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Hello everyone and welcome back to Where is the music podcast.

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Today I'm going to open the doors to my piano studio as I did a few months ago when I.

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Was practising a couple of jazz standards with you and I'm going to play and comment on a piece of music.

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From the real book in this case, which I find extremely beautiful, I wasn't particularly familiar with it until I say this last year. The reason in is probably because it's not too close to the.

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Repertoire of pianists on one side, but also it belongs to side trajectory of mainstream jazz. I'm talking about a song by the guitar player Pat Metheny.

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Called Midwestern Nights Dream, this tune was released in the album Bright Size Life in 1976, featuring, of course, but meeting guitar but also Jacob Pastorius on bass.

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Before I say anything further, I want you to hear how it goes. The main theme, but even more importantly, the general feel.

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This is the main theme and you can already hear how far away we are of any idea of traditional jazz.

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There is no swing, there is no dancing. You can't really think of.

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A drummer pointing at any hard, strong drum beat drum groove.

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So what is it?

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About in a sense, it puzzles me, but also it inspired me. I mean, the first connection that they make is with regards to the time.

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Midwestern night's dream the references, of course, to Mendelssohn's ‘Midsummer Night Dream’, taken from Shakespeare's play. The atmosphere, though here sounds completely different there is.

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Magic, sure, but a lot of melancholy.

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There is something dreamy about this to something particularly open, especially if you think about the rhythm there is the there are this all these windows of space with no note.

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These long resonances that are just meant to, you know, open our imagination and.

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And there is something dark.

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I suspect I think This is why. Also I think the night is called in. To me the darkness is mostly coming out from this, perhaps repetition, a bit obsessive and a bit sweet.

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We'll see later how such a groove such a accompaniment will be relevant for the point that I want to make more general point on music that I want to make, but more importantly, the term with Midwestern is what strikes my.

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Inspiration my imagination. Midwestern, we are obviously referring to the American Midwest, which is the North Central part of the United States.

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This is a huge area.

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If you are familiar with the geography of the United States includes states such as Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and then Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin.

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Possibly for the purpose of our conversation, it's important that it includes the so-called Great Plains and the Great Lakes.

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The first thing, the first thing that I think about when I imagine this geographic area, although I didn't, I haven't been myself only from movies and the songs I imagine.

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Great natural spaces and.

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Great countryside, landscapes, mountains and lakes. So there is a sense for me in this music that the composer here is responding to the sense of great spaces and.

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A country, a land that is inherently part of the life of every human being that inhabits this area. Particularly, I read.

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Was the home of.

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A great variety and great number of Native American tribes and.

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Still, culturally strongly related to the farmers and them in comparison to other parts of the United States.

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The Midwest is considered perhaps one of the most, let's say, most relaxed, where the life goes a little bit slower and where things are a little bit calmer and quieter, where probably people appreciate more. For example, sitting on the porch.

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And enjoying the view of the land in front of you.

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As a European, I don't have that much experience or I respond and relate to, to, to the land they belong to in different ways. But I find this fascinating. So I have the impression that this tune.

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Somehow is able to give me a glimpse of what you will see or you will feel the moment you step out of your of your house and in the Midwest and look at what's surrounding you. So as I hear.

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This melody and this slow groove I have already the impression that what I am experiencing what I'm witnessing is some somehow related to big spaces. Music sometimes has this capability of.

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Being able to convey.

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Through sound things that are not acoustic.

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Space and time.

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The composer here, Pat Metheny is able to somehow make us imagine a huge space with a lot of air, perhaps even great landscapes, by letting the strings of his guitar. And in my case, the piano.

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Just resonate freely with long pauses and.

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Allowing our mind to wander. Where are we? Where are we?

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This is something that what other what other forms of art can do so universally at the same time, so individually?

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On this tangent, we can even start wondering well, but if a music can convey something so.

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Material like space.

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What other things can it convey and how do musicians composer are able to represent their imaginative space through sound? This is a beautiful question, one that I have chased.

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The answer is all my life and.

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Very fascinating. Perhaps we can call this field the bridge between sound and.

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Imagination. Creativity. A bridge that for the composer goes one way, and for the listener goes in exactly the opposite way from the sound back to the imagination.

