June 23, 2025 • 46 mins
We can’t think of a better way to celebrate 150 episodes than by bringing the first part of a two-part interview with Jordan Rudess. Whether you’re a fan of Dream Theater, Liquid Tension Experiment or Jordan’s playing more broadly, there’s lots to enjoy in this episode. In Part 1 we delve pretty deeply into AI...
The post Jordan Rudess, Dream Theater / Liquid Tension Experiment (Part 1) appeared first on The Keyboard Chronicles.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
when I left Juilliard, I was interested in all this music, but I was also told that Ishouldn't talk to anybody who's playing blues and rock and jazz.
Like they're not the high quality people like the classical people.
And that only took me until recently to realize that they were right.
(00:25):
Hello and welcome to the Keyboard Chronicles, a podcast for keyboard players.
I'm your host David Holloway and I'm thrilled as always to be here with you and comingfrom an undisclosed location in Australia and it's obviously a park is Mr.
Paul Bindig and the nearby paddle steamer.
How are you Paul?
There is a paddle steamer blowing its horn.
(00:45):
There is a freight train behind me and it's all happening.
But I moved heaven and earth to be here David because A, I love your company.
B, we have an amazing guest with us today.
We do indeed.
So Mr.
Jordan Rudis, most of you out there will well and truly know Jordan's work.
We cover quite the bit of ground and we made a concerted effort because Jordan is so wellknown and has undertaken a whole bunch of interviews because of his generosity of spirit
(01:12):
and the time he provides.
So we've tried to go off the beaten track a little bit, but also cover some stuff.
um more broadly as well.
So I think you'll enjoy it a great deal.
This is the first of two parts and we'll see you again at the start of part two.
(01:37):
Jordan, it's an honor and privilege to have you on the show, sir.
How are you this fine Friday night?
I'm doing well.
I just had a nice day with some very great keyboard player friends, talking shop andhistory and telling stories.
And it was some guys I hadn't seen for a while, but some of my very closest friends kindof from the keyboard industry.
(01:59):
So this is an appropriate interview to have after that.
That's right.
Yeah, we'll continue to talk shop for sure.
So I did want to kick off over the last week.
You did an amazing interview with Rick Beardo and I just wanted to do a bit of a follow upon the great tech that you were showcasing uh with your colleague, Lancelot around using
(02:20):
AI as essentially an amazing jamming tool.
But just if you don't mind a brief potted, know, in a hundred words or less what that is.
And then I'm just going to ask you a couple more questions about it.
Sure.
So I had an idea about a year and half ago um after thinking a lot about the new kind oftechnology and tools that are available.
(02:46):
um I wanted to do something where we used AI and instead of just like generating audiolike a lot of people are doing, I wanted to try to create a real jamming partner for
myself.
but with my musical brain.
So I know that might sound a little self-centered, but the reason that it kind of startthe idea came out that way is because I started to think about all the kinds of things I
(03:17):
think about every time I go over to the keyboard and every style I play and kind of gothrough, if you will, these rules that I was thinking in my head.
Like when you think about every style that we play, if it's let's say blues or something,
like an Emerson thing or a Genesis thing.
There are things that make those styles sound the way they do.
(03:37):
There are things that I would do that you would do to get that sound out.
And then I was thinking, wow, with the tech, we could train it to know all those rules.
So kind of like one idea led to another.
And my meeting the guys at MIT through the various steps that it took to kind of get inthere, it all came together beautifully.
(03:59):
And I got connected there with a couple of amazing PhD researchers.
of them, Lancelot, is the audio specialist and Perry was the kinetic sculpture specialist.
And of course, Joe Paradiso, who runs the responsive environments group at MIT, which isthe group that I was kind of like brought in as a visiting artist.
(04:22):
So kind of one step led to another.
And this idea that I had really resonated with them.
And so we started to train these models.
And right now the way that it all works is that there's separate models that are alltrained for different musical head spaces, if you will, to do different musical things.
And it's been an amazing journey because this whole idea of being interactive is verypowerful where the model, the computer, is listening to what I do and based on what I do,
(04:53):
it's making a decision.
to then use the training data that I also gave to my researchers to then train the model.
At first it didn't really work.
And I was like, okay, well, this is an idea and Athena's not maybe gonna work.
But I can totally remember the day I walked into the lab, the media labs at MIT, and I wasplaying around with the model that actually plays melodic lines and leads over the
(05:21):
chordings that I do.
And it started to work.
And I was like, my God.
turn on your camera, this is unbelievable.
And I called my wife who was there in the hallway working on something else.
You gotta come in here.
Basically calling everybody saying, this works, it's incredible.
So that's kind of like where we're at.
We were building what we called a baby at the beginning, because it had to be taught tospeak to any kind of musical language.
(05:47):
And now we basically have a teenager that I was able to bring over to Rick's place andshow him and it was, you know, it's
Pretty music was pretty amazing.
I mean, still can mess up.
There's still times I want to scold it and say, no, don't do that.
Maybe that's not cool.
Or maybe it's a cluster out of nowhere.
But that's fine, because now we know that we're on a path to create something that I thinkis very exciting and inspiring and meaningful.
(06:19):
Like where it's going to go.
Everybody always asks, where do you think it's going to go?
And I always say, well, you know what?
This was, I just get in, you know, I'm somebody who's always kind of in like a verycreative space.
get inspired by sound, by technology, you know, bring it to me and I'm going to think ofsome way to make it artistic.
So for me, this is an incredible project just to sink my musicality and my mind into.
(06:46):
For the researchers, they're researchers.
They're just, let's try some stuff.
Let's develop some technology.
So.
So that's kind of where it's at.
know, it's not, it's nothing's a product at this point.
We're just kind of cruising down this very, very cool road and inspiring ourselves.
(07:06):
And also it seems to be inspiring a lot of people around us too with the kind of thingsthat we're doing.
And before I stop this running dialogue, I will say that I also work in other areas of AImusic that are not the MIT thing, that are more...
controversial that also have things about it that's very exciting.
But I'm in there kind of involved in helping to steer a little bit where those things aregoing as well.
(07:32):
so let's yeah, look, I think you made a good point about your other works as well.
So I mean, we take a lot of interest in AI and music on the show.
And I know we've had Thomas Dolby, for example, on the show, who takes a really positiveview towards AI is a bit like yourself as a creative assistant to really drive you to
push the boundaries of what you can do personally.
So I'm assuming that's your broad philosophy as you work through these things.
(07:56):
Yes, I see it as another tool, but I see it as the most powerful tool that we've beengiving probably in my whole lifetime.
There's been these stages, you go way back, you have things like the phonograph thatreally shook things up because all of sudden people thought they were against it, but
people are not going to want to go see live music.
(08:17):
You had this thing you could put in your house to listen to music.
What's that about?
And then a major, let's go major fast forward.
And then we're in the whole place where we're samplers are being invented and musiciansare going, my God, I'm gonna be out of work and synthesizers and people with Broadway
pits.
And everybody, I'm not saying that the people who thought that or think that they're gonnalose their jobs don't have a right to feel that way.
(08:46):
I have a lot of sympathy for my music friends who are feeling that way.
I think it's really a tough situation to be in.
I think there's no, but I also think there's no stopping the technology.
So I think it's important to, first of all, understand it.
Like, what is this?
What is it really?
It's not just something that's coming in to kill my work load.
(09:08):
It's not just taking my job and it's whatever it is.
It has some interest.
to it, it's something that obviously has some kind of value.
So to understand it is, I think, a really, really important thing first.
And then I think it's maybe a recommendation to people everywhere to have someflexibility.
(09:31):
what can I do?
It's not going away.
It's right there.
Maybe there's something I can do with it.
How can it help me?
Because what else are you going to do?
You're just going to fight it, and you're to just kind of like...
getting a really bad head space and I mean that that kind of sucks.
but again, I have a lot of, a lot of love for my fellow musicians and artists and youknow, and I get it.
(09:54):
I just want to help to make this a really positive, um, you know, thing that'll inspireand educate and do cool things with.
Yep.
Absolutely love it.
And, um, just the last question on this subject, Jordan.
So, I mean, how confident are you in say five years that
this is still some, a tool that you'll be able to harness and, and drive creativity ratherthan it sort of harnessing us, so to speak.
(10:19):
That's a great question.
I think that it's something that's just going to get better and better and become agreater tool.
Really, if you think of it that way, this tool is going to get like amazing where peoplewho are in their home studios, they're going to want to use it just like they want to use
a DAW with all the
(10:41):
functionality that you can use these days, things that people hated, step sequencers andall the kind of automatic tools and melodines and, I mean, let's go back a little bit,
arpeggiators and karma on the chord synthesizers, things that were like automatic, but allof sudden everybody's, oh yeah, of course we use this.
(11:02):
And of course we use pro tools and we just move things around like that.
It's just what it is.
So this is gonna get to a point where who knows what will happen like with my technologyI'm doing at MIT for an example, like this one particular model that I'm working on that I
think is the world would be like the world's greatest ear training program.
(11:24):
Like just from an educate, not even talking about like a performance thing, but just likean incredible ear training program.
