound a little like him, but you can tell from miles and miles away if a drummer's a fan a portnoy.
 
I read all the titles and found nothing on him so here goes.

I love his technique. I used to listen to all the "normal" stuff till I heard him. And it seems all I want to listen to is Dream Theater now. I have played for awhile, and most drummers have certain niches, or habits. Once you figure out what they are doing you can play it. I usually can play a song the 2nd or 3rd time I hear it, But his stuff takes weeks, months on some of it, just to figure out the numbers behind what he is doing.What drives me crazy is most people( non-players) look at me like Im crazy when I start to try to explain what he is doing. They are like, man he screwed that up, and Im like, No he just dropped a beat, He'll pick it up in a minute.His drumming has texture, all the normal stuff is boring now. Can anyone tell me of a comparable band, with all the technicality of DT?What do you guys think of Mike? Sorry if this is a repost.

http://www.drummerworld.com/drummers/Mike_Portnoy.html


If any of what he's playing takes you months you should invest in a music theory book and learn the basics of time signature , cause mike seems to enjoy pretending he's a metranome.
 
If any of what he's playing takes you months you should invest in a music theory book and learn the basics of time signature , cause mike seems to enjoy pretending he's a metranome.
Well you are obviously an expert on Mike Portnoy and his playing, can you post a video of yourself playing The Dance Of Eternity? Or maybe Take The Time?
 
Well you are obviously an expert on Mike Portnoy and his playing, can you post a video of yourself playing The Dance Of Eternity? Or maybe Take The Time?

yes i can. However i wont, its not that difficult of a song. Regardless of my feelings on his playing my post was not made to tell anyone that i think portnoy is a waste or anything of the sort. Basic theory and 5 years of chops should make you more than able to playing his songs. NO SONG PERIOD SHOULD TAKE YOU MONTHS TO LEARN.

If you want to play something challenging try something that wont make you sound like a metranome. I recomend tool, meshuggah , and porcupine tree if your looking to be challenged.
 
Basic theory and 5 years of chops should make you more than able to playing his songs. NO SONG PERIOD SHOULD TAKE YOU MONTHS TO LEARN.

This is subjective to the players level...why shouldn't a song take months to learn? There are some really hard ones (not just DT), and then it takes even longer to get it grooving, no matter what style.
 
This is subjective to the players level...why shouldn't a song take months to learn? There are some really hard ones (not just DT), and then it takes even longer to get it grooving, no matter what style.



I am not a gifted or naturally talented drummer .. and i know what it means to work in order to learn and sound good. NO song has ever taken me more than a week to learn. Practicing always makes it sound better over time , but i have never had to stuggle that long. Granted this wont apply to a player thats played for a year or 2 .. This comment wasnt replying to a young player.

I dont mean this to sound mean .. Theory .. learn how to count . To me thats all it takes if you have experiance at your craft..
 
I am not a gifted or naturally talented drummer .. and i know what it means to work in order to learn and sound good. NO song has ever taken me more than a week to learn. Practicing always makes it sound better over time , but i have never had to stuggle that long. Granted this wont apply to a player thats played for a year or 2 .. This comment wasnt replying to a young player.

I dont mean this to sound mean .. Theory .. learn how to count . To me thats all it takes if you have experiance at your craft..



Sorry, but i smell no small amount of b/s. Of course, it's subjective as to what a person thinks 'learning' a song or drum part involves. Regardless of what people think about his technique, Portnoy comes up with some of the most intricate and well honed drum parts in the business. If you find Dream Theater songs easy and quick to learn (as Portnoy plays them) then you should certainly see yourself as a naturally talented drummer.
 
Sorry, but i smell no small amount of b/s. Of course, it's subjective as to what a person thinks 'learning' a song or drum part involves. Regardless of what people think about his technique, Portnoy comes up with some of the most intricate and well honed drum parts in the business. If you find Dream Theater songs easy and quick to learn (as Portnoy plays them) then you should certainly see yourself as a naturally talented drummer.

OR maybe you just dont know with intricate means. Have you studied theory? My playing , counting is all a product of practice and work , if i was naturaly gifted it wouldnt have taken such. My point remains the same.. A drummer that has been playing for a while should have the chops to handle theese songs , a general understanding of time sig and rhythm should take care of the rest.

lets not forget the person who i was replying to said it was taking him months just to learn how to count the stuff. He should most certainly invest in a music theory book.

if a drummers been playing for that long and doesnt have the chops to handle something like this its time to start practicing.
 
OR maybe you just dont know with intricate means. Have you studied theory? My playing , counting is all a product of practice and work , if i was naturaly gifted it wouldnt have taken such. My point remains the same.. A drummer that has been playing for a while should have the chops to handle theese songs , a general understanding of time sig and rhythm should take care of the rest.

lets not forget the person who i was replying to said it was taking him months just to learn how to count the stuff. He should most certainly invest in a music theory book.

if a drummers been playing for that long and doesnt have the chops to handle something like this its time to start practicing.

Your mistake is to project your own expectations onto others. No two drummers will start with the same strengths and weaknesses, progress at exactly the same rate, or have the same motivation to develop the same skills. It's pointless to measure the rate of development in years. Portnoy has distinctive chops which he executes in a very 'idiosynchratic' way; someone with abundant natural talent for rhythm may play for five years and gain highly developed chops, but may not be able to reproduce Portnoy parts, at least not without due attention.
AS for natural gifts, you seem to think that having to work on a skill means you never had a gift for it in the first place. The only reason we view certain players as 'naturally talented', Colaiuta, Weckl, Williams etc., is that these guys took their natural gift and worked and nutured them to their fullest. They were driven to woodshed the hardest.
 
Sorry, but i smell no small amount of b/s. Of course, it's subjective as to what a person thinks 'learning' a song or drum part involves. Regardless of what people think about his technique, Portnoy comes up with some of the most intricate and well honed drum parts in the business. If you find Dream Theater songs easy and quick to learn (as Portnoy plays them) then you should certainly see yourself as a naturally talented drummer.

Well, just wanted to point something out, Some people find it difficult to learn Mikes stuff, so even if one is gifted sometimes its hard to learn things like that. And "Naturally Talented" I think talent is an excuse for not practicing, now if you ask me Talent does not exist, I would say Skill exists. I prefer somebody telling me that I am skilled than talented, because talent would make it seem that I did not work hard enough, sometimes thats what people intend to say but for me I prefer it when people say I am skilled.

Now back to portnoy, even if one is "talented" its hard to learn his ways and try to imitate him because alot of what he does is His way of doing it, no drummer is going to imitate other drummers because every drummer I believe always try to improvise for the better so I think that even if one is an incredible drummer its hard to imitate someone that has different ways of doing things because every drummer is unique in every single way possible.

I bet I sound so confusing most of the time I don't even understand what I say,,, I hope you understand though!
 
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