The REAL Pat Metheny Lick

This short video is a token of my gratitude to Pat Metheny for his inspiration. It is offered in all humility to help others gain an insight into this specific aspect of his expansive musical vocabulary. It is not intended to correct other videos dealing with this subject but, it does represent the answer I once looked for on YouTube and could not find. I found it instead by doing my own research (i.e., close-up, slow-motion transcribing). I am so happy to be sharing it with you, and I'm not embarrassed to say that this 3 seconds or so of music represents a kind of holy grail in my own quest for musical wisdom, and learning it has been on my to-do list for about a decade! It just didn't occur to me to shift positions with a hammer-on until I underwent this process. In addition to getting great licks under our fingers, transcribing can change the way we think about music and our instruments. I tried to notate everything very clearly, but you have to pause the video in order to read the transcription properly. Best Wishes, Dan Rainard www.danielrainard.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• pat
• metheny
• lick
• daniel
• dan
• rainard
• transcription
• jazz
• guitar
• improvisation

[drainard]

The 2nd and 3rd notes of each beat can be played with a single upstroke. This makes the pattern very do-able at faster tempos.

[iamthewalrus911]

So you're hammering on every note on the 5th string with your middle finger? Is that what the notation says?

[drainard]

Yes. That's the ticket. There's a variation where the 3rd note is a pull off, meaning you only pick the first two notes. Pat is the very picture of efficiency.

[evascud]

Daniel, this is amazing! The sonic difference between a hammeron and a picked note are really what gives it that instant "This is Metheny" feel and sound. I totally relate to your 'holy grail' experience. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

[drainard]

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad that you found this useful.

[drainard]

@inky960 Yeah. I hear G9sus4 too. Slash chords are just a convenience of writing. They're easier to fit in a score I suppose.

[inky960]

@drainard Wouldn't F/G resolve to C? I guess it depends. Just playing an F/G, I'm hearing a G9sus4, so there's a dominant 7 thing, minus the B, but still... going to G just sounds a little "different" -- nice, though.

[14luisalonso]

Best 4 seconds on all youtube. thank you.

[gbtayc]

@gbtayc

I worked on the studio version of “Have You Heard” which has this type of lick.

It might be different than the lick you listened to.

In the lick I learned I think he is sliding into the fourth note from a step below which is picked then slid

That’s what it sounds like to me when I slowed it down to a snail’s pace with a program called transcribe

That is a generalization He mixes up things quite a bit

I think he has the ability to pick that fast in string skipping situations

???

[kuitarl]

@drainard i just discovered this myself! i've been learning and performing pat's music for years but thought i'd never overcome the technical hurdle of this lick. this shortcut unfortunately doesn't accommodate his increasingly frequent "string-skipping" variations of it, but it's a boon for us sweep-pickers. hooray, and thanks for posting!

[faopus14]

i find it easier to play without the hmmer on , instead i use economy picking , down , down , up , up(the hammered note)