So there's a lot of, know, when people see it, you go, that could be a, that could be a,so maybe.
in five years, it will be those things and we'll dial it in enough that it will besomething that will be that, you know, that that powerful and great and helpful.
(11:49):
Jordan, I love the way you describe your MIT AI project as like an unruly teenager thatyou're wrangling and you're showing it to Rick Beato and yeah, it still makes a few
mistakes but as a patient parent you're proud of the way it's learning and growing.
And I think our listeners and viewers and certainly I would love to know about youryounger years as well.
(12:12):
So as you were growing up musically, so give us a sense of what it was like for
yourself as a young person in your formative years and then moving through adolescence andwhat was the musical experience at home and how did that inform where you've landed today?
It was a very nice transition by the way.
Very good.
Thank you.
(12:32):
You're hired.
Oh, you're already here.
Okay, good.
Yeah, so let me put it this way.
So and in a shorter version than you know, it could be.
I started out with just an interest in the piano.
I was in the second grade classroom and my parents didn't have a piano yet, but I wasplaying the one at the school and my mother called one day and told my
(12:56):
The teacher called my mother one day and said, Jordan is playing very nicely in theclassroom.
And my mother was like, playing what?
Like what are you talking about?
And she was like, well, he's playing the piano.
She was like, well, we don't have a piano.
And the teacher was like, you should get one because he plays.
So she bought a little white SD, it was called it.
That was the brand name SD piano, like a little baby grand, very tiny baby grand.
(13:22):
And
found a local teacher who would come around every week and like for half an hour and teachme.
uh She got suspicious when the teacher started to come for free and he threw out the bookthat was a little red book that everybody learns from.
He didn't want to use that with me.
Instead, he wrote down like a circle of fifths chord charts and was starting to teach mechords.
(13:42):
One day, some friends of my parents came over and I was playing a song from like aBroadway show.
that had like the single notes, just sounds like a guitar book, I think, the single notesand chords.
And I was playing this song and this woman, friend of my parents said, how are you playingthat?
I was like, well, how am I playing?
(14:03):
What do you mean?
She's like, well, how are you?
You're playing all these notes that's not anywhere written on the page.
I said, well, look, I said it is written on the page.
It has the melody and the chords.
And she was, no, no, no, all the other stuff.
I was like, doesn't everybody do that?
told my mother, should take this child to a more serious teacher.
(14:24):
So at that point, my mother found this woman, her name was Magda.
She was from a Hungarian woman whose son actually had gone to the college level ofJuilliard, but dropped out to join Guy Lombardo's band.
And when Magda met me, she was like, okay, you're gonna be the one to get into Juilliardand you're gonna stay there.
(14:47):
That was her mission.
So she trained me for like a year and a half and taught me the repertoire that I needed toaudition for Juilliard.
And so when I was nine, I went and I auditioned for the Preparatory Division of Juilliardand I got in and I uh got a great teacher.
name was Catherine Parker.
She wasn't too happy on the first week when she assigned me the Bach C major prelude.
(15:11):
And I took it home and I read the first couple of measures and then I was enjoyingimprovising on all of that.
Because when I came in and played it for her,
She's like, wait a minute, that's not what we do here.
You have to learn how to, you have to respect what's on the page.
So ended up that while I was studying all my classical music, I was very serious about it,but I would escape to the furthest practice room from my teacher's studio and sometimes
(15:38):
bring like some of the other kids.
And I'd say, come on, I'll show you like some boogie woogie.
I'll play a little bit of blues for you.
Oh, way this, you know.
So I'd have my improvisation way down over there, and then I'd come back and button up mytie or whatever and play and do my classical thing.
But I want to jump to something that relates to where you started the transition, which isthat when I started to discover, and before that, but when I started to listen to some of
(16:09):
the progressive rock and jazz things that kind of started to influence me,
I started to get this mindset where it was like, okay, wow, I'm listening to like Genesis,right?
And Genesis, I was realizing that what's making, know, what is making this sound?
And I would go over to the piano and I wasn't somebody who would want to necessarily learna whole song by somebody else, but I wanted to learn what made it tick.
(16:36):
So I started to find like the kind of courtings that Tony Banks, you know, would use.
and start to make almost like rules in my head.
Like I can play this minor chord over that root and then actually all these other chordssound really cool over that root note too.
And it makes that sound, that Genesis sound.
And then one day like somebody played me a little bit of Emerson stuff.
(16:59):
I was like, whoa, okay, that's cool.
All those fourths and suspended chords.
And then I went to the piano and I literally.
taught myself to put my hand on every fourth chord in every key and I made up littlepatterns, you so I had a sus4, a sus2, and all fourths chord and I just got to a point
(17:20):
where I could bang, put my hand in any one of them in any position really fast.
So I brought it in as part of, was training, let's say was training the model, right, todo that style.
Gentle Giant comes along, like what's that about?
Like Gentle Giant to me was like almost like Bach.
you know, meets rock and there was all this counterpoint, but there was a lot ofinteresting syncopation that you don't find necessarily, you know, box music will
(17:47):
certainly, but in classical music.
And I started to develop a style where I could improvise like that, or I could write musiclike that.
So everything was like an independent model, much like what we're doing with my work atMIT, where I'm training it for this, I'm training it for that, and I'm training it for
this.
Where does it all go?
(18:07):
Like, obviously in my mind, I can sit down and you guys say, play that style.
I could do that.
Or I could go and play like a different style and we could do that.
But there's also the ability due to my personal training to change it and to morph betweenthe styles and, you know, to make a smooth shift between them.
(18:30):
And that's not something my my AI can do yet.
But people say, where is it going?
What do you want it to do?
Well, I'd love to be jamming with my, my jam bot, we call it, and be able to shift gearsand have it be able to go, oh, you're doing that.
Well, then I can do this.
And if I all of a sudden the shift in something more classical, would go, oh, I can makethat happen too.
(18:54):
So, so my background has been all about allowing all these influences to come and kind ofinfluence to come and help to create this.
this like soup that's in my brain, you know, of all these styles.
Because this is like a progressive rock musician or I guess dream theater progressivemetal, but a progressive musician.
(19:15):
That's what it's all about for me.
That's what I love.
I love I don't play jazz.
I don't play rock.
I don't play any one thing.
I kind of play with all these different, all this different vocabulary from all thedifferent things that I've trained myself to do.
Yeah, well, suppose you're playing music as you've absorbed it and as you've said, you'vetrained the model into the soup that's in your brain.
(19:39):
Just as a follow up question, Jordan, I'm really interested.
So obviously you're at Juilliard and you're learning, but you're also having fun spendingtime teaching your classmates some improvisation, some boogie woogie, some all sorts of
stuff.
And you said yourself, you've absorbed so many influences.
Was it just a natural progression in that you would eventually
(20:01):
perform live and play out in bands and try different styles or was there somethingspecific that attracted you to that?
Well, I was really being trained to be a classical pianist and up until about the time Iwas 17 or 18, I didn't think there was really going to be anything else.
Although I always did love to improvise on the side, but my training was so focused, soserious and so good that that's kind of what I knew.
(20:27):
That's, you know, in every way what I was trying to think and how I was trained to play.
You know, my technique is very much from
this kind of amazing classical background of these teachers that had this amazing lineagefrom like Rosina Levine to my teacher, Katherine Parker.
I was very lucky to have that.
(20:49):
But when I started to get exposed to this other music and to things like the Minimoog,actually some high school students came over one day by surprise with a Moog Sonic 6, I
think it was, just to my door and said, here, we want you to check this out.
And so when I started to learn about that and the music, my mind started to kind of go offthis way.
(21:13):
And so what happened was I was at the age now where I had to decide if I was going to goto the college level of Juilliard, because I been in the preparatory level.
But to go to the college, you don't just go there.
You have to re audition like anybody.
So I was kind of like, you know, halfway out the door feeling a little bit.
(21:34):
But at the same time, was so much invested in me for the classical thing that I auditionedfor the classical thing I got in and I got, excuse me, an even more high powered teacher.
Her name was Adele Marcus.
You know, this very like well-known teacher who taught all the emerging concert pianists.
And so I spent about three quarters of a year there with her.
(21:57):
And then one day I was playing the Chopin G minor ballade, which I just heard on the waydriving home from my friend's place.
which was funny, um and it's, I don't know, it's like a 30 page piece or something likethat.
And I got about halfway through playing it for her after being assigned to play it like aweek ago.
And I was playing it, you know, and she came over halfway through and she took the bookaway from me and I stopped and she was like, why did you stop?
(22:23):
I said, I stopped because I've only been playing this, this is my first week studying thispiece.
It's 30 pages, I don't know it by memory yet.
And she was kind of like, well.
When you study with Adele Marcus, you need to memorize everything the first week.
So at that was the tipping point.
I was like, you know what?
I have a lot of other things on my mind right now.
I don't really want to do this.
(22:46):
upon, so then I left and it was a big deal because my parents didn't know what to think,what to do with me or the teachers.
Like what, what?
