DREAM THEATER Drummer MIKE MANGINI's Three-Layer Polyrhythm Drum Practice Pattern (Video)

Drummer Mike Mangini of progressive metal giants DREAM THEATER has uploaded a four-minute video clip of a three-layer polyrhythm drum practice pattern.

He writes: "This non-groove, totally robotic drumming oriented drum video filmed on an e-Pro and Gen16 electronic kit. You can only hear the pads.

"The clip is made to support the Facebook posting about what I was practicing with regard to the body wiring type of drumming I do as part of my whole growth path and to be able to focus my mind and play with more swing with simple drumming patterns while not having to count three things."

He continues: "Executing two long patterns at once is 12 zillion times harder than doing something like 7 and 5 at the same time. I am doing 19 and 17 AND putting them in mental base times other than those two.

"The purpose of this is to make less difficult playing allow me to use my brain for creativity rather than using it to keep track of three things plus all the limb coordination challenges. It also helps play just a single pattern with much more feel and control as opposed to the robotic feel of these types of patterns. I get the whole drumming spectrum from suffering through practices that teach this stuff."

Asked if there was anything he wished DREAM THEATER had done differently in the way they went about finding a replacement for original DREAM THEATER drummer Mike Portnoy in 2010, DREAM THEATER guitarist John Petrucci told "The Classic Metal Show": "There's not many situations in life where you can say you wouldn't have done anything differently, but this is one of 'em. I think, looking back, I wouldn't have done anything differently."

He continued: "Mike Mangini really helped us to get through a major bandmember change, and in a way, that was probably as smooth as any bandmember change could have gone. The way that he came in, his personality, his skills as a drummer, his background, his history… it clicked to the point where it was, like, if we would have met Mike [Mangini] twenty years ago, we would have been playing with this guy. If I would have grown up with him, I would have been friends with him jamming. And that's rare. It's rare to do that one time around."

Petrucci added: "You know so many musicians in bands that are having trouble finding people to play with, and who click, and so the fact that this happened with Mike [Mangini], it's really just amazing to us. And since he's been in the band, we've done two albums, two world tours and, thankfully, have had a lot of success with it, and a lot of support from our fans through all of it. And, again, I wouldn't have done anything differently. It's really amazing."

DREAM THEATER's latest, self-titled album sold around 34,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 7 on The Billboard 200 chart. The CD arrived in stores on September 24, 2013 via Roadrunner.