"Octavarium" (Dream Theater) Solo Lesson/Analysis
My personal favorite solo of all time, and in my opinion one of the most beautiful pieces of guitar music ever written, the majestic outro solo to Octavarium by Dream Theater is an absolute masterclass in phrasing, expression and composition. Also, luckily for us mere mortals, it's also extremely easy (minus for the very last fast run)!
This solo is perfect for those of you who are still in the process of developing your technique and want something substantial to dig your teeth into. Not only that, but it's also an excellent opportunity for those of you who are interested in composition to study something pretty non-typical for the genre. The choice of chords in this solo is extremely cinematic, making thorough use of chromatic mediants and borrowed chords.
Good luck and don't forget to share your progress with everyone in the Discord server!
0:00 Playthrough
1:34 Intro
4:36 The Mixolydian b6 scale
8:43 Chromatic mediants
12:30 Walking through the solo
Comments (6)
Thanks man!! My favourite of all time as well! Saw it for the first time during their 40th anniversary tour in 2025! 😍🤟🏻
Huge fan of this solo as well. Thanks for making this!
Damn this might be the only dream theatre solo I can learn, hopefully in the future I'll learn under a glass moon🙏
Haha, I feel like so many of Petrucci’s best solos can be summarized as “this is actually easy, other than one run at 10 million miles per hour.” This one, Another Day, The Spirit Carries On, Barstool Warrior, the “Silent Man” solo inside Erotomania, Whither…one could say he can’t help but make the solo harder than it needs to be, or…he just might know the right time to shred.
lmao you're not wrong!
Probably my favourite John Petrucci solo, thanks for the lesson Brad 🤘