Pat Metheny Quotes

Its more about conception and touch and spirit and soul than whether my hardware was in place.

My first relationship to any kind of musical situation is as a listener.

Listening is the key to everything good in music.

One very fundamental thing has not changed and I realized that it will never change... is that I really need to go home and practice.

People sometimes say it takes a long time to become a Jazz fan, but for me it took about five seconds.

Most guys at Berklee are going to wind up truck drivers.

I have to admit that more and more lately, the whole idea of jazz as an idiom is one that I've completely rejected. I just don't see it as an idiomatic thing any more...To me, if jazz is anything, it's a process, and maybe a verb, but it's not a thing. It's a form that demands that you bring to it things athat are valuable to you, that are personal to you. That, for me, is a pretty serious distinction that doesn't have anything to do with blues, or swing, or any of these other things that tend to be listed as essentials in order for music to be jazz with a capital J.

More and more as time has gone on, I realize that playing is really more about listening than it is about playing.

Smokin' at the Half Note is the absolute greatest jazz-guitar album ever made. It is also the record that taught me how to play.

Learning to play is mostly about learning to hear, and learning to really listen deeply to sound in a musical way is a lifetime's worth of work.

Jazz is an idea that is more powerful than the details of its history.

It is Jazz's very nature to change, to develop & adapt to the circumstances of its environment.

Jazz demands that you bring to it things that are valuable to you, that are personal to you.

If you plan on continuing a tradition, it might be a good idea to find out just what tradition it is that you intend to continue.

Players get to that intermediate level where they can already play pretty good, and that's kind of a dangerous period because they tend to start playing only the things that they can play, rather than the things they can't.

The main thing in my life...is that I really need to go home and practice.

If jazz has to be termed as a wave, then music is a sea, but if the reflectors in the water is the chord.

I think I represent a more left-wing view of what jazz is

The best musicians are not the best players, they're the best listeners.

There's more bad music in jazz than any other form. Maybe that's because the audience doesn't really know what's happening.

The more I can learn about music, the more I learn about other things.

Im always trying to find connections between things. That art is the juxtaposition of a lot of things that seem unrelated but add up to something recognizable.

The first thing I learned was the theme from Peter Gunn.

I don't worry too much about the fundamentalist principles that are in almost any discussion about Jazz.

...to me if it's anything, jazz is a verb-it's more like a process than it is a thing.

I realized that equipment really had little to do with why I sound like the way I sound

Music is one big thing to me.

It's a shame that jazz is now being turned into dried fruit. It's becoming quantized, diced and defined. It's becoming an idiom. To me if it's anything, jazz is a verb ? it's more like a process than it is a thing.

Jazz is not something that can be defined through blunt instruments. It is much more poetic than that.

I think I have a basic sound aesthetic that is in most of what I do

The beauty of jazz is that it's malleable. People are addressing it to suit their own personalities.

My older brother Mike is an excellent trumpet player. By the time he was 12, he was playing around Kansas City in classical situations. He was already an amazing talent.

I was able to work with the best musicians in Kansas City starting when I was really young

I hate the way chorus boxes sound

There has to be a real strong reason to do something with someone for me.

1962 to 1965, where suddenly the guitar became this icon of youth culture all over the world, thanks mostly to the Beatles. Add to that, that I saw A Hard Day's Night 12 or 13 times, and that the guitar was the one instrument that my parents absolutely refused to let in the house. So you add it up and see that irresistible forces led me to the guitar.

From 1962 to 1965, the guitar became this icon of youth culture, thanks mostly to the Beatles

And if I ever DO see [Kenny G] anywhere, at any function - he WILL get a piece of my mind, and maybe a guitar wrapped around his head.

I just have never seen anyone build anything significant in any field without having a deep and detailed sense of what they are building on.

Jazz music will continue to thrive, possibly in unexpected ways.

I don't know if I would qualify as mainstream. I think I have managed to function pretty successfully on the fringes of the music world and have been able to play exactly what I have wanted the way I have wanted

Music is what you notice when it's no longer in your presence.

I think jazz is actually quite unforgiving in its disdain for nostalgia. It demands creativity and change at its highest level.

I love playing and working on music. It is something that I feel really lucky to be able to spend my life doing. And I don't sleep much!

To me, there are lots of different stories to tell and you usually find the best way to tell the one you are telling once you are in it.

Avant-garde, jazz, pop, classical, country and western, rock, free, straight-ahead, etc. are ultimately meaningless terms in the face of the music being discussed at best - at worst, those terms often serve as code words for what is in fact a cultural / political discussion more than a musical one.

What I look for in musicians is a sense of infinity

Sometimes I try to lose my identity, and I can't get rid of it!

I met Gary (Burton) at the Wichita Jazz Festival when I was 18 -- he was one of my favorite musicians and I got to play a few tunes with him there. Shortly after that, I joined his band, which was the equivalent of joining the Beatles for me! He was, and still is, one of the greatest musicians I have ever been lucky enough to be around.

I saw A Hard Day's Night 12 or 13 times.