But there's a lot of things, the fact that I missed my teenage rebellion or didn't haveone.
You know, that was, everything was waiting to kind of like come out.
So it took a while for me to really fall into like any kind of a, let's say like a groove.
(23:13):
I wasn't somebody who grew up playing in bands or anything like that.
And when I left Juilliard, I was interested in all this music, but I was also told that Ishouldn't talk to anybody who's playing blues and rock and jazz.
Like they're not the high quality people, like the classical people.
And that only took me until recently to realize that they were right.
(23:34):
I'm kidding.
I believed you there for a minute.
But anyway, so it did take a while to learn how to interface and to figure out what Iwanted to do exactly, because I also had to start thinking about how I was going to make a
(23:56):
living.
So, but the good thing was I was always very, very one sided.
I always did my music and nothing else got in the way.
So didn't matter whether I, if I didn't have any money or, you know, what was going on, Iwould just, I'd be doing this no matter what.
(24:16):
And so eventually, you know, it worked out.
I mean, I've been in dream theater for 26 years.
before that liquid tension experiment and the dregs and there were some very floaty years.
I mean, I used to support myself by playing in hotels and restaurants and bars and therewas a time period when that was happening too.
So all while I was figuring out how this was all really going to work.
(24:41):
Exactly.
And look, there's one last question I want to ask you Jordan about those formative yearsand Julia, because we recently spoke with Kerry Manier from Gentle Giant.
You mentioned Gentle Giant and he talked about
The influence of again that classical influence on his work going into the future and forhim particularly counterpoint and stuff like that.
So what were the key learnings if it's to encapsulate them that you took out of thoseyears?
(25:10):
After I left Julliard?
Yeah.
Well, I started out actually, I got really interested in electronic space music for awhile.
I mean, I was listening to the prog thing is kind of what
caught my ear and led me astray.
But once I was astray, then I got into like Tangerine Dream and beyond.
(25:32):
Like I was playing music that made Tangerine Dream look like they were playing Mozart orsomething for a little while.
I liked like Phaedra or something like that, or Rubicon or those albums were veryinfluential, but my music was not quite as locked into pitch as that for a while.
I would have one hand on the knobs of the Minimoog.
and the other hand playing the keys and kind of like almost like a human sequencer.
(25:54):
I was just like doing this weird FM synthesis and ring modulation and everything kind ofas I was playing.
So it was whole thing.
And that was very formative because I learned a lot about sound.
Matter of fact, in those days, I learned to play the Minimoog before I knew anything aboutany of the technical names or what anything was.
(26:18):
I didn't know what an oscillator was or a
you know, an LFO or sawtooth waveforms.
I didn't know.
I really didn't know anything about it.
But I knew every knob, every combination of knobs, everything it would do, how to get anysound that the thing could make.
I just knew it was just really organic.
It wasn't until years later that I kind of filled in the blanks and met people that kindof showed me, this is, know, these are the waveforms and this is oscillator modulation and
(26:47):
this is what this means.
I was like, oh.
And it was good timing because you had to know what all those things meant when digitalcame around and they got rid of all the knobs and all of a sudden you're like looking at a
tiny little screen and it's like, you don't know what the hell is going on unless you knowa little bit about it.
So it was good that they filled in, you know, those blanks.
So that was like the synthesizer, the sound part of it that was really important to me.
(27:11):
And then it was the, you know, then it was the music that I heard, all the differentthings.
It's probably my favorite, you know, like
prog things which I've kind of mentioned like Genesis and gentle giant and you know yesand King Crimson and Emerson like and Palmer all these things were were big learning you
know processes for me that were really important that kind of filled in who I am.
(27:37):
Yeah no absolutely.
And um we got you, you may get a little bit of whiplash Jordan.
We're going to jump around all sorts of timeframes here, but I actually want to talk aboutyour last 12 months.
It's been a busy 12 months as always for you, but just tell us about what's been going in.
Dream Theater has this new amazing album out, Parasomnia.
There's all sorts of other stuff.
Just tell us about your last 12 months and what you've been up to.
(28:00):
Yeah.
So you guys probably know I released a solo album called Permission to Fly.
ah
And that literally, kind of finished working on that right when I was starting up with thenew, with the recording of the new Dream Theater album, Parasomnia.
And right from there, we went, you know, basically into touring mode.
(28:22):
So I'm kind of like in the middle of a touring cycle, which over the last period of time,I don't know exactly how many months, but months we've been to Europe, been, we toured
North America, South America.
So it's been a whole lot of touring going on.
And of course, the big news in our camp was that our drummer came back after 13 years ofbeing away, Mike Portnoy, and that kind of like was really exciting for us in so many
(28:48):
levels, getting an old friend back and getting somebody who was just like, who basically,you know, created Dream Theater back in the day with Richard G and Mayang.
And so that kind of gave us all this kind of big energy to make this, I think was a verycool album.
And then to hit the road in style with a really big production, you know, probably thebiggest production we've ever done.
(29:14):
Definitely the biggest production we've ever done actually.
And cover a lot of ground.
now, now I'm off for a little while longer, a few more weeks, and then we're to hit theroad and we're going to come to Europe and do a whole bunch of festivals and some headline
shows and then continue on from there really with the Paris Omnia tour, which will be, youknow, pretty
(29:36):
Pretty fun.
how's the response been to the Parasomnia content?
Jordan, mean, it's an amazing album.
I've listened to it a number of times, but you know, what's the response been like so far?
So live, we've only played two of the songs, Night Terror and Midnight Messiah.
And they're really, really fun to play live.
(29:56):
You know, you don't know until you do it, but they have a lot of power.
There's a lot of energy in those songs and you can feel it.
It's very tangible.
um So that's what I've experienced live as far as feedback from people.
Other than that, mean, just like the album has been very well received, which is soexciting.
(30:17):
It's really a great time for Dream Theater.
And it's really unusual because think about it, this band's been, we were just out therecelebrating the 40 year anniversary.
Again, I've been with them for 26, but 40 years since the guys met at Berkeley, basically.
This celebrates the day they met, I think in the Berkeley Halls or something.
you know, that kind of thing.
(30:37):
So, um but it's been, it's been incredible, you know, to have after 40 years to have aband to be kind of like have like one of the best, if not the best run or the, you know,
the best year uh of our careers.
So we're just, you know, doing it, enjoying it and kind of trying to take it in at thesame point.
(31:02):
So yeah.
Dream Theatre has been, as you said Jordan, such an enduring and successful band and itseems to be going from strength to strength still.
And you mentioned the joy and delight at Mike Portnoy, your drummer, coming back to theband after a break.
Which leads me to a question I'm fascinated to ask you and this is something that I'lleducate our listeners and viewers on who may not be aware of this, some certainly will.
(31:28):
When Mike originally decided to take a break from the band,
You all did something quite unusual, which is you auditioned drummers but made that alsopart of an online YouTube documentary series where we get to see various drummers
auditioning with Dream Theater and your role in that was really, really prominent andinteresting in the sense of coming up with some different licks for the drummers that had
(31:51):
never heard before to try and play over and they were pretty tricky.
odd-metred things.
I'm just curious as to, from your perspective, how involved were you in deciding thatwould be something that you would do as a team and how did that feel from your perspective
going through that process?
Well, you when Mike left originally it was very emotional.
It was really sad personally I was like kind of Devastated that we lost our drummer Ididn't know where it was gonna go and you know, he and I were very close and you know, we
(32:21):
really kind of close throughout the whole thing though, but um so but when the idea cameup to do This kind of like audition process.
We all thought wow
This is really pretty cool.
This is fun.
And it struck us that every great drummer out there wanted to audition for us.
(32:42):
oh made us feel a lot better because, personally, we weren't feeling very good at all.
Amazing amazing drummers put their hand up to be part of dream theater.
Yeah
I mean, it was just it was one of the experiences in in my life that was just reallymemorable and powerful and educational and just meeting all those guys was a great thing
(33:05):
because they were all everybody we had come in was really cool and really good.
in a way it was a hard decision.
In another way, it wasn't that hard a decision because, you know, Dream Theater, musicallyand personally and in our particular life style or band style.
We needed somebody to fit a certain kind of a uh mold, if you will, and do the job.
(33:27):
So it wasn't just musical, it was personal, was business.
It was all the different factors, kind of a big thing.
But it was great to have everybody come in.
And I had a lot of fun preparing, as you said, preparing, like what are we gonna throwthen?
We gotta see if they can handle some really progressive stuff, you know?
(33:48):
And to see everybody's different way of doing it.
Like some people were just more like vibing and then trying to do it off a vibe.
Other people were maybe vibing but could like pick up the rhythmic subtleties of it.
Other people wanted to write some things down before they tried it out.
(34:08):
You know, it's just the way that people work.
um
like Mike Mangini came in and he basically I think he came in in the morning at some pointand he played like like we went we just could have been on the stage he just played the
songs it was like he was hitting hard he just nailed it it was incredible and it wasunavoidable like was unavoidable to like just go wow holy shit that's amazing you know um
(34:37):
and not to say the other guys weren't amazing too I mean one of my very favorite drummersin on the planet earth is Marco Miniman
I just love that guy.
love his musicality.
