When One Guitarist Runs into Four

Pat Metheny speaks with David Srebnik about his new work, Road to the Sun

David Srebnik: The actual “Road to the Sun” in Glacier National Park is a magnificent and picturesque journey at every turn, to say the least. While it’s often a myth that music is composed after a walk in nature, was there something you saw and experienced on that journey that inspired the melodies or harmonies? Pat Metheny: Honestly, titles are the hardest part for me — not just with this piece, but for everything. This title somehow seemed to sum up the “journey” aspect of what the piece suggests — and that is an ongoing theme for me, probably because I have spent the better part of my adult

life traveling on the road. The reference to the park in Montana isn’t really specific for me — it was more that I heard those guys up there (at a guitar event that we were both involved in) and it made a connection. But I think the title Road to the Sun references something much more than any specific place or time. So much of what the piece represents to me is the idea of searching for the light in things, music in particular, and the journey that one has to make to get there. This piece is a pretty deep look into that search and that title seems to have a kind of resonance with it. DS: What did it mean to the composition process to write for the LAGQ — an ensemble you’ve called the “best band in the world?” What options did their massive chops open up for you? PM: They truly are an incredible ensemble. I have been a big fan of theirs for many years and I am so happy to finally have gotten to do this with them. Really just listening to them gave me so much information about how to approach writing for them. I wanted to give them stuff that maybe was a bit different for them and also to challenge them as players, and yet it isn’t really a piece where there are obvious fancy passages with lots of obvious technical things going on. But it is a pretty difficult piece in subtle ways. I think those guys will have a lot of fun developing it as they play it. The fact that they like it and are enjoying playing it means a lot to me. That makes me really happy. DS: In your notes for Road to the Sun, you mention that you decided to “embrace” your instrument and to “go under the hood” to incorporate some of the unique “guitaristic” gestures that have become identified as your trademark style. Can you give an idea of what you did with those gestures in the music? PM: For me, music is something that is largely independent of any particular instrument. I have often described my relationship to the guitar to that of a translation device; it is a tool that gives me a way to bring ideas out into the world. I was never really particularly into the guitar in that cult-like way that seems to be out there, I was always interested in music itself in

Pat Metheny (c) with Los Angeles Guitar Quartet at Colorado Public Radio, 10/20/16

the larger sense, and due to a few fairly odd cultural events (The Beatles, the way the instrument became an almost iconic symbol of the change in the world that the 1960s brought) I got started on the guitar and it seemed like a good fit for me. As the years have gone by, I have made some progress into what the instrument can become in the service of my own personal goals in music. I guess most people can usually tell it is me playing. Almost inadvertently, there are some things that happen under the auspices of “guitar playing” that seem to be somewhat unique to my way of addressing the instrument. Many of these things, whether they are specific guitar techniques or phrasing issues are the kinds of things that I developed more as an improviser than as a composer. This piece gave me an opportunity to really dissect many of those things and formalize them into notation for other guitarists to look at. It has been really fun and really interesting for me. DS: At the same time, you said you wanted to “reach for the narrative element of storytelling that is the imperative and primary function” for you as a musician. What is that narrative…or story…you’re telling in “Road to the Sun?” PM: I know there are musicians who look outside of music to find meaning and then bring it into their work, and I almost envy that. For me, it is all built into the sound. Everything I need is all right there. That invokes a certain kind of abstraction — there is no literal A to B thing going for me between a particular musical moment and something that happens outside of music itself. I think the narrative flow that I am referencing can be expressed within the syntax of music and becomes self-evident in the sound. I have always believed that good notes have a certain thing that is kind of impervious to the cultural and political contexts that they are often described within. If the notes and sounds are really the true ones, even if they are formed within those contexts, they will often expand to have a life outside of those frameworks as well, and that process can often take a really long time. Yet the paradox is that they would be true whether anyone ever heard them or not, let alone what anyone had to say about them. DS: Many of your fans, I suspect, might be surprised to learn you do a lot of composing at the piano. But for Road to the Sun, you composed at the guitar. Can you explain that process and why you switched things up? PM: I usually am flipping between guitar and piano and some kind of computer when I am in writing mode. I would compare it to being able to express an idea in several different languages or dialects; each offers a slightly different perspective. When it is a particularly guitar-oriented piece like this one is, there are qualities and issues that are much more specific to the instrument that come into play. So this was a time where I did find myself with the guitar in hand, even just to check things, more than usual. DS: Everybody knows that there are the things we plan to do in life and then then there’s reality. You planned to write a 7 to 9-minute concert piece. It ultimately became almost 30 minutes. What happened? PM: Once I started, it just sort of took over. This is one of those pieces that really had a life of its own. It just kept flowing out, I was really just trying to let it do what it seemed to want to do. In the end it seems to be about a half hour long. I didn’t expect that.