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I would also say that the melodic form, the melodic design of this piece, at least the theme, the way it is conceived, somehow alternates phrases that are left there unfinished, such as this.

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Right already left open. Yes, it continues.

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But it doesn't really sound like an ending. This I was saying. Uh, contrasting other phrases that seem to have some sort of stronger impetus forward. They gather momentum and they move forward, but not to reach.

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Much of a different conclusion such as this.

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Right. Once again we we just stop there and contemplate this new, this new harmony and play it again and continue.

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And once again, things are just.

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Left open.

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The main reason why I I really enjoy to play this team particularly is because of the improvisation section and this is where we probably can say more clearly. After all, the contract that I established with my listener.

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Here at at where is the Music podcast, is the words can just.

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Help understanding and explaining the music, but the words will never be able to get to the core of it for it. We just need to open our ears and participate in the listening experience. So the improvisation section is built on a loop.

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Quite short, it's just 8 bars and more than that within these 8 bars, something else keeps looping this.

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And again and again and again.

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You already have probably the impression that this song is not going to go anywhere else, and you're right.

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The idea here is imagine sitting on a porch on as as the sun is setting and looking at around you. You have fields of grass, trees, mountains, lake.

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There's no one around and you probably have seen this picture yesterday, the day before, week before a year before, and you will probably see it for many years in the future.

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There is something about being in the same place that speaks to to somehow who you are as a person. Your your home that defines you as as an individual, and your home might be the place that just gives you the sense that.

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You are in your in the right place that that there is nothing to change about it. This is a good thing and and so there is certainly perhaps a little bit of mind loop perhaps the repetition of this.

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Court reminds of ideas that keep circling around. Perhaps the language doesn't develop.

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It's kind of still it's going to be still the same in 100 years, but at the same time, that's where you more truly feel yourself and I think, well, it's listening to it again. I'm going to start improvising.

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There is the impression that going around and around and around and around you somehow have the opportunity to contemplate.

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Other things than what you see in the surrounding, but within yourself perhaps, and this is the core of what I want to talk about today, because when we are witnessing someone making music, someone improvising.

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We are witnessing the.

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Conversation that someone establishes with themselves and.

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It is not very different from stopping and contemplating your own thoughts, seeing them appearing in your mind and perhaps filtering them.

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Trying to determine a trajectory to those thoughts.

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So what the composer does here is what I find the.

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The most remarkable thing about jazz, which is he's writing.

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Music that is not meant to lead you but is meant to provide a context for you.

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So here is the context.

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So what does this make you think? What thoughts? What ideas, what? What rhythms? What trajectory, what? How would you dance on this?

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The beauty of this perspective is the the composer Pat Metheny.

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Knows that this inspires him. This context inspires him to create a conversation with.

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Himself to inspire his thoughts and his ideas to to emerge.

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And also knows that as in the nature has the nature of jazz somehow requires a player who would want to do the same, would respond to the context to the environment, to the surrounding width.

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His or her own personal individual take and then from there. Really. It's really it's just up to you. How do you want to shape this relationship? The remarkable thing that this 8 bars of music somehow.

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Are able to epitomise very, very clearly very well is exactly how linear and simple the context for such conversation with yourself.

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Should be how not particularly complex.

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8 bars A loop is just same chord over and over.

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This is perfect because in this context A context that becomes familiar pretty much right away to use listener and to me as an improviser at the at the third bar already, I start responding to it with my own.

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Thoughts and ideas and my own creativity.

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The accomplishment here is to realise that in order for this creativity to be triggered.

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There we go. You just need simple enough context. Very logical.

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Somehow even predictable to the point that you have your own creativity flowing.

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After all, think about it. When are you yourself able to come up with your best creative ideas? Perhaps is when you are focused, perhaps in silence and quiet. Perhaps when you have no distraction around.

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Isn't this the right context for your own conversation to start emerging? To start getting to the surface and providing you with with new thoughts?

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Here is what.

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A good musician does instead of feeling musical space with complicated chords and rhythm.

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Well, he just gives you a straight line.

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Here we go. One can just.

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Legs, thoughts and ideas emerge. It's.

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That's a beautiful way to.

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Think of improvisation.

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Just two chords and a simple rhythm.

