John Myung
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John Ro Myung is the bassist and a founding member of the progressive metal group Dream Theater.
Born on January 24, 1967, he played the violin from the age of five until he was asked to play electric bass in a local band when he was fifteen. He stuck with bass from then on, and after graduating from high school he enrolled at the Berklee College of Music, where he met future band mates John Petrucci (guitar) and Mike Portnoy (drums). The three of them formed the band Majesty with keyboardist Kevin Moore and vocalist Chris Collins, which would later become Dream Theater.
Though Dream Theater is his primary focus musically, he has appeared in a number of other projects through his career. His first non-Dream Theater venture was in the pop-prog band Platypus with Rod Morgenstein, Ty Tabor and ex-Dream Theater bandmate Derek Sherinian. He is also a member of Jelly Jam, which consists of the same line-up as Platypus, but without Sherinian. His soft-spoken nature has added a bit of a mystique to his character.
Apart from his membership in these bands, he has appeared as a guest on numerous records (see Discography below).
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Equipment
For Dream Theater's debut album When Dream and Day Unite, John played a Stingray 4-string bass. John Myung used various basses for the recording of Images and Words, including a 4-string Spector bass, but for the tour he switched out his 4-string basses for a 6-string bass. He originally played basses manufactured by the Tobias company. He switched to instruments made by a very small manufacturer, Tung, for the Awake album. Afterwards, John began endorsing Yamaha instruments. They remain his primary bass manufacturer. He currently has two signature models with Yamaha.
John also utilizes the Chapman Stick, a strange half-guitar-half-bass that has not been mastered by many musicians (one of them is session veteran and current King Crimson bassist Tony Levin, also a member of Liquid Tension Experiment.)
Technique
John is known as an extremely dedicated musician, tirelessly practicing whenever he has spare time. For this reason, he has become one of the more technically proficient bass guitarists in modern music. He plays with 3 fingers on his picking hand, and although he rarely plays slap bass he is quite well known for his tapping ability.
Discography
- Dream Theater - When Dream and Day Unite (1989)
- Dream Theater - Images and Words (1992)
- Dream Theater - Live At The Marquee (1993)
- Dream Theater - Awake (1994)
- Dream Theater - A Change of Seasons (1995)
- Dream Theater - Falling Into Infinity (1997)
- Dream Theater - Once In A LIVEtime (1998)
- Platypus - When Pus Comes To Shove (1999)
- Dream Theater - Metropolis, Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory (1999)
- Platypus - Ice Cycles (2000)
- Gordian Knot - Gordian Knot (2000)
- Dream Theater - Live Scenes From New York (2001)
- The Jelly Jam - The Jelly Jam (2002)
- Explorer's Club - Raising The Mammoth (2002)
- Dream Theater - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (2002)
- Dream Theater - Train Of Thought (2003)
- The Jelly Jam - 2 (2004)
- Dream Theater - Live At Budokan (2004)
- Dream Theater - Octavarium (2005)
Videography
- Dream Theater - Images And Words: Live In Tokyo (1993)
- Dream Theater - 5 Years In A LIVEtime (1998)
- John Myung - Progressive Bass Concepts (1996)
- Dream Theater - Metropolis 2000: Scenes From New York (2001)
- Dream Theater - Live At Budokan (2004)
External links
- Official site (http://www.johnmyung.com)
- Dream Theater site (http://www.dreamtheater.net)