Recent from talks
John Myung
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
John Myung
John Ro Myung (/ˈmaɪ.əŋ/ MY-əng; born January 24, 1967) is an American bassist and a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater.
Born in Chicago to South Korean parents, Myung grew up with John Petrucci on Long Island. He took violin lessons from the age of five and started playing bass guitar at fifteen. After graduating from high school, he and Petrucci enrolled at the Berklee College of Music, where they met Mike Portnoy. The trio became the nucleus of Dream Theater, which became Myung's primary professional focus.
Myung mainly uses a two or three finger picking style in his playing. He sometimes uses slapping and popping on some songs, such as "The Dark Eternal Night", and also uses tapping and harmonics in his bass playing. Myung's use of harmonics is frequently accompanied by a chorus effect, as in the opening of "Lifting Shadows off a Dream". The songs "These Walls" and "The Dark Eternal Night" feature Myung using a pick. Myung uses both tapping and fingerstyle to play the Chapman Stick.
Myung's favorite bands include the Beatles, Black Sabbath, the Who, Iron Maiden, Rush, Yes, Jethro Tull and Genesis. He cites bassists Geezer Butler, John Entwistle, Chris Squire, Steve Harris, Geddy Lee and Jaco Pastorius as main influences on his playing style.
Myung is known for his rigorous practicing schedule; producer Kevin Shirley and keyboardist Derek Sherinian have said that Myung is the only musician they know who "warms down" after a show. Petrucci has said that when he and Myung were in high school, they had an agreement to practice at least six hours every day.
Dream Theater's group writing process makes it difficult to identify which member of the band authored a particular song or song section, but on DVD commentaries, the band members have sometimes identified certain parts as "a John Myung riff," such as parts of "Fatal Tragedy" and the introduction to "The Glass Prison". Myung wrote the lyrics to one song per album from Images and Words to Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory, but thereafter did not contribute any lyrics until A Dramatic Turn of Events and since contributing lyrics to every subsequent album barring The Astonishing and Parasomnia. Portnoy has claimed that this was because Myung's lyrics usually needed some work by the rest of the band to fit the song. As a result, the band eventually imposed an unwritten lyric rule that required lyrics to be "properly formed, phrased, constructed, etc. to go with the melodies," and, "since then, John has kind of backed off."
For When Dream and Day Unite, Dream Theater's debut, Myung played a modified Music Man StingRay four-string bass and a Fender Jazz Bass. The StingRay (his main live instrument in that period) was customized with an added front pickup driving a clean bass amp, while the bridge pickup signal was sent to his effects chain. A four-string Spector NS-2 was used for tracking 1992's Images and Words.
Myung switched to six-string basses for Dream Theater's subsequent tours, using several high-end Tobias "Basic" models. These can be seen in videos from Images and Words and heard on Live at the Marquee. He has primarily used six-string basses ever since.
Hub AI
John Myung AI simulator
(@John Myung_simulator)
John Myung
John Ro Myung (/ˈmaɪ.əŋ/ MY-əng; born January 24, 1967) is an American bassist and a founding member of the progressive metal band Dream Theater.
Born in Chicago to South Korean parents, Myung grew up with John Petrucci on Long Island. He took violin lessons from the age of five and started playing bass guitar at fifteen. After graduating from high school, he and Petrucci enrolled at the Berklee College of Music, where they met Mike Portnoy. The trio became the nucleus of Dream Theater, which became Myung's primary professional focus.
Myung mainly uses a two or three finger picking style in his playing. He sometimes uses slapping and popping on some songs, such as "The Dark Eternal Night", and also uses tapping and harmonics in his bass playing. Myung's use of harmonics is frequently accompanied by a chorus effect, as in the opening of "Lifting Shadows off a Dream". The songs "These Walls" and "The Dark Eternal Night" feature Myung using a pick. Myung uses both tapping and fingerstyle to play the Chapman Stick.
Myung's favorite bands include the Beatles, Black Sabbath, the Who, Iron Maiden, Rush, Yes, Jethro Tull and Genesis. He cites bassists Geezer Butler, John Entwistle, Chris Squire, Steve Harris, Geddy Lee and Jaco Pastorius as main influences on his playing style.
Myung is known for his rigorous practicing schedule; producer Kevin Shirley and keyboardist Derek Sherinian have said that Myung is the only musician they know who "warms down" after a show. Petrucci has said that when he and Myung were in high school, they had an agreement to practice at least six hours every day.
Dream Theater's group writing process makes it difficult to identify which member of the band authored a particular song or song section, but on DVD commentaries, the band members have sometimes identified certain parts as "a John Myung riff," such as parts of "Fatal Tragedy" and the introduction to "The Glass Prison". Myung wrote the lyrics to one song per album from Images and Words to Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory, but thereafter did not contribute any lyrics until A Dramatic Turn of Events and since contributing lyrics to every subsequent album barring The Astonishing and Parasomnia. Portnoy has claimed that this was because Myung's lyrics usually needed some work by the rest of the band to fit the song. As a result, the band eventually imposed an unwritten lyric rule that required lyrics to be "properly formed, phrased, constructed, etc. to go with the melodies," and, "since then, John has kind of backed off."
For When Dream and Day Unite, Dream Theater's debut, Myung played a modified Music Man StingRay four-string bass and a Fender Jazz Bass. The StingRay (his main live instrument in that period) was customized with an added front pickup driving a clean bass amp, while the bridge pickup signal was sent to his effects chain. A four-string Spector NS-2 was used for tracking 1992's Images and Words.
Myung switched to six-string basses for Dream Theater's subsequent tours, using several high-end Tobias "Basic" models. These can be seen in videos from Images and Words and heard on Live at the Marquee. He has primarily used six-string basses ever since.
Recent media