Jazz guitarist invents own mechanical one-man-band
Published in Berkshire Eagle, 10/8/10
By Jeremy D. Goodwin
GREAT BARRINGTON—It's futuristic but old-fashioned. It's intensely planned, but aloft with the promise of spontaneity. It's orchestral but includes just one musician.
Legendary jazz guitarist Pat Metheny's latest project is a feat of engineering and imagination, but succeeds because it transcends novelty to create good music. For "Orchestrion," an album released earlier this year that provides the concept behind a tour visiting the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on Sunday, Metheny invented for himself a sort of one-man orchestra, a densely interconnected set of instruments that combines steam-powered Victorian ingenuity with the sensibility of 21st century electronics.
Metheny assembled an ensemble including several pianos, a drum kit, marimbas, guitars, dozens of percussion instruments, and cabinets of carefully tuned bottles—all of which he controls through his own guitar, as one might if playing digitized MIDI instruments. He can control them live, note for note, or trigger pre-arranged bits of music, as with electronic loops or samples. But, unlike with those modern analogues, each note created is created acoustically, in the moment; the pre-arranged "loops" of music are not triggered digitally but through a process akin to setting a player piano in motion. There are no computers involved. Each instrument is rigged to operate through solenoid switches (utilizing electromagnetism) and pneumatics (using pressurized gas).
"This is a real odd juxtaposition of super 21st century—on a control level, beyond anything I've seen anybody else do—with something that's really ancient, which is acoustic sound," Metheny says in a telephone interview from his home in New York City.
It's nothing new for a particularly interesting musician to be described as inventive. But for this project, Metheny literally had to invent his instrument, commissioning its different elements from technicians around the world and then carefully modifying and assembling them like a musical mad scientist. (Sounding playfully impressed rather than skeptical, The New York Times’ jazz critic Ben Ratliff called the whole thing "lunacy." Ratliff discusses the project in a separate program preceding Sunday’s concert.)
After nine months and one hundred concerts (and a heaping dose of critical praise for the work), Metheny sounds just a touch defensive about what can be seen as the novelty of his creation. "There's never been anybody like me, or anybody at all really, doing something like this at this scale," he acknowledges, but also emphasizes that at the root of the whole thing is just a musician playing an instrument.
"A piano mechanism is at least as complicated as what I'm doing, probably more. And there's 88 of them," he says, referring to the keys on the keyboard. "It's not unlike this, in the sense that a gesture is translated into a result. There's some piano players that swing and there's some that don't. That's what it boils down to, it’s the musicians behind it. Talk to the drummer, don't talk to the drums."
Yet the process has introduced him to "the other 13 wackos out there that are building instruments like this, who are interested in this strange world, too," he says, before excitedly noting some of the advances being made around the world. "There are some Belgian guys who are doing some incredible things" with manipulating air, Metheney explains, noting that he's planning to add new instruments to his ensemble for future projects. ("What I don't have a whole lot of is air," he says. "I have a lot of smacking and banging and plucking, and just a little air. Air is a hard thing to control.")
For all the visual appeal of his orchestrion, and the endless ink that could be spilled simply describing and explaining the process at play ("Even if I have a two-and-a-half hour interview with a musician-oriented, technical magazine, I still haven't explained myself very well," he says), Metheny notes that the essence of what he's doing is simply playing a solo concert. Underneath it all, it's still just him.
"There have been a couple people who say that it can't swing. My response to that is, you're saying I can't swing. So let's step out in the alley, buddy," he says, comically raising his voice to an outraged pitch, "or pick up your instrument and we'll see who can swing!"
One creative challenge came in the synergy between the impulses of a solo project and the need for careful orchestration. “I don't really feel that connected to the guitar,” he says. It’s a startling statement from someone whose fluidly virtuosic touch on the instrument has been much noted. But he’s illustrating a distinction at the heart of the “Orchestrion” project.
“The guitar is like this translation device for me. I play enough trumpet and enough piano that I started to notice that when I play those instruments I play exactly the same thing I would play on the guitar. It's the ideas that come first for me. I’m thinking about the orchestration. Even if I’m playing a conventional guitar in the bathroom or something, I’m thinking, ‘this is a cello.’”
And for all the carefully calibrated gadgetry onstage, the orchestrion is no more likely to develop problems than any other instrument—or even musician.
“The last time I played in Great Barrington, in the middle of the concert, the drummer in my band had a kidney stone and we had to stop the concert and rush him to the hospital. Talk about moving parts!”