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And justice, to make sure that.

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Don't get lost, he added.

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And again.

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The freedom of thoughts that one can, let's say the one can enjoy, is certainly much larger than a typical 32 bar. Just standards. Obviously this is just pretty much.

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Two code, one scale, one key. The rhythm is very, very consistent. So a composition such as this by Pat Metheny wants you to.

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Align yourself with it is an opportunity offered by him to be part of this flow. This is also something that characterises his own guitar style, his own jazz style. We can point out that the fact that Pat Metheny during the the, he, he.

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He came up during the 70s and 80s as a new wave, fresh take on on jazz, but the the main thing about him is.

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His music does not qualify as typical jazz mainstream. He brings the guitar in the conversation, which until then was mainly reserved to different jars, obviously.

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Rock, pop country and Blues jazz certainly had important guitar figures. I'm talking about, of course, Charlie Christian, Django Reinhardt,

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Wes Montgomery,

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Many more, especially nowadays the list is very long, but before then every guitar player was American guitar player tended to be in the jazz world, tended to be localised within either mainstream jazz.

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Or a side branch such as soul, funk or fusion.

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Just to give.

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You an idea of what what I'm talking about? No guitar player would.

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There to put guitar strumming in his improvisation, Pat Metini explicitly points at at this technique as something that he really wanted to be part of the.

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Part of his style what is strumming? Strumming is a guitar technique that fills the space.

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Piece and keeps the groove and is related to Jones such as pop, rock and country. It's a very I would say it's probably the most intuitive way of playing the guitar. That's why in a sense in the 70s when Jazz had already.

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Entered for a while, it's.

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Intellectual faith, along with many.

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Experiments and attempt new ways of expression into the period into the phase of the arts where people were extremely tired of the old ways and they were trying to.

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Come up with the rebellious and alternative ways of communicating, creativity and beauty. Well, no one would have thought that strumming the guitar will enter the world of jazz from the main door.

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Pat Metheny manages to do that and.

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Offers a style that is innovative and at the same time very much referred to tradition.

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Coming back to this aspect of improvisation, I I wonder what will be the best approach for for creativity in this musical context and I'm wondering about it because I notice that not everything works in the same way.

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For example, what do you think of this?

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I liked it, but at the same time I had the impression I wanted the.

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I want to feel too much.

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So this makes me think is the conversation I'm trying to establish with this groove one in which I lead one in which I constantly come up with ideas and and feel it, or is is a conversation in which I am more inclined to.

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To listen and contemplate what's the surrounding, let's hear in this new frame of mind if something changes.

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I don't know what you think, but I felt better.

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It seemed to me that there was more.

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There was more alignment between the context produced by the accompaniment and the general rhythm, and the and the melody on top and improvisation.

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I often think of improvisation as the this kind of free flow of thoughts, and particularly thoughts that might not be very clear, neither completed, neither finished. So sometimes the thought starts.

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It goes in a certain direction and as it started, it just disappears.

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So one can try to try to catch on and and maybe force an ending to it to force a a continuation. But as many of these great improvisers show us very often is much better.

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To to let it go and allow the listener to.

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Continue in their own imagination. OK, I'm going to play one time. The the entire song and I'm going to make my final comment afterwards.

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That's a.

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Beautiful tune. It's fantastic to improvise on it and certainly there are.

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Aspects of melancholy and sadness that I did not address, but.

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I'm sure all of you have caught them and have noticed them so.

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Nevertheless, as I play this, I cannot avoid thinking of.

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How far away it is?

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Was originated far away from me, from my life, from my culture. It was written before I was born by people and never met from a culture I never really learned about or or experience really. I saw only pictures and movies from the.

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Part of the world, and nevertheless there is something.

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We share something particularly profound and universal.

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Which is possible to share through this mysterious language that is music.

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This is my final thought. My final comment on the.

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On this.

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Midwestern Nights Dream by Pat Metheny, who has been inspiring me all afternoon, and I hope.

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As I hope as managed to to inspire you as.

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Well, a little.

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Bit today with me. I'm going to put a link on it on the description of the episode and.

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That's it. I think I'll see you the next time here. Where is the music box? Thank you very much for listening and tuning in with me. See you next time.