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Synthesizer Sheet Music Pic

Synthesizer Sheet Music Photo

Synthesizer Sheet Music Pic

Synthesizer Sheet Music Image

Most helpful customer reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Amazing book, but misled by amazon yet again
By RadicalDreamer
As an owner of Dream Theater’s first keyboard anthology, this book had a high reputation to live up to. As far as the book itself goes, Jordan seems to have gone above and beyond for us. Contained within this tome are some of the songs I was disappointed not to see in the first book (longtime fans will likely squeal with delight when they see “Space Dye Vest” is finally transcribed here!), and each song is preceded by an exercise concocted by Jordan himself, focusing on a particular technique used in the song in question. I have only skimmed these so far, but they look like they will help greatly in mastering these signature dream theater keyboard styles. Couple this with what so far look to be spot-on arrangements, and no sections with only snippets of songs (as they did with the “six degrees” tracks on the first book), this book can be highly recommended to anyone looking to master a challenging piano piece.

So, why four stars? The first issue is totally personal preference, so don’t let it deter you: I’m not personally a fan of “The Ministry of Lost Souls” (to explain quickly: while both the softer parts and the proggy bridge are individually nice to listen to, I feel that the bridge unnecessarily breaks up what was otherwise a fun ballad, while the bridge could have easily found a home in a more proggy song), and think that its position in the book could have been taken by a much more awesome DT song (I’d really like a tab for “Strange Deja Vu”, “Trial of Tears”, or ideally “Hell’s Kitchen”). This is completely personal preference, as I said, and I know many people do enjoy Ministry. No biggie.

The second problem is also not with the book itself, but with Amazon. Like their mixup in the description for DT’s “Full Score Anthology”, they have once again gotten the track list wrong for this book. To my extreme disappointment, “Lines in the Sand” is not actually in this book at all. This is one of my absolute favorite songs, with one of my absolute favorite keyboard parts (along with the HK intro), it is one of the main reasons I snatched this book up the minute I found it online, and I was very sad to see it not included in the book. I can only hope that another keyboard book will be put out (I’ll keep buying them!) that will tackle this amazing song, and hopefully the other songs I suggested earlier will be included as well.

So that’s it! If you love Dream Theater, love piano, and aren’t afraid to work very hard to perfect these songs, you can’t go wrong with this purchase. Keep buying them so Jordan keeps publishing new ones, please!

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