As a fan of DT and progressive metal - this guy has always stood out to me as a talent.
He maybe wouldn’t make it as a top concert pianist, or jazz pianist, but in the rock/metal realm he probably takes the top spot and fits their sound like a glove.
Some decent Bach too
I didn’t like the Bach. From memory, Tony MacAlpine was a good classical pianist (it’s probably been 15 years since I heard his playing, so I might be wrong).
Not bad at all.
It’s a bit of an unfair comparison to the other mofos, because he’s a legit classical pianist who dabbled a bit in the neoclassical metal genre.
True, but didn’t Rudess go to Juilliard? Unless I’m mistaken.
Precollege, but I’m not sure how many years.
Speaking of DT, new songs have impressed me.
The midsection is so fucking well done.
3:15 is where the section starts, and 4 mins…that lead tone, so beautiful.
Petrucci is my all-round favourite guitarist.
Unfortunately, Labrie’s voice has always stopped me from getting into DT.
I sometimes enjoy him, but I agree he is a weakness in an otherwise super-group.
Doesn’t stop me appreciating their material when it’s this good though.
It’s a problem for me; the singer is such a big element of a band, that if I don’t like him or her, I can’t listen to the band, no matter how good the music. This is the reason I stopped listening to Nightwish after Tarja Turunen got kicked out, for example. If they’d have replaced her with another classical singer it might’ve been okay. Their latest singer is better, but also not classical.
She’s pretty good! ANNOYINGLY bright piano sound though, like most popular music.
I listened to for the love of god (the only of these songs I know well), but I didn’t like it. I don’t think he’s a particularly good arranger for the piano. What passes harmonically in a band setting, sounds empty on the piano.
Yeah the key word is ‘reduction’. This is why Liszt used the term ‘paraphrase’, because it wasn’t about creating a ‘reduction’ or inferior alternative; it was about reimagining the expressive fabric from the ground up taking full colouristic and expressive possibilities of the piano into account and used to their full advantage.
Vai is a guitar god though.
For whatever reason, I’ve never liked his songs much, except for The Audience is Listening and For the Love of God. Randomly, I used to repeat the spoken interlude of the former to myself before every law exam (I am fearless in my heart etc). 
The only album I bought back in the day (2000ish) is the one this is on and this became my favourite track.
It’s so annoyingly cheerful and cartoony that it actually transcended it’s cheesyness and became a good tune.
I actually wonder how this would go down as an encore at a classical rectal
It sounds like the sort of shit girls would ask me to learn for them back in the day. 
Haha this?? Here the requests were invariably Clair de lune, Moonlight or Fantaisie-Impromptu.
Sadly, the girls I was involved with weren’t cultured enough to know any of those. And actually, Ms Heels just asked me the other day to teach her how to play Disney songs when I get a piano.
