I would imagine that finding a connection between Heart of the Sunrise and that part of Octavarium, is not going to be enough for you. I think the connection might be a little bit esoteric to say the least.

 

I would not say that John Myung is inspired by Chris Squire at all ... I would think that John's playing has a lot more similarities to a Stanley Clarke or even Jaco Pastorius and some of the other fusion players out there. If there is a difference I would think it might be that things are a scale under the one that you hear Chris at ... and unfortunatelly for John, it is buried in the mix and not as visible as Chris' was. And a mix that ensures that Dream Theater is not as strong musically as YES was ... or at least YES appeared to have a better sense of direction that helped define the music, whereas Dream Theater is stuck in a more conventional mode of operation.

 

More importantly, and this is found in one of Bass Player's issues, Chris' biggest impact was not just his playing. It was that he got the two pickups in his bass wired separately and then had different effects and things going through each one and it gave the impression of a "stereo" bass, which was a bit unusual and quite different then. The fact that he also had the fluidity to move around on the frets and scales was another story, and I think that it was more about his ability to freelance than John's ... I personally think that the music that Dream Theater does (these days) is too limiting for John to express himself, and be visible, although his recent bass instrument changes appear to help him sound stronger within a hard rock music context than previously. It almost seemed like the Yamaha basses were not designed for hard rock -- so to speak -- but the Music Man ones can rock it out better. The tones are different and make the music sound lower and harder.

 

I would be more likely to say that the guitarist learned more from Steve Howe than John Myung learned from Chris Squire. In fact, the only difference is that Steve probably was more concerned with the compositional side of the piece around his bits of expression and he tailored them to the piece, whereas it appears that DT does not ... it's almost a solo guitar and drums and forget the rest of the music that appears to be secondary to the solos at hand. I do think that Mike's likely inspirations more than likely would be Allan Holdsworth or John McLaughlin ...  whom he resembles the most!

 

Drumming wise I think it could be an interesting comparison between Alan White and Mike ... massive outfits and mostly not used would be the primary connection, but in the end both of them are very good rock drummers, albeit for my tastes way too conventional. Alan, however, has a much better feel for softness than Mike, who lacks the ability to have "touch" when the music needs to be soft. Dream Theater is not capable of being hard and soft at the same time because they are stuck in a mold that dictates they can not do it without the loudness from a cheap rock venue with bad speakers!

 

These things are hard ... and some folks here will probably state some differences and variations that can be quite ... strange, mine included. 

 

One album, though, the one live with an orchestra by DT, will more than anything tell you about their musicianship and abilities ... you have to be a graduate in rock music and quite advanced to do something like that and not get blown out of town as a total idiot and/or a pompous ass ... and for all intents and purposes I thought that they brought out the virtuosity on top of an orchestra that helped clear up and define the music better. Just a shame they won't play their older  material some of which might be less hard, but is better musically in the sense that it does not all sound the same like it does now.

 

This is the best I can help with ... this is hard.

 

KC being compared to others ... not a good idea. You can not peg down KC as it was a very well rehearsed experimental band that liked to do different things simply because they were different and they were not afraid to make that difference even better ... which is something that 9 out of 10 bands out there don't have the courage to do, and instead will repeat a sound and style forever!

 

A study of the processes used to come up with the music would make more sense ... and would also make many of these rock bands sound like kids playing with sticks and strings!