Composer’s Note on Road to the Sun by Pat Metheny The guitar is an interesting instrument. Across virtually all genres, it remains an ongoing research project — in the best possible sense. It is an instrument that in general is somewhat undefined by any single approach. There are seemingly infinite ways to deploy the potential of what it offers. And in multiples, those potentials grow exponentially.

A few years back, I was flattered to have one of my compositions included in the LAGQ’s Grammy-winning CD, Guitar Heroes. Not long after that the idea came up that I might someday write something new for them. The idea of writing a guitar quartet inspired by the talents of the LAGQ has been simmering somewhere in the back of my mind ever since. The thought of really addressing the instrument in a more formal way under the auspices of what this quartet has come to embody, not to mention the sheer, almost overwhelming individual skills of the four players, was something I really wanted to do. It was just a matter of finding the time I knew that I would need to do it.

Luckily for me, I am very busy as a bandleader and I feel privileged to be able to record and tour almost constantly with my own groups. But after a particularly active year in 2014, when I did more than 150 concerts around the world, I decided, for the first time, to take a year off from the road in 2015. Hopefully, I thought, I could get caught up with a few things. On my list was this lingering idea of finally writing something for the LAGQ. Near the end of the year, I saw a window opening up where I would have a few weeks that I might dedicate to this. With the approval of the guys and a few really useful tips from all of them, I jumped in, hoping to write a concert piece of 7 to 9 minutes. Two weeks later, I found myself with a nearly 30- minute, 6-movement treatise on the aforementioned potentials of what can happen in a multiguitar format, blazingly inspired by the thought of hearing these four incredible guitarists play these notes. The piece just literally poured out. In truth, as much as I am identified as being a guitarist myself, I don’t really spend a whole lot of time thinking about the instrument in a specific way. It has always been an almost inadvertent tool for me to translate ideas into sound, and mostly as an improviser at that. And in fact, when I do compose for various projects or for my bands, I almost always am doing it at the piano, a much more forgiving and logical universe to write in than the odd geometry of guitarthought. But for this piece, I decided to really embrace the instrument and kind of get under the hood of a bunch of things that I do with the instrument, things that are somewhat identified with what it seems has now become my particular style, while at the same time reach for the narrative element of storytelling that is the imperative and primary function for me always as a musician. And yet, with the piece now complete, as much as those components provided an aspirational environment to work from, the main quality that I think the piece offers is the emotional journey that it takes. Somehow, through

the challenge of writing for this unique platform and aiming it toward the hands of these especially talented players, I was able to get to a very personal area of what music itself is to me. It feels like a journey to me, almost a road trip in scale and scope. In settling on the title Road to the Sun, I thought back to my trip up to Glacier National Park on the famous “Going-to-the-Sun” Road, the day after hearing LAGQ play live for the first time at a festival in Montana. It has been a thrill to get the chance to write for the amazing Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, and I am very excited to hear what William, Scott, John and Matt will do on their journey with this work.

— Pat Metheny, February 2016