So, yesterday in class we had one presentation on Dream Theater. Specifically their 24 minute long virtuostic eclectic rock masterpiece Octavarium. I myself have never been a big dream theater fan, I can respect their musical chops, but in the long run it isn’t the easy listening music I prefer on the car ride home. As the presentation went along I discovered the ridiculous amount of symbolism and intricacies that go into the song Octavarium. It is composed of 5 movements, with the 4th movement including sections from the other 8 songs on that album. Each of the movements have sections specifically written by different members of the band, then brought together. The over arching theme of “everything ends where it began” makes sense within the music and the album’s artwork of a Newton’s Cradle resonates that not just the music in this album is planned exactly from start to finish, but also lyrically and symbolically. This kind of style of having a song with several sections or movements is not an unfamiliar concept to music, but stepping into the realm of progressive rock/metal definitely kicks it up a notch. I can recall on Green Day’s American Idiot album, two of the songs, Jesus of Suburbia and Homecoming, have 5 movements within them that help tell the all encompassing story. Now, Obviously Dream Theater has a bit more substantial skill level than that of a Green Day song, but they have the similar theme of a story being told through the whole album, then having a sort of “wrap up” song to bring everything together. Overall, I thought the presentation did a good job of explaining how these styles worked together and brought back some thoughts of how we today think of classical music. Granted, Dream Theater may be a bit more exciting to listen to versus Tchaikovsky or Bach, but the symphonies those composers made had a similar structure. They have a song that was split into movements, those separate movements are used to tell a story. After several different movements, part of the story resurfaces in the forms of reprisals that are instinctive and indicative to a major theme. Not trying to say that Dream Theater and Green Day stole this idea from classical music, but these songs are from the 17th and 18th century, so maybe they just took some suggestions from the ideas of the past composers. With mainstream popular music having a more simplified aspect o appeal to a more general audience, it is good to know that bands, like Dream Theater, are still out there making a difference to bring together complex and virtuostic music.