He and I have worked together a lot in the past and we'll work together in the future.
think he's just an incredibly musical drummer.
But again, like I said, there was a lot of factors that go into who's going to be thedrummer in Dream Theater.
(34:58):
it's not just who's the best at whatever.
um but yeah, and we had 13 really good years with Mangini and I learned so much from
playing with other musicians and I learned so much from Mike Mangini ah because he's justsuch an interesting character and you know even thinking about how did you like like I
(35:21):
would ask him how did you prepare for that audition like what the hell you came in and youyou killed it you nailed it he was like well I played in the dark I put water on my hands
I reversed my drums around I did like I prepared for any
like disaster and I practiced hard and I came in and I was ready.
(35:43):
I was like, well, okay, whatever it is you're doing, that's pretty cool.
So that's amazing.
And for this tour, you know, with Mike rejoining in this current tour, what was therehearsal process in the lead up to the current tour?
We generally do a lot of work on our own, you know, just kind of like learning all thesongs.
(36:03):
So when we come in, we all kind of know them.
And then we're working on the finer details of the hard parts when we're together.
Things change when you're together.
You're not just jamming to a record.
always, oh, wow, I didn't realize you were going to do that.
Can you play that again so I can lock it in and whatever?
I miss stuff.
So we'll get together.
(36:23):
I think we got together for maybe a couple of weeks to bang stuff around and figure outeverything we needed to kind of do to make sure we could
you know, play through the songs and then of course you're going to be on a stage sothere's a lot of production.
So at one point we transferred to a production facility that we could set up our PA andall our lights and that was really important too.
(36:51):
That was in the UK at the beginning of this whole thing and then, you know, and thenthat's a different kind of rehearsal.
Then we're figuring out when to walk on stage, when to walk off stage, what's going on,you know, so.
And, like for this next run, um, we'll get together because we're going to be adding somenew songs to the set and changing things up a bit.
(37:12):
Um, but you know, we need to be together to do that.
So we're to spend a week or so rehearsing, um, and then a couple of production rehearsalsagain, when we get over to Europe and that'll be that.
Great.
And I do need to ask, even though the vast majority of our audience, Jordan is outside ofAustralia.
When are we likely to see Dream Theater or yourself in Australia next?
(37:35):
Yeah, I know we haven't been there in a little while, but we were talking about doing theAsian Australian thing.
God, I know that the first run after the summer is in the US and I think if I remembercorrectly, it's kind of like after that.
So I don't want to say I don't know exactly, but we are planning to get there.
(37:57):
So right.
And let me bow to it as well.
No, that's right.
Jordan, we've got some pretty disparate sort of individual scenario questions to fire atyou.
And we've also got some listener and viewer questions further down as well.
And one of them was obviously, whether it's with Dream Theater or in other spheres, you'vedemonstrated your ability to not only play standing in front of a keyboard, but also
(38:18):
playing upside down, for example.
What sort of practice and work did you need to be able to do to be able to get your headaround essentially everything in reverse?
Are you talking about like when I do the like move the stand around?
too I think I believe there's the odd situation where you've literally played from theother side of the keyboard.
(38:40):
I could be wrong.
No, I don't.
That's not one of my tricks.
I think what David's referring to there is um you all famously did in Dream Theater andyou can give me some background on this Jordan.
believe it was somewhat of a surprise for an audience.
did the whole of Dark Side of the Moon from start to finish and I believe you played partof any color you like standing on the, from behind the keyboard is like where the plugs
(39:07):
and things go into the back and you're still playing the silos and we're curious howyou're able to do that mentally.
Because if I look at the keyboard from that angle my F's become B's and I can't I couldn'tdo that so I was curious as to how
Well, let me just admit that I don't totally remember that, but I'd like to see it onvideo.
There probably is one.
But you know, if you're telling me I did that, then I did that.
(39:32):
OK, I'll go with that, guys.
um But you know what?
But I can speak to that kind of thing pretty well because, like, one of my hobbies overthe last few years has been seriously getting into the guitar, right?
And one of the things that I
do with it because it's kind of like enjoy the way it feels to my brain is like how can Iplay the guitar at the same time as the keyboard and maybe play in harmony and do things
(40:01):
like that.
So I like those kind of challenges where you kind of like shake it up where you approachsomething from a different angle and you have to kind of like just figure out the
mechanics of it and whatever has to click or you have to let go of some kind of hold inyour brain to make it work.
Like sometimes people will say when I'll do something along those lines, they'll say, whatdo you have like two brains or what is it not?
(40:24):
And I feel like, you know what, the only way I can do this is it's almost the opposite ofwhat I think people think.
It's not like I'm like almost like clenching up and just going super academic and doingthis thing.
It's almost like a like this letting go process that allows me to do weird stuff likethat.
It's, really different than what anybody.
(40:47):
can imagine to be able to, for people who try like playing the guitar and the keyboard atthe same time in harmony or whatever, they would kind of know what I mean.
At certain point you just go, you know what, this is not like, you figure out what youfigure out, but then you got to let go to be able to make it.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that with us.
I think it will give us permission to look at you and go, wow, this guy is pretty special.
(41:09):
Jordan, a similar sort of uh a question around yourself personally and the way you play.
Again, seeing your incredible dexterity, you have a lot of strength and a lot of power inyour fingers.
You can play quite quickly, but quite accurately.
And again, for example, for listeners or viewers who may not have seen this, Jordan can dothings like play Pink Floyd's On The Run.
(41:31):
which was done famously on a sequencer, well Jordan can play that free hand.
And I'm curious as to where that dexterity comes from.
Is it a practice routine?
Obviously you mentioned you had some really good strong classical training as a youngperson.
oh What enabled you to have that level of control over a keyboard?
That's a good question because there's the classical training, certainly, and there's someclassical pianists, I should say, that do stuff that at this point in my life, or maybe
(41:58):
ever, that would just be so hard.
But I can do other things that maybe they wouldn't be that apt to just sit down and do.
Things like, well, let me describe it this way.
So I have a really great classical training.
We established that.
I never became uh a concert pianist because I shifted gears.
(42:19):
If I had gone that route, I probably would have gotten better in some certain levels,certain kinds of things.
But what I did do is by going into the technology, the rock space, I discovered thingslike sequencers.
And I remember when I first started to work with the sequencers that
I was blown away by the kind of like accuracy you could get by putting in the notes andthen quantizing them and then speeding them up.
(42:46):
When I heard like an on the run kind of thing or just like the sound of a sequencerplaying really rapid notes, I was really like turned on by that.
was inspired.
And the way that I kind of absorb things like that is I don't let it kind of like bring medown.
I think, man, I could
I could do that.
(43:07):
Like I could do that with my hand.
And so when I started to play like the Minimoog and like all the kind of like TangerineDreamish kind of stuff, which is very, I used to call it almost like notey note music
because it was like, all these things that was kind of robotic, whatever.
But I realized I could play the repeating patterns with my fingers.
(43:32):
and keep that going and then modify it whenever I wanted to, much more control in a waythan a sequencer because I'm in real time, I'm deciding on the notes and playing them much
like a sequencer, looking for that kind of sound.
So it was kind of like my desire to play like a sequencer from a certain point of viewthat I think really helped my technique in a way that made it kind of an interesting,
(43:57):
maybe even slightly unique kind of uh a technique.
I remember running into uh
What's his name?
From Motley Crue, Tommy Lee, the drummer.
I at some kind of a music convention thing.
It wasn't NAMM, it was like a smaller thing.
And he came into the room and I was playing, I was doing something.
And he said, man, your fingers are like little machine guns.
(44:20):
I'm like, man, that's funny.
Kind of stayed with me because he saw there was some power there.
Because I really worked on, one of the things that I really work on is, you know, my,well.
two major things.
One is my finger independence, right?
So from a classical point of view, you're talking about things like the Phillips exercisesor something like that, where you're holding down all your fingers and you're lifting up
(44:45):
some without the others or like, you know, this, that kind of thing, where each finger iskind of like its own entity and they're all strong.
And then the other thing I would work on is just kind of like,
the power, just the power of the fingers.
Years ago, I developed all these kind of rhythm, I call them like rhythmic displacementexercises, where you might take like uh a series of four notes, like, but you might accent
(45:16):
them in like five, like in groupings of five.
So you keep the four notes.
So if you got, which you think would be in four, what happens if you go,
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 and then it kind of gives each finger this special meaningbecause you're going to be accenting that finger as you go or to do it in seven which also
(45:39):
throws it off so every time you repeat the pattern of four notes in seven it's going toaccent the next note.
It's cool stuff.
Then I apply that to my guitar playing too which is really good because it coordinates mybrain and fingers in another way.
But all those kinds of things that like Matt, that's coming very much from a progressivemusician's mindset to think about.
(46:00):
I'm playing a four note sequence, but I'm putting it in seven or I'm putting it in five.
That I think I could only get to by being into the kind of music that I'm into and thenapplying it to my technique.
So I think that's how I got here.
