Pat Metheny Quotes

The value of music is to be able to play one note at the right time in the right way.

These days I can really get the strings to snap if I want.

There is a world of difference between a Mahler eighth note and a normal eighth note.

Can't you read? The score demands 'con amore', and what are you doing? You are playing it like married men!

If I'm playing a violin thing, for instance, I tend to respond to that sound with the way I finger.

If the orchestra's not enjoying itself, the concerto will not succeed, with the players confined to using half an inch of bow.

I play in tune like a cello player and use legitimate vibrato. There are no tricks; it's just all in the hands!

Gonna wind it up on my guitar. Gonna make that silver sing.

It's been a thrilling journey - I have had to really learn that an orchestra is an entity - it's a creature. I have been calling it the dragon and the conductor is the dragon tamer. And you just have to... ride and don't let go and you will be fine.

All music has to speak in some form or other.

I try not to punish the audience by making them listen to too much acoustic guitar.

No one should be allowed to make music as if he were made of wood. One must reproduce the musical text exactly, but not play like a stone.

I wanted to develop a guitar style where phrases and lines get there just in the nick of time, like with Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper. Subtleties mean so much, and there is a stunning beauty in them.

There's some pictures of me playing hollow bodies, but I never last long. I always come back to the acoustic.

There's nothing more frustrating than seeing a conductor say, 'Play softer,' as they're waving their hands in huge gestures.

A good interpreter can take a piece of bad music and make it sound pretty decent, while a bad interpreter can take good music and make it sound cheap. I can tell that some people have a bad taste, and unlike on the piano, they smear around a lot, that is bad taste.

When you play the 12-string guitar, you spend half your life tuning the instrument and the other half playing it out of tune.

The soprano turned out to sound to me like the right hand on the piano.

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes ah, that is where the art resides.

The only sliding I did was on the kind of instrument that you put on your lap; no Spanish electrics.

But a large symphony orchestra basically is a repertory company and it has a very enormous repertoire and it is important for the performers to be able to know how to shift focus so that they instantly become part of the sound world that a particular repertoire demands.

The cello is such a versatile instrument. It can rock like the hardest rock guitar, and it can sing like the human voice. We couldn't do what we do without the classical training. It's a hard instrument to play. There are no frets, and it takes finesse and technique to play.

Since I first picked up the violin, I've been very interested in tone and texture: I would have very visceral reactions to the texture of a snare drum or a pedal steel guitar or a violin.

I've always thought that the act of playing the guitar was the act of trying to make a point of playing the guitar.

Control of vibrato helps your musical expression.