Pat Metheny

Saw Pat Metheny (not PMG) Sunday night -- one of those inspiring musical
experiences that only happens every few years. In the encore, he played a
12-string fretless guitar -- just about every note was involved in a bend or
slide of some sort -- plenty of truly microtonal content -- yet totally
convincing from a musical point of view. And burnin'! This man is one of the
true geniuses walking the earth today, and it's nice that he's giving the
fretless a shot . . . hope to see more in the future!

At 05:34 PM 3/8/00 -0500, you wrote:
>From: "Paul H. Erlich" <PERLICH@ACADIAN-ASSET.COM>
>
>Saw Pat Metheny (not PMG) Sunday night -- one of those inspiring musical
>experiences that only happens every few years. In the encore, he played a
>12-string fretless guitar -- just about every note was involved in a bend or
>slide of some sort -- plenty of truly microtonal content -- yet totally
>convincing from a musical point of view. And burnin'! This man is one of the
>true geniuses walking the earth today, and it's nice that he's giving the
>fretless a shot . . . hope to see more in the future!

12-string fretless??? Last time I saw him, he was playing a 6-string
fretless classical. Quite a jump there, even for him.

I recall that he played microtuned Synclavier guitar on "Forward March",
the opening track of PMG's First Circle. At the time, he and co-composer
Lyle Mays stated they wanted the feel of a post-apocalyptic children's
marching band. I suspect he did it again, albeit with a wider palette of
Synclavier sounds, on "Finding And Believing" from Secret Story.

I've just acquired three of his latest CDs (Pat Metheny Trio, Pat Metheny
and Jim Hall, and A Map Of the World) and I believe all of them feature
fretless guitar on at least one track.

Paolo

>12-string fretless??? Last time I saw him, he was playing a 6-string
>fretless classical. Quite a jump there, even for him.

Well, a 12-string is just a 6-string with doubled courses.

>I've just acquired three of his latest CDs (Pat Metheny Trio, Pat Metheny
>and Jim Hall, and A Map Of the World) and I believe all of them feature
>fretless guitar on at least one track.

This concert was the same lineup as the album "Trio 99-00".