Oh, thank you so much.
That's a really informative uh answer and uh some really cool ideas for people who mightwant to try improving their finger strength and their way of thinking about how each
(46:27):
finger works independently.
So thank you, Jordan.
when I left Juilliard, I was interested in all this music, but I was also told that Ishouldn't talk to anybody who's playing blues and rock and jazz.
Like they're not the high quality people like the classical people.
And that only took me until recently to realize that they were right.
(00:25):
Hello and welcome to the Keyboard Chronicles, a podcast for keyboard players.
I'm your host David Holloway and I'm thrilled as always to be here with you and comingfrom an undisclosed location in Australia and it's obviously a park is Mr.
Paul Bindig and the nearby paddle steamer.
How are you Paul?
There is a paddle steamer blowing its horn.
(00:45):
There is a freight train behind me and it's all happening.
But I moved heaven and earth to be here David because A, I love your company.
B, we have an amazing guest with us today.
We do indeed.
So Mr.
Jordan Rudis, most of you out there will well and truly know Jordan's work.
We cover quite the bit of ground and we made a concerted effort because Jordan is so wellknown and has undertaken a whole bunch of interviews because of his generosity of spirit
(01:12):
and the time he provides.
So we've tried to go off the beaten track a little bit, but also cover some stuff.
um more broadly as well.
So I think you'll enjoy it a great deal.
This is the first of two parts and we'll see you again at the start of part two.
(01:37):
Jordan, it's an honor and privilege to have you on the show, sir.
How are you this fine Friday night?
I'm doing well.
I just had a nice day with some very great keyboard player friends, talking shop andhistory and telling stories.
And it was some guys I hadn't seen for a while, but some of my very closest friends kindof from the keyboard industry.
(01:59):
So this is an appropriate interview to have after that.
That's right.
Yeah, we'll continue to talk shop for sure.
So I did want to kick off over the last week.
You did an amazing interview with Rick Beardo and I just wanted to do a bit of a follow upon the great tech that you were showcasing uh with your colleague, Lancelot around using
(02:20):
AI as essentially an amazing jamming tool.
But just if you don't mind a brief potted, know, in a hundred words or less what that is.
And then I'm just going to ask you a couple more questions about it.
Sure.
So I had an idea about a year and half ago um after thinking a lot about the new kind oftechnology and tools that are available.
(02:46):
um I wanted to do something where we used AI and instead of just like generating audiolike a lot of people are doing, I wanted to try to create a real jamming partner for
myself.
but with my musical brain.
So I know that might sound a little self-centered, but the reason that it kind of startthe idea came out that way is because I started to think about all the kinds of things I
(03:17):
think about every time I go over to the keyboard and every style I play and kind of gothrough, if you will, these rules that I was thinking in my head.
Like when you think about every style that we play, if it's let's say blues or something,
like an Emerson thing or a Genesis thing.
There are things that make those styles sound the way they do.
(03:37):
There are things that I would do that you would do to get that sound out.
And then I was thinking, wow, with the tech, we could train it to know all those rules.
So kind of like one idea led to another.
And my meeting the guys at MIT through the various steps that it took to kind of get inthere, it all came together beautifully.
(03:59):
And I got connected there with a couple of amazing PhD researchers.
of them, Lancelot, is the audio specialist and Perry was the kinetic sculpture specialist.
And of course, Joe Paradiso, who runs the responsive environments group at MIT, which isthe group that I was kind of like brought in as a visiting artist.
(04:22):
So kind of one step led to another.
And this idea that I had really resonated with them.
And so we started to train these models.
And right now the way that it all works is that there's separate models that are alltrained for different musical head spaces, if you will, to do different musical things.
And it's been an amazing journey because this whole idea of being interactive is verypowerful where the model, the computer, is listening to what I do and based on what I do,
(04:53):
it's making a decision.
to then use the training data that I also gave to my researchers to then train the model.
At first it didn't really work.
And I was like, okay, well, this is an idea and Athena's not maybe gonna work.
But I can totally remember the day I walked into the lab, the media labs at MIT, and I wasplaying around with the model that actually plays melodic lines and leads over the
(05:21):
chordings that I do.
And it started to work.
And I was like, my God.
turn on your camera, this is unbelievable.
And I called my wife who was there in the hallway working on something else.
You gotta come in here.
Basically calling everybody saying, this works, it's incredible.
So that's kind of like where we're at.
We were building what we called a baby at the beginning, because it had to be taught tospeak to any kind of musical language.
(05:47):
And now we basically have a teenager that I was able to bring over to Rick's place andshow him and it was, you know, it's
Pretty music was pretty amazing.
I mean, still can mess up.
There's still times I want to scold it and say, no, don't do that.
Maybe that's not cool.
Or maybe it's a cluster out of nowhere.
But that's fine, because now we know that we're on a path to create something that I thinkis very exciting and inspiring and meaningful.
(06:19):
Like where it's going to go.
Everybody always asks, where do you think it's going to go?
And I always say, well, you know what?
This was, I just get in, you know, I'm somebody who's always kind of in like a verycreative space.
get inspired by sound, by technology, you know, bring it to me and I'm going to think ofsome way to make it artistic.
So for me, this is an incredible project just to sink my musicality and my mind into.
(06:46):
For the researchers, they're researchers.
They're just, let's try some stuff.
Let's develop some technology.
So.
So that's kind of where it's at.
know, it's not, it's nothing's a product at this point.
We're just kind of cruising down this very, very cool road and inspiring ourselves.
(07:06):
And also it seems to be inspiring a lot of people around us too with the kind of thingsthat we're doing.
And before I stop this running dialogue, I will say that I also work in other areas of AImusic that are not the MIT thing, that are more...
controversial that also have things about it that's very exciting.
But I'm in there kind of involved in helping to steer a little bit where those things aregoing as well.
(07:32):
so let's yeah, look, I think you made a good point about your other works as well.
So I mean, we take a lot of interest in AI and music on the show.
And I know we've had Thomas Dolby, for example, on the show, who takes a really positiveview towards AI is a bit like yourself as a creative assistant to really drive you to
push the boundaries of what you can do personally.
So I'm assuming that's your broad philosophy as you work through these things.
(07:56):
Yes, I see it as another tool, but I see it as the most powerful tool that we've beengiving probably in my whole lifetime.
There's been these stages, you go way back, you have things like the phonograph thatreally shook things up because all of sudden people thought they were against it, but
people are not going to want to go see live music.
(08:17):
You had this thing you could put in your house to listen to music.
What's that about?
And then a major, let's go major fast forward.
And then we're in the whole place where we're samplers are being invented and musiciansare going, my God, I'm gonna be out of work and synthesizers and people with Broadway
pits.
And everybody, I'm not saying that the people who thought that or think that they're gonnalose their jobs don't have a right to feel that way.
(08:46):
I have a lot of sympathy for my music friends who are feeling that way.
I think it's really a tough situation to be in.
I think there's no, but I also think there's no stopping the technology.
So I think it's important to, first of all, understand it.
Like, what is this?
What is it really?
It's not just something that's coming in to kill my work load.
(09:08):
It's not just taking my job and it's whatever it is.
It has some interest.
to it, it's something that obviously has some kind of value.
So to understand it is, I think, a really, really important thing first.
And then I think it's maybe a recommendation to people everywhere to have someflexibility.
(09:31):
what can I do?
It's not going away.
It's right there.
Maybe there's something I can do with it.
How can it help me?
Because what else are you going to do?
You're just going to fight it, and you're to just kind of like...
getting a really bad head space and I mean that that kind of sucks.
but again, I have a lot of, a lot of love for my fellow musicians and artists and youknow, and I get it.
(09:54):
I just want to help to make this a really positive, um, you know, thing that'll inspireand educate and do cool things with.
Yep.
Absolutely love it.
And, um, just the last question on this subject, Jordan.
So, I mean, how confident are you in say five years that
this is still some, a tool that you'll be able to harness and, and drive creativity ratherthan it sort of harnessing us, so to speak.
(10:19):
That's a great question.
I think that it's something that's just going to get better and better and become agreater tool.
Really, if you think of it that way, this tool is going to get like amazing where peoplewho are in their home studios, they're going to want to use it just like they want to use
a DAW with all the
(10:41):
functionality that you can use these days, things that people hated, step sequencers andall the kind of automatic tools and melodines and, I mean, let's go back a little bit,
arpeggiators and karma on the chord synthesizers, things that were like automatic, but allof sudden everybody's, oh yeah, of course we use this.
(11:02):
And of course we use pro tools and we just move things around like that.
It's just what it is.
So this is gonna get to a point where who knows what will happen like with my technologyI'm doing at MIT for an example, like this one particular model that I'm working on that I
think is the world would be like the world's greatest ear training program.
(11:24):
Like just from an educate, not even talking about like a performance thing, but just likean incredible ear training program.
So there's a lot of, know, when people see it, you go, that could be a, that could be a,so maybe.
in five years, it will be those things and we'll dial it in enough that it will besomething that will be that, you know, that that powerful and great and helpful.
