"I put way more emphasis on a drummer's personality than technique." It's a surprising statement, coming from Mike Portnoy, one of the most admired drummers in heavy music for the past three decades.

Life is a series of crossings: from ignorance to knowing; fear to courage; love to heartbreak and from one time and place to the next. It's the bare emotions and the mind-sets inherent in such hazy ...

The double bass. Everyone knows the double bass—it goes "boom, boom, boom." Sometimes, to paraphrase Sophia Loren, it goes "boom, boody, boom." In the hands of a virtuoso it does so much more than ...