Pat Metheny quotes

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

#Music #Firsts #Kind

Listening is the key to everything good in music.
-- Pat Metheny

#Music #Keys #Listening

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

#Music #People #Long

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.
-- Pat Metheny

#Ideas #Might #Jazz

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

#Sea #Water #Jazz

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

#Firsts #Theme #Peter

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

#Music #Worry #Too Much

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

#Music #Jazz #Poetic

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

#Wind #Guy #Jazz

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.
-- Pat Metheny

#Swings #Order #Ideas

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

#Icons #Guitar #Culture

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

#Creativity #Thinking #Levels

Somehow trumpet is the reference point for me it was actually my first instrument,
-- Pat Metheny

#Firsts #Instruments #Trumpets

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.
-- Pat Metheny

#Art #Trying #Add

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

#Life Changing #Unity #Band

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

#Soul #Spirit #Hardware

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

#Hard Times #Night #Saws

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

#Cities #Kansas City #Able

I hate the way chorus boxes sound
-- Pat Metheny

#Hate #Way #Sound

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

#Littles #Way #Sound

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

#Thinking #Sound #Aesthetic

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

#Music #Demand #Jazz

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
-- Pat Metheny

#Thinking #Play #Able

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

#Music #People #Personality

I was deep in the zone of practicing almost constantly
-- Pat Metheny

#Zone

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

#Music #Way #Jazz

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

#Music #Powerful #Ideas

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

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

#Reflection #Music Love #Output

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

#Music #Jazz #Environment

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.
-- Pat Metheny

#Brother #Player #Cities

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

#Player #Musician

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.
-- Pat Metheny

#Guitar #Play #Records

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

#Listening #Gone #Realizing

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

#Jazz #Music Is #Your Presence

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.
-- Pat Metheny

#Guitar #Mind #Pieces

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

#Thinking #Wings #Views

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.
-- Pat Metheny

#Fruit #Becoming #Verbs

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.
-- Pat Metheny

#Fields #Musician #Building

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

#Musical #Verbs #Jazz

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

#Jazz #Form #Audience