Jordan Rudess: Musician Puts His PowerBook to Work

(updated 4 June 2000)

Jordan Rudess is a PowerBook guy. As a musician, he depends on computer technology to help him record and perform, “I use a PowerBook G3 for running a music sequencer package called Digital Performer, which I’ve been using for years to create my music.”

Jordan has another very unique use for his beloved PowerBook. He uses it to create real-time visual video effects during his live performances. The images are displayed on several giant screens that are strategically placed around the stage. Before we get too far along, we should give you some background on the man.

Practice Makes Perfect

It’s not hard to believe that a classically trained pianist would end up writing and recording his own music. Nor is it a reach to imagine that 5 hours of piano practice a day would transform a ten-year-old kid into a musical work-a-holic, whose live performances send audiences home dizzy with delight.

That’s exactly the guy Rudess has become. But that only happened because of a special introduction in his life. The decade-long course that Jordan was plotting at New York’s famed Julliard School for the Performing Arts took a distinct turn the day a friend introduced him to a piano that “plugged in.”

“I’m just so thankful that one of my friends brought over a synthesizer to my house.” he admits, “I thought I was going to be a classical pianist.”

Jordan began to fall in love with “electric” music--cutting his teeth on the progressive rock bands of the 1970s--and he began playing it too. His classical training served him very well, giving him a foundation with which to succeed as a rock musician.

A little more than a year ago, Jordan’s longtime friendship with the band Dream Theater progressed into something much bigger when he was asked to replace exiting keyboardist Derek Sherinian. Jordan became an official member of Dream Theater in January of 1999. He’s currently on tour with the band in support of Scenes from a Memory, his first record with the group.

We caught up with Jordan when the band played the Electric Factory in Philadelphia. He was eager to “talk shop” with us about his PowerBook, its role in his stage show, and how computers and the Internet are changing the music industry.

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G2M: How did you introduce the idea of using your PowerBook for visual effects to the rest of the band?

JR: I’ve always thought that it would be great idea for the synthesizer companies to integrate some kind of graphic control into their keyboard.

Many years ago, I worked for a company called Enhanced Technologies, and they put out a product called Virtuoso. It was so esoteric but it was incredibly cool because it integrated the whole idea of visuals in music---as far as you could go with the 8-bit computers of the time. It was kind of the predecessor to some of the music sequencing programs, where it would graph lines and distort [images.] It had full color and you could compress the image to get these really cool looking pictures.

I’ve always been one to say c’mon, you know, why don’t we put something in [the keyboard] so that when I’m creating this sound, I’m also creating some kind of visual thing with a visual output on the keyboard.

Well, as it turns out, the companies that make the keyboards are hesitant to do that because it involves a whole other level of development and expense, so it’s not something that we’ve been able to make happen.

Thanks to computers, there’s all these guys who’ve been playing around with different kinds of graphics and being able to control them with midi, so I’ve been kind of keeping an eye on what people have been doing.

Then this fellow named Richard Lainhart moved in next door to me and he’s a major Mac guy and musical guru and it was just incredible that he moved next door because he sent me a release about Videodelic by U&I; Software.

So I went and looked at their software demo and I immediately knew that this had to happen. What was really amazing is that we were a week and a half from going out on the tour, and on the same day I hired a new keyboard assistant named Bert Baldwin. I immediately brought him into this whole world, and he helped me get the thing up and running. We got it [going] and it’s been kind of a work in progress, because, of course, with the PowerBook I can sit on the computer on my bed in the hotel room and I’m doing stuff, and Bert has a little work space at the back of the stage and he can work in Photoshop and move the graphics into Videodelic and tweak the images.

G2M: How does Videodelic work?

You can use any image file, you can use Quicktime movies, you can even use live images. The Videodelic process involves combining two or more sources, then you assign some kind of algorithmic effect to modulate one against another or spin one while the other one is changing color. It’s very “trippy” stuff.

You can also use Videodelic to put together a slide show, then save it out as a Quicktime movie, and then use that to modulate something else. It’s almost like multitrack recording.

G2M: So you assign different media clips to different keys on your keyboard?

It’s not so much assigning pictures to certain keys, but we assign different Videodelic preset changes to different keyboard midi controllers.

Bert and I aren’t video people at all and here we are running a [multiple projection screen] setup and [triggering] it all from my keyboard!

G2M: Tell me more about your Mac background.

I’ve always used a Mac, but I just got my first PowerBook about seven weeks ago. I had all this in mind so I needed one. I’ve been using a PowerMac G3 at home. Bert is new to the Mac and probably knows it as well as I do at this point.

G2M: So you got your PowerBook right before Apple released the new FireWire version!

JR: Yes, and since the group is using my PowerBook for the show, I’d like to get a new one for myself. Right now I’m using it for my e-mail and communications and then I bring it to the show.

G2M: Tell me about how the visual portion of the show is evolving.

JR: It’s been coming together anywhere and everywhere--on the bus, back stage. Sometimes we’ll be back stage while the opening band is playing and we’ll get an idea and make changes.

The visual show has really intensified the Dream Theater experience. People are used to multi-media these days. They almost expect it.

We’re going to start to incorporate live images. I want to have five cameras mounted on the lighting truss and have them fixed on sweet spots for all the guys in the band. Then I could control a video mixer with keyboard midi commands so that it can change cameras and trigger Videodelic.

G2M: I’d like to change gears for a minute and get your opinion on the direction that music marketing is going. Do you see the traditional way that people buy records falling by the wayside? I mean, with MP3s and the internet and all, I’m curious what a musician thinks about all that.

I’m not really sure what’s going to happen. There are so many companies emerging who are doing this MP3 thing, that I guess it will be apparent in a short time. Personally, I think it’s very confusing for a musician--as a player and somebody who wants to sell their music.

I feel lucky to be in a situation where I’m in a band that has a good mechanism for getting their music out and they don’t have to think about it so much. If I were a player that desperately needed to think about that, I’d be very confused. At least once a week I get a letter from somebody saying, “Hey, Jordan, I’ve got this great place for you to put your music.” It all sounds good and I’ve almost purposely been avoiding it because it’s so confusing.

I think a lot of people are excited about it because it’s giving them the opportunity to get their music out, so that’s great. I have a lot of friends in the business who have all sorts of different angles on how to grab an audience with the Internet and they’ve collected all kinds of information to see what kinds of things people are listening to. So obviously there’s something there that’s very powerful, but I think at this point it’s a little overwhelming.

It forces us to think, “Gee, are we getting our music out to as many people as we could, and are we making as much money as we could?” It forces you to think that maybe we should discontinue [traditional] methods and get into one of these new ways to [distribute our music.] We’re all talking about it a lot.

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Dream Theater fans will tell you that these five guys may be the finest collection of musicians ever assembled in one band. They can really play--all of them. Jordan’s performance is spirited and inspiring. The visual effects add a wonderful accent to an already great show.