Top 90 Quotes & Sayings by Pat Metheny

I'm 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.

It's more about conception and touch and spirit and soul than whether my hardware was in place.

The reality of music itself, which is the fabric of life for me, is where most of my attention is.

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

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

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

I can't really say enough about Chris Potter. He is one of the greatest musicians I have ever known, and every second I have been on the band stand with him has been an absolute pleasure.

I was deep in the zone of practicing almost constantly.

One of the things jazz has always excelled at is translating the reality of the times through its musical prism.

If you come to my house, you won't see a wall of trophies or things like that. I'm sort of 'on to the next thing' all the time.

For me, let's keep jazz as folk music. Let's not make jazz classical music. Let's keep it as street music, as people's everyday-life music. Let's see jazz musicians continue to use the materials, the tools, the spirit of the actual time that they're living in, as what they build their lives as musicians around.

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

The pianist Cecil Taylor is extremely melodic; the guitarist Derek Bailey is extremely melodic, and Ornette Coleman.

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

I didn't want there to be a computer on stage. When I see people with computers on stage, I think, 'Are you sending e-mail?' That's so corny.

I'm always inspired when there's a robustness to the material in front of me.

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

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

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

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

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

When talking about writing, I often use the analogy of archaeology. There are these great tunes all around. Your skill as a musician allows you to pick them out without breaking them.

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

A lot of jazz artists think people should like what they're doing just because it's jazz. I don't buy that.

I would always contend that talent is an element, but over the long run, ultimately, a minor part of it all; it is mostly hard work.

I have three young kids and a great family. I love hanging out with them more than anything.

No two notes are ever the same volume. With the guitar, you really have to model in your mind this wider thing; you're trying to create the illusion of a bigger dynamic range.

The guitar for me is a translation device. It's not a goal. And in some ways, jazz isn't a destination for me. For me, jazz is a vehicle that takes you to the true destination - a musical one that describes all kinds of stuff about the human condition and the way music works.

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.

What I look for in musicians is a sense of infinity.

If we are going to list guitar influences, the biggest one by far is Wes Montgomery. Also, Gary Burton was obviously huge for me in a number of ways. But beyond that, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis and Freddie Hubbard.

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!

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.

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

I hate the way chorus boxes sound.

There are musicians who go through their lives sort of shedding their skins. For me, I've always felt backward-compatible to Version 1.0.

I'm triggering acoustic instruments. I'm literally beating, smacking, hitting, blowing, doing physical things. It's an incredibly exciting way to make music.

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

Someone who knew me when I was 14 said I was the oldest 14-year-old on the planet. Now I'm a 14-year-old who is 60.

Listening is the key to everything good in music.

I used to love going and playing jam sessions, doing things spontaneously. I can't do that anymore. Everything you do is documented, nothing is casual anymore.

There are some musicians who are talented and see themselves as some kind of natural geniuses or something because of a certain amount of natural ability. But that is often rarely the case over the long term.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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