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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Music is one big thing to me.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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 hate the way chorus boxes sound

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

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

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

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.

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

As much as I have done collaborations over the years, I am actually kind of a reluctant partner.

I was deep in the zone of practicing almost constantly

I think that the melodic piece of the puzzle in music is the most esoteric and difficult to quantify.

Whatever my recorded output is, it's a reflection of a general love of music.

I try to be prepared for the moment, through understanding, and being warmed up, knowing all about chords and scales, so I don't even have to think and I can get right to what it is I want to say.

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

What I look for in musicians is a sense of infinity

The Unity Band project has been life-changing for me. I have led many groups of talented musicians, but this is unlike anything else.

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

Somehow trumpet is the reference point for me it was actually my first instrument.