Books
Books
Pat Metheny has been unusually generous on the page. He has published his own lead sheets, a fake book and his own warm-up exercises, and in the past decade three university presses have brought out serious studies of his music.
For a fan, these books do what the records alone can’t. They show the architecture under the sound, the Kansas City years before Bright Size Life, and the thinking behind long-form works like The Way Up. The list starts with the essential reads and ends with transcriptions and scores matched to their albums. Each entry says who the book is for and how it connects to the essays and Front Row stories on this site.
01 · Lead sheets
Pat Metheny Songbook (Lead Sheets)
Pat Metheny · Hal Leonard, 2000
Why the official Pat Metheny Songbook, 167 compositions in lead-sheet form, is the one essential Metheny book for players, writers and serious listeners.
02 · Interviews
The Pat Metheny Interviews: The Inner Workings of His Creativity Revealed
Richard Niles · Hal Leonard Books (Backbeat), 2009
Richard Niles’s The Pat Metheny Interviews: long-form conversations from his BBC series, with Pat’s guitar demonstrations transcribed and voices from Lyle Mays, Gary Burton and Michael Brecker.
03 · Study
Pat Metheny: Stories beyond Words
Bob Gluck · University of Chicago Press, 2024
Bob Gluck’s Pat Metheny: Stories beyond Words (2024): a serious, recent study of storytelling, the Pat Metheny Group sound and The Way Up, built on new interviews.
04 · Study
Pat Metheny: The ECM Years, 1975–1984
Mervyn Cooke · Oxford University Press, 2017
Mervyn Cooke’s Pat Metheny: The ECM Years, 1975–1984 (Oxford, 2017): the definitive scholarly study of the ECM albums, with new transcriptions and analysis.
05 · Biography
Beneath Missouri Skies: Pat Metheny in Kansas City, 1964–1972
Carolyn Glenn Brewer · University of North Texas Press, 2022
Carolyn Glenn Brewer’s Beneath Missouri Skies: the only book-length biography of Pat Metheny’s formative Kansas City years, 1964–1972.
06 · Fake book
The Pat Metheny Real Book (Artist Edition), C Edition
Pat Metheny · Hal Leonard, 2017
The Pat Metheny Real Book (C edition, 2017): an official fake book in Real Book format, for players who want Pat’s tunes on the music stand.
07 · Method
Pat Metheny Guitar Etudes: Warm-Up Exercises for Guitar
Pat Metheny · Hal Leonard, 2011
Pat Metheny Guitar Etudes (2011): Pat’s own warm-up exercises, written by him, with tablature. A unique look at how he keeps his hands ready.
08–14 · Transcriptions and scores
Transcriptions and scores
Seven Hal Leonard folios, each tied to its album