15 thoughts on “This Jordan Rudess Synth Jam Will Melt Your Ears Off Of Your Head

  1. As much as i enjoyed the energy of the music, and as much as i admire JR's playing abilities ,,,, my ears have NOT "melted off of my head". Most of the time i enjoy melodies and synth lines that let me hear the notes and the silence between them. There's a lot of beauty to enjoy in slow playing with emphasis on rests and harmonic combinations. My 2c.

  2. You can criticize Rudess for relentlessly promoting himself or for his style of music, but you can't fault his chops. The guy can play his butt off.

    My ears officially melted about halfway through that.

    The king of prog keyboards is still Keith Emerson, though!

  3. Displays of pure skill are great, if you're a juggler. If you're a musician, it isn't enough. Your end results–your music and how it connects with people–is what matters. And that's quite a different thing from your level of playing skill.

    Can Rudess play? Of course. More importantly, can he play something that has meaning for you? That depends on who you are.

  4. What, no organ solo? He certainly had everything else in there! Still, I'm very impressed but I don't understand how he doesn't have massive carpal tunnel syndrome or something similar based on how his wrists rest nearly on the keyboard. Maybe what we've just seen is his daily warm up routine!

    I wish Mr. Rudess had the opportunity to do more of this kind of work with Dream Theater…

  5. YES, he can play!…FAST!!!!!!!!!!
    BUT…can he ever make a song like VANGELIS or an album like MIKE OLDFIELD!
    after 2m of music i just lost interest.
    Remember nirvana's " come as you are" intro, now imagine that played by an orchestra:
    Genious, and those guys played very bad, i am pretty sure that they only new half dozen chords.
    well….some guys can play fast, others make music that lasts 100 years!
    Peace

  6. Chopin, Debussy, and especially Franz Liszt played fast too, but their music (that's played fast) lasted more than 100 years. I don't think playing fast and music lasting over 100 years are antagonistic to one another.

    Playing fast appropriately with phrasing, articulation, and a good sense of a theme qualifies as something musical. In the case of this video, there's that hint of musicality going on, especially when you're trying to describe the Egyptian Sun God in a shreddy prog way.

  7. More notes. I think he definitely needs to play a few more notes.

    All kidding aside… yeah, the guy's got chops like no other, but after a while it all just sounds the same – kind of a wash. And Triton presets? Really? Those are some pretty bland factory-like sounds.

  8. Watched it again. Definitely looks like a MusicReader displaying notation. And my previous comment regarding passion….well I could never sling together a performance this good so take that bit of criticism with a grain of salt.

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