(11:49):
Jordan, I love the way you describe your MIT AI project as like an unruly teenager thatyou're wrangling and you're showing it to Rick Beato and yeah, it still makes a few
mistakes but as a patient parent you're proud of the way it's learning and growing.
And I think our listeners and viewers and certainly I would love to know about youryounger years as well.
(12:12):
So as you were growing up musically, so give us a sense of what it was like for
yourself as a young person in your formative years and then moving through adolescence andwhat was the musical experience at home and how did that inform where you've landed today?
It was a very nice transition by the way.
Very good.
Thank you.
(12:32):
You're hired.
Oh, you're already here.
Okay, good.
Yeah, so let me put it this way.
So and in a shorter version than you know, it could be.
I started out with just an interest in the piano.
I was in the second grade classroom and my parents didn't have a piano yet, but I wasplaying the one at the school and my mother called one day and told my
(12:56):
The teacher called my mother one day and said, Jordan is playing very nicely in theclassroom.
And my mother was like, playing what?
Like what are you talking about?
And she was like, well, he's playing the piano.
She was like, well, we don't have a piano.
And the teacher was like, you should get one because he plays.
So she bought a little white SD, it was called it.
That was the brand name SD piano, like a little baby grand, very tiny baby grand.
(13:22):
And
found a local teacher who would come around every week and like for half an hour and teachme.
uh She got suspicious when the teacher started to come for free and he threw out the bookthat was a little red book that everybody learns from.
He didn't want to use that with me.
Instead, he wrote down like a circle of fifths chord charts and was starting to teach mechords.
(13:42):
One day, some friends of my parents came over and I was playing a song from like aBroadway show.
that had like the single notes, just sounds like a guitar book, I think, the single notesand chords.
And I was playing this song and this woman, friend of my parents said, how are you playingthat?
I was like, well, how am I playing?
(14:03):
What do you mean?
She's like, well, how are you?
You're playing all these notes that's not anywhere written on the page.
I said, well, look, I said it is written on the page.
It has the melody and the chords.
And she was, no, no, no, all the other stuff.
I was like, doesn't everybody do that?
told my mother, should take this child to a more serious teacher.
(14:24):
So at that point, my mother found this woman, her name was Magda.
She was from a Hungarian woman whose son actually had gone to the college level ofJuilliard, but dropped out to join Guy Lombardo's band.
And when Magda met me, she was like, okay, you're gonna be the one to get into Juilliardand you're gonna stay there.
(14:47):
That was her mission.
So she trained me for like a year and a half and taught me the repertoire that I needed toaudition for Juilliard.
And so when I was nine, I went and I auditioned for the Preparatory Division of Juilliardand I got in and I uh got a great teacher.
name was Catherine Parker.
She wasn't too happy on the first week when she assigned me the Bach C major prelude.
(15:11):
And I took it home and I read the first couple of measures and then I was enjoyingimprovising on all of that.
Because when I came in and played it for her,
She's like, wait a minute, that's not what we do here.
You have to learn how to, you have to respect what's on the page.
So ended up that while I was studying all my classical music, I was very serious about it,but I would escape to the furthest practice room from my teacher's studio and sometimes
(15:38):
bring like some of the other kids.
And I'd say, come on, I'll show you like some boogie woogie.
I'll play a little bit of blues for you.
Oh, way this, you know.
So I'd have my improvisation way down over there, and then I'd come back and button up mytie or whatever and play and do my classical thing.
But I want to jump to something that relates to where you started the transition, which isthat when I started to discover, and before that, but when I started to listen to some of
(16:09):
the progressive rock and jazz things that kind of started to influence me,
I started to get this mindset where it was like, okay, wow, I'm listening to like Genesis,right?
And Genesis, I was realizing that what's making, know, what is making this sound?
And I would go over to the piano and I wasn't somebody who would want to necessarily learna whole song by somebody else, but I wanted to learn what made it tick.
(16:36):
So I started to find like the kind of courtings that Tony Banks, you know, would use.
and start to make almost like rules in my head.
Like I can play this minor chord over that root and then actually all these other chordssound really cool over that root note too.
And it makes that sound, that Genesis sound.
And then one day like somebody played me a little bit of Emerson stuff.
(16:59):
I was like, whoa, okay, that's cool.
All those fourths and suspended chords.
And then I went to the piano and I literally.
taught myself to put my hand on every fourth chord in every key and I made up littlepatterns, you so I had a sus4, a sus2, and all fourths chord and I just got to a point
(17:20):
where I could bang, put my hand in any one of them in any position really fast.
So I brought it in as part of, was training, let's say was training the model, right, todo that style.
Gentle Giant comes along, like what's that about?
Like Gentle Giant to me was like almost like Bach.
you know, meets rock and there was all this counterpoint, but there was a lot ofinteresting syncopation that you don't find necessarily, you know, box music will
(17:47):
certainly, but in classical music.
And I started to develop a style where I could improvise like that, or I could write musiclike that.
So everything was like an independent model, much like what we're doing with my work atMIT, where I'm training it for this, I'm training it for that, and I'm training it for
this.
Where does it all go?
(18:07):
Like, obviously in my mind, I can sit down and you guys say, play that style.
I could do that.
Or I could go and play like a different style and we could do that.
But there's also the ability due to my personal training to change it and to morph betweenthe styles and, you know, to make a smooth shift between them.
(18:30):
And that's not something my my AI can do yet.
But people say, where is it going?
What do you want it to do?
Well, I'd love to be jamming with my, my jam bot, we call it, and be able to shift gearsand have it be able to go, oh, you're doing that.
Well, then I can do this.
And if I all of a sudden the shift in something more classical, would go, oh, I can makethat happen too.
(18:54):
So, so my background has been all about allowing all these influences to come and kind ofinfluence to come and help to create this.
this like soup that's in my brain, you know, of all these styles.
Because this is like a progressive rock musician or I guess dream theater progressivemetal, but a progressive musician.
(19:15):
That's what it's all about for me.
That's what I love.
I love I don't play jazz.
I don't play rock.
I don't play any one thing.
I kind of play with all these different, all this different vocabulary from all thedifferent things that I've trained myself to do.
Yeah, well, suppose you're playing music as you've absorbed it and as you've said, you'vetrained the model into the soup that's in your brain.
(19:39):
Just as a follow up question, Jordan, I'm really interested.
So obviously you're at Juilliard and you're learning, but you're also having fun spendingtime teaching your classmates some improvisation, some boogie woogie, some all sorts of
stuff.
And you said yourself, you've absorbed so many influences.
Was it just a natural progression in that you would eventually
(20:01):
perform live and play out in bands and try different styles or was there somethingspecific that attracted you to that?
Well, I was really being trained to be a classical pianist and up until about the time Iwas 17 or 18, I didn't think there was really going to be anything else.
Although I always did love to improvise on the side, but my training was so focused, soserious and so good that that's kind of what I knew.
(20:27):
That's, you know, in every way what I was trying to think and how I was trained to play.
You know, my technique is very much from
this kind of amazing classical background of these teachers that had this amazing lineagefrom like Rosina Levine to my teacher, Katherine Parker.
I was very lucky to have that.
(20:49):
But when I started to get exposed to this other music and to things like the Minimoog,actually some high school students came over one day by surprise with a Moog Sonic 6, I
think it was, just to my door and said, here, we want you to check this out.
And so when I started to learn about that and the music, my mind started to kind of go offthis way.
(21:13):
And so what happened was I was at the age now where I had to decide if I was going to goto the college level of Juilliard, because I been in the preparatory level.
But to go to the college, you don't just go there.
You have to re audition like anybody.
So I was kind of like, you know, halfway out the door feeling a little bit.
(21:34):
But at the same time, was so much invested in me for the classical thing that I auditionedfor the classical thing I got in and I got, excuse me, an even more high powered teacher.
Her name was Adele Marcus.
You know, this very like well-known teacher who taught all the emerging concert pianists.
And so I spent about three quarters of a year there with her.
(21:57):
And then one day I was playing the Chopin G minor ballade, which I just heard on the waydriving home from my friend's place.
which was funny, um and it's, I don't know, it's like a 30 page piece or something likethat.
And I got about halfway through playing it for her after being assigned to play it like aweek ago.
And I was playing it, you know, and she came over halfway through and she took the bookaway from me and I stopped and she was like, why did you stop?
(22:23):
I said, I stopped because I've only been playing this, this is my first week studying thispiece.
It's 30 pages, I don't know it by memory yet.
And she was kind of like, well.
When you study with Adele Marcus, you need to memorize everything the first week.
So at that was the tipping point.
I was like, you know what?
I have a lot of other things on my mind right now.
I don't really want to do this.
(22:46):
upon, so then I left and it was a big deal because my parents didn't know what to think,what to do with me or the teachers.
Like what, what?
But there's a lot of things, the fact that I missed my teenage rebellion or didn't haveone.
You know, that was, everything was waiting to kind of like come out.
So it took a while for me to really fall into like any kind of a, let's say like a groove.
(23:13):
I wasn't somebody who grew up playing in bands or anything like that.