Well, when you put it that way—perhaps this lunacy isn’t so crazy after all.
GREAT BARRINGTON—It's futuristic but old-fashioned. It's intensely planned, but aloft with the promise of spontaneity. It's orchestral but includes just one musician.
Legendary jazz guitarist Pat Metheny's latest project is a feat of engineering and imagination, but succeeds because it transcends novelty to create good music. For "Orchestrion," an album released earlier this year that provides the concept behind a tour visiting the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on Sunday, Metheny invented for himself a sort of one-man orchestra, a densely interconnected set of instruments that combines steam-powered Victorian ingenuity with the sensibility of 21st century electronics.
Metheny assembled an ensemble including several pianos, a drum kit, marimbas, guitars, dozens of percussion instruments, and cabinets of carefully tuned bottles—all of which he controls through his own guitar, as one might if playing digitized MIDI instruments. He can control them live, note for note, or trigger pre-arranged bits of music, as with electronic loops or samples. But, unlike with those modern analogues, each note created is created acoustically, in the moment; the pre-arranged "loops" of music are not triggered digitally but through a process akin to setting a player piano in motion. There are no computers involved. Each instrument is rigged to operate through solenoid switches (utilizing electromagnetism) and pneumatics (using pressurized gas).
"This is a real odd juxtaposition of super 21st century—on a control level, beyond anything I've seen anybody else do—with something that's really ancient, which is acoustic sound," Metheny says in a telephone interview from his home in New York City.
It's nothing new for a particularly interesting musician to be described as inventive. But for this project, Metheny literally had to invent his instrument, commissioning its different elements from technicians around the world and then carefully modifying and assembling them like a musical mad scientist. (Sounding playfully impressed rather than skeptical, The New York Times’ jazz critic Ben Ratliff called the whole thing "lunacy." Ratliff discusses the project in a separate program preceding Sunday’s concert.)
After nine months and one hundred concerts (and a heaping dose of critical praise for the work), Metheny sounds just a touch defensive about what can be seen as the novelty of his creation. "There's never been anybody like me, or anybody at all really, doing something like this at this scale," he acknowledges, but also emphasizes that at the root of the whole thing is just a musician playing an instrument.
"A piano mechanism is at least as complicated as what I'm doing, probably more. And there's 88 of them," he says, referring to the keys on the keyboard. "It's not unlike this, in the sense that a gesture is translated into a result. There's some piano players that swing and there's some that don't. That's what it boils down to, it’s the musicians behind it. Talk to the drummer, don't talk to the drums."
Yet the process has introduced him to "the other 13 wackos out there that are building instruments like this, who are interested in this strange world, too," he says, before excitedly noting some of the advances being made around the world. "There are some Belgian guys who are doing some incredible things" with manipulating air, Metheney explains, noting that he's planning to add new instruments to his ensemble for future projects. ("What I don't have a whole lot of is air," he says. "I have a lot of smacking and banging and plucking, and just a little air. Air is a hard thing to control.")
For all the visual appeal of his orchestrion, and the endless ink that could be spilled simply describing and explaining the process at play ("Even if I have a two-and-a-half hour interview with a musician-oriented, technical magazine, I still haven't explained myself very well," he says), Metheny notes that the essence of what he's doing is simply playing a solo concert. Underneath it all, it's still just him.
"There have been a couple people who say that it can't swing. My response to that is, you're saying I can't swing. So let's step out in the alley, buddy," he says, comically raising his voice to an outraged pitch, "or pick up your instrument and we'll see who can swing!"
One creative challenge came in the synergy between the impulses of a solo project and the need for careful orchestration. “I don't really feel that connected to the guitar,” he says. It’s a startling statement from someone whose fluidly virtuosic touch on the instrument has been much noted. But he’s illustrating a distinction at the heart of the “Orchestrion” project.
“The guitar is like this translation device for me. I play enough trumpet and enough piano that I started to notice that when I play those instruments I play exactly the same thing I would play on the guitar. It's the ideas that come first for me. I’m thinking about the orchestration. Even if I’m playing a conventional guitar in the bathroom or something, I’m thinking, ‘this is a cello.’”
And for all the carefully calibrated gadgetry onstage, the orchestrion is no more likely to develop problems than any other instrument—or even musician.
“The last time I played in Great Barrington, in the middle of the concert, the drummer in my band had a kidney stone and we had to stop the concert and rush him to the hospital. Talk about moving parts!”
Well, when you put it that way—perhaps this lunacy isn’t so crazy after all.