And when I left Juilliard, I was interested in all this music, but I was also told that Ishouldn't talk to anybody who's playing blues and rock and jazz.
Like they're not the high quality people, like the classical people.
And that only took me until recently to realize that they were right.
(23:34):
I'm kidding.
I believed you there for a minute.
But anyway, so it did take a while to learn how to interface and to figure out what Iwanted to do exactly, because I also had to start thinking about how I was going to make a
(23:56):
living.
So, but the good thing was I was always very, very one sided.
I always did my music and nothing else got in the way.
So didn't matter whether I, if I didn't have any money or, you know, what was going on, Iwould just, I'd be doing this no matter what.
(24:16):
And so eventually, you know, it worked out.
I mean, I've been in dream theater for 26 years.
before that liquid tension experiment and the dregs and there were some very floaty years.
I mean, I used to support myself by playing in hotels and restaurants and bars and therewas a time period when that was happening too.
So all while I was figuring out how this was all really going to work.
(24:41):
Exactly.
And look, there's one last question I want to ask you Jordan about those formative yearsand Julia, because we recently spoke with Kerry Manier from Gentle Giant.
You mentioned Gentle Giant and he talked about
The influence of again that classical influence on his work going into the future and forhim particularly counterpoint and stuff like that.
So what were the key learnings if it's to encapsulate them that you took out of thoseyears?
(25:10):
After I left Julliard?
Yeah.
Well, I started out actually, I got really interested in electronic space music for awhile.
I mean, I was listening to the prog thing is kind of what
caught my ear and led me astray.
But once I was astray, then I got into like Tangerine Dream and beyond.
(25:32):
Like I was playing music that made Tangerine Dream look like they were playing Mozart orsomething for a little while.
I liked like Phaedra or something like that, or Rubicon or those albums were veryinfluential, but my music was not quite as locked into pitch as that for a while.
I would have one hand on the knobs of the Minimoog.
and the other hand playing the keys and kind of like almost like a human sequencer.
(25:54):
I was just like doing this weird FM synthesis and ring modulation and everything kind ofas I was playing.
So it was whole thing.
And that was very formative because I learned a lot about sound.
Matter of fact, in those days, I learned to play the Minimoog before I knew anything aboutany of the technical names or what anything was.
(26:18):
I didn't know what an oscillator was or a
you know, an LFO or sawtooth waveforms.
I didn't know.
I really didn't know anything about it.
But I knew every knob, every combination of knobs, everything it would do, how to get anysound that the thing could make.
I just knew it was just really organic.
It wasn't until years later that I kind of filled in the blanks and met people that kindof showed me, this is, know, these are the waveforms and this is oscillator modulation and
(26:47):
this is what this means.
I was like, oh.
And it was good timing because you had to know what all those things meant when digitalcame around and they got rid of all the knobs and all of a sudden you're like looking at a
tiny little screen and it's like, you don't know what the hell is going on unless you knowa little bit about it.
So it was good that they filled in, you know, those blanks.
So that was like the synthesizer, the sound part of it that was really important to me.
(27:11):
And then it was the, you know, then it was the music that I heard, all the differentthings.
It's probably my favorite, you know, like
prog things which I've kind of mentioned like Genesis and gentle giant and you know yesand King Crimson and Emerson like and Palmer all these things were were big learning you
know processes for me that were really important that kind of filled in who I am.
(27:37):
Yeah no absolutely.
And um we got you, you may get a little bit of whiplash Jordan.
We're going to jump around all sorts of timeframes here, but I actually want to talk aboutyour last 12 months.
It's been a busy 12 months as always for you, but just tell us about what's been going in.
Dream Theater has this new amazing album out, Parasomnia.
There's all sorts of other stuff.
Just tell us about your last 12 months and what you've been up to.
(28:00):
Yeah.
So you guys probably know I released a solo album called Permission to Fly.
ah
And that literally, kind of finished working on that right when I was starting up with thenew, with the recording of the new Dream Theater album, Parasomnia.
And right from there, we went, you know, basically into touring mode.
(28:22):
So I'm kind of like in the middle of a touring cycle, which over the last period of time,I don't know exactly how many months, but months we've been to Europe, been, we toured
North America, South America.
So it's been a whole lot of touring going on.
And of course, the big news in our camp was that our drummer came back after 13 years ofbeing away, Mike Portnoy, and that kind of like was really exciting for us in so many
(28:48):
levels, getting an old friend back and getting somebody who was just like, who basically,you know, created Dream Theater back in the day with Richard G and Mayang.
And so that kind of gave us all this kind of big energy to make this, I think was a verycool album.
And then to hit the road in style with a really big production, you know, probably thebiggest production we've ever done.
(29:14):
Definitely the biggest production we've ever done actually.
And cover a lot of ground.
now, now I'm off for a little while longer, a few more weeks, and then we're to hit theroad and we're going to come to Europe and do a whole bunch of festivals and some headline
shows and then continue on from there really with the Paris Omnia tour, which will be, youknow, pretty
(29:36):
Pretty fun.
how's the response been to the Parasomnia content?
Jordan, mean, it's an amazing album.
I've listened to it a number of times, but you know, what's the response been like so far?
So live, we've only played two of the songs, Night Terror and Midnight Messiah.
And they're really, really fun to play live.
(29:56):
You know, you don't know until you do it, but they have a lot of power.
There's a lot of energy in those songs and you can feel it.
It's very tangible.
um So that's what I've experienced live as far as feedback from people.
Other than that, mean, just like the album has been very well received, which is soexciting.
(30:17):
It's really a great time for Dream Theater.
And it's really unusual because think about it, this band's been, we were just out therecelebrating the 40 year anniversary.
Again, I've been with them for 26, but 40 years since the guys met at Berkeley, basically.
This celebrates the day they met, I think in the Berkeley Halls or something.
you know, that kind of thing.
(30:37):
So, um but it's been, it's been incredible, you know, to have after 40 years to have aband to be kind of like have like one of the best, if not the best run or the, you know,
the best year uh of our careers.
So we're just, you know, doing it, enjoying it and kind of trying to take it in at thesame point.
(31:02):
So yeah.
Dream Theatre has been, as you said Jordan, such an enduring and successful band and itseems to be going from strength to strength still.
And you mentioned the joy and delight at Mike Portnoy, your drummer, coming back to theband after a break.
Which leads me to a question I'm fascinated to ask you and this is something that I'lleducate our listeners and viewers on who may not be aware of this, some certainly will.
(31:28):
When Mike originally decided to take a break from the band,
You all did something quite unusual, which is you auditioned drummers but made that alsopart of an online YouTube documentary series where we get to see various drummers
auditioning with Dream Theater and your role in that was really, really prominent andinteresting in the sense of coming up with some different licks for the drummers that had
(31:51):
never heard before to try and play over and they were pretty tricky.
odd-metred things.
I'm just curious as to, from your perspective, how involved were you in deciding thatwould be something that you would do as a team and how did that feel from your perspective
going through that process?
Well, you when Mike left originally it was very emotional.
It was really sad personally I was like kind of Devastated that we lost our drummer Ididn't know where it was gonna go and you know, he and I were very close and you know, we
(32:21):
really kind of close throughout the whole thing though, but um so but when the idea cameup to do This kind of like audition process.
We all thought wow
This is really pretty cool.
This is fun.
And it struck us that every great drummer out there wanted to audition for us.
(32:42):
oh made us feel a lot better because, personally, we weren't feeling very good at all.
Amazing amazing drummers put their hand up to be part of dream theater.
Yeah
I mean, it was just it was one of the experiences in in my life that was just reallymemorable and powerful and educational and just meeting all those guys was a great thing
(33:05):
because they were all everybody we had come in was really cool and really good.
in a way it was a hard decision.
In another way, it wasn't that hard a decision because, you know, Dream Theater, musicallyand personally and in our particular life style or band style.
We needed somebody to fit a certain kind of a uh mold, if you will, and do the job.
(33:27):
So it wasn't just musical, it was personal, was business.
It was all the different factors, kind of a big thing.
But it was great to have everybody come in.
And I had a lot of fun preparing, as you said, preparing, like what are we gonna throwthen?
We gotta see if they can handle some really progressive stuff, you know?
(33:48):
And to see everybody's different way of doing it.
Like some people were just more like vibing and then trying to do it off a vibe.
Other people were maybe vibing but could like pick up the rhythmic subtleties of it.
Other people wanted to write some things down before they tried it out.
(34:08):
You know, it's just the way that people work.
um
like Mike Mangini came in and he basically I think he came in in the morning at some pointand he played like like we went we just could have been on the stage he just played the
songs it was like he was hitting hard he just nailed it it was incredible and it wasunavoidable like was unavoidable to like just go wow holy shit that's amazing you know um
(34:37):
and not to say the other guys weren't amazing too I mean one of my very favorite drummersin on the planet earth is Marco Miniman
I just love that guy.
love his musicality.
He and I have worked together a lot in the past and we'll work together in the future.
think he's just an incredibly musical drummer.
But again, like I said, there was a lot of factors that go into who's going to be thedrummer in Dream Theater.
(34:58):
it's not just who's the best at whatever.
um but yeah, and we had 13 really good years with Mangini and I learned so much from
playing with other musicians and I learned so much from Mike Mangini ah because he's justsuch an interesting character and you know even thinking about how did you like like I
(35:21):
would ask him how did you prepare for that audition like what the hell you came in and youyou killed it you nailed it he was like well I played in the dark I put water on my hands
I reversed my drums around I did like I prepared for any
like disaster and I practiced hard and I came in and I was ready.
(35:43):
I was like, well, okay, whatever it is you're doing, that's pretty cool.
So that's amazing.
And for this tour, you know, with Mike rejoining in this current tour, what was therehearsal process in the lead up to the current tour?
We generally do a lot of work on our own, you know, just kind of like learning all thesongs.
(36:03):
So when we come in, we all kind of know them.
And then we're working on the finer details of the hard parts when we're together.
Things change when you're together.
You're not just jamming to a record.
always, oh, wow, I didn't realize you were going to do that.
Can you play that again so I can lock it in and whatever?
I miss stuff.
So we'll get together.
(36:23):
I think we got together for maybe a couple of weeks to bang stuff around and figure outeverything we needed to kind of do to make sure we could
you know, play through the songs and then of course you're going to be on a stage sothere's a lot of production.
So at one point we transferred to a production facility that we could set up our PA andall our lights and that was really important too.
(36:51):
That was in the UK at the beginning of this whole thing and then, you know, and thenthat's a different kind of rehearsal.
Then we're figuring out when to walk on stage, when to walk off stage, what's going on,you know, so.
And, like for this next run, um, we'll get together because we're going to be adding somenew songs to the set and changing things up a bit.
(37:12):
Um, but you know, we need to be together to do that.
So we're to spend a week or so rehearsing, um, and then a couple of production rehearsalsagain, when we get over to Europe and that'll be that.
Great.
And I do need to ask, even though the vast majority of our audience, Jordan is outside ofAustralia.
When are we likely to see Dream Theater or yourself in Australia next?
(37:35):
Yeah, I know we haven't been there in a little while, but we were talking about doing theAsian Australian thing.
God, I know that the first run after the summer is in the US and I think if I remembercorrectly, it's kind of like after that.
So I don't want to say I don't know exactly, but we are planning to get there.
(37:57):
So right.
And let me bow to it as well.
No, that's right.
Jordan, we've got some pretty disparate sort of individual scenario questions to fire atyou.
And we've also got some listener and viewer questions further down as well.
And one of them was obviously, whether it's with Dream Theater or in other spheres, you'vedemonstrated your ability to not only play standing in front of a keyboard, but also
(38:18):
playing upside down, for example.
What sort of practice and work did you need to be able to do to be able to get your headaround essentially everything in reverse?
Are you talking about like when I do the like move the stand around?
too I think I believe there's the odd situation where you've literally played from theother side of the keyboard.
(38:40):
I could be wrong.
No, I don't.
That's not one of my tricks.
I think what David's referring to there is um you all famously did in Dream Theater andyou can give me some background on this Jordan.
believe it was somewhat of a surprise for an audience.
did the whole of Dark Side of the Moon from start to finish and I believe you played partof any color you like standing on the, from behind the keyboard is like where the plugs
(39:07):
and things go into the back and you're still playing the silos and we're curious howyou're able to do that mentally.
Because if I look at the keyboard from that angle my F's become B's and I can't I couldn'tdo that so I was curious as to how
Well, let me just admit that I don't totally remember that, but I'd like to see it onvideo.
There probably is one.
But you know, if you're telling me I did that, then I did that.
(39:32):
OK, I'll go with that, guys.
um But you know what?
But I can speak to that kind of thing pretty well because, like, one of my hobbies overthe last few years has been seriously getting into the guitar, right?
And one of the things that I
do with it because it's kind of like enjoy the way it feels to my brain is like how can Iplay the guitar at the same time as the keyboard and maybe play in harmony and do things
(40:01):
like that.
So I like those kind of challenges where you kind of like shake it up where you approachsomething from a different angle and you have to kind of like just figure out the
mechanics of it and whatever has to click or you have to let go of some kind of hold inyour brain to make it work.
Like sometimes people will say when I'll do something along those lines, they'll say, whatdo you have like two brains or what is it not?
(40:24):
And I feel like, you know what, the only way I can do this is it's almost the opposite ofwhat I think people think.
It's not like I'm like almost like clenching up and just going super academic and doingthis thing.
It's almost like a like this letting go process that allows me to do weird stuff likethat.
It's, really different than what anybody.
(40:47):
can imagine to be able to, for people who try like playing the guitar and the keyboard atthe same time in harmony or whatever, they would kind of know what I mean.
At certain point you just go, you know what, this is not like, you figure out what youfigure out, but then you got to let go to be able to make it.
Yeah, thank you for sharing that with us.
I think it will give us permission to look at you and go, wow, this guy is pretty special.
(41:09):
Jordan, a similar sort of uh a question around yourself personally and the way you play.
Again, seeing your incredible dexterity, you have a lot of strength and a lot of power inyour fingers.
You can play quite quickly, but quite accurately.
And again, for example, for listeners or viewers who may not have seen this, Jordan can dothings like play Pink Floyd's On The Run.
(41:31):
which was done famously on a sequencer, well Jordan can play that free hand.
And I'm curious as to where that dexterity comes from.
Is it a practice routine?
Obviously you mentioned you had some really good strong classical training as a youngperson.
oh What enabled you to have that level of control over a keyboard?
That's a good question because there's the classical training, certainly, and there's someclassical pianists, I should say, that do stuff that at this point in my life, or maybe
(41:58):
ever, that would just be so hard.
But I can do other things that maybe they wouldn't be that apt to just sit down and do.
Things like, well, let me describe it this way.
So I have a really great classical training.
We established that.
I never became uh a concert pianist because I shifted gears.
(42:19):
If I had gone that route, I probably would have gotten better in some certain levels,certain kinds of things.
But what I did do is by going into the technology, the rock space, I discovered thingslike sequencers.
And I remember when I first started to work with the sequencers that
I was blown away by the kind of like accuracy you could get by putting in the notes andthen quantizing them and then speeding them up.
(42:46):
When I heard like an on the run kind of thing or just like the sound of a sequencerplaying really rapid notes, I was really like turned on by that.
was inspired.
And the way that I kind of absorb things like that is I don't let it kind of like bring medown.
I think, man, I could
I could do that.
(43:07):
Like I could do that with my hand.
And so when I started to play like the Minimoog and like all the kind of like TangerineDreamish kind of stuff, which is very, I used to call it almost like notey note music
because it was like, all these things that was kind of robotic, whatever.
But I realized I could play the repeating patterns with my fingers.
(43:32):
and keep that going and then modify it whenever I wanted to, much more control in a waythan a sequencer because I'm in real time, I'm deciding on the notes and playing them much
like a sequencer, looking for that kind of sound.
So it was kind of like my desire to play like a sequencer from a certain point of viewthat I think really helped my technique in a way that made it kind of an interesting,
(43:57):
maybe even slightly unique kind of uh a technique.
I remember running into uh
What's his name?
From Motley Crue, Tommy Lee, the drummer.
I at some kind of a music convention thing.
It wasn't NAMM, it was like a smaller thing.
And he came into the room and I was playing, I was doing something.
And he said, man, your fingers are like little machine guns.
(44:20):
I'm like, man, that's funny.
Kind of stayed with me because he saw there was some power there.
Because I really worked on, one of the things that I really work on is, you know, my,well.
two major things.
One is my finger independence, right?
So from a classical point of view, you're talking about things like the Phillips exercisesor something like that, where you're holding down all your fingers and you're lifting up
(44:45):
some without the others or like, you know, this, that kind of thing, where each finger iskind of like its own entity and they're all strong.
And then the other thing I would work on is just kind of like,
the power, just the power of the fingers.
Years ago, I developed all these kind of rhythm, I call them like rhythmic displacementexercises, where you might take like uh a series of four notes, like, but you might accent
(45:16):
them in like five, like in groupings of five.
So you keep the four notes.
So if you got, which you think would be in four, what happens if you go,
1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 2 3 4 5 1 and then it kind of gives each finger this special meaningbecause you're going to be accenting that finger as you go or to do it in seven which also
(45:39):
throws it off so every time you repeat the pattern of four notes in seven it's going toaccent the next note.
It's cool stuff.
Then I apply that to my guitar playing too which is really good because it coordinates mybrain and fingers in another way.
But all those kinds of things that like Matt, that's coming very much from a progressivemusician's mindset to think about.
(46:00):
I'm playing a four note sequence, but I'm putting it in seven or I'm putting it in five.
That I think I could only get to by being into the kind of music that I'm into and thenapplying it to my technique.
So I think that's how I got here.
Oh, thank you so much.
That's a really informative uh answer and uh some really cool ideas for people who mightwant to try improving their finger strength and their way of thinking about how each
(46:27):
finger works independently.
So thank you, Jordan.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.