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Tom Rudd May 26 2011 at 9:22 AM	This sounds very cool, wish I could go. Please give us a future report for those that attend. After Pat gets finished with these Scientist/Musicians they are all going to have to go home and practice some more. ; - )
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patsfan Jun 06 2011 at 11:11 PM	Thanks guys for telling us about the symposium ... Fascinating topic. I believe Pat is pretty unique among his peers, his music is constantly exploring new territories, new chords, techniques, etc. There was a reason they selected Pat for scientific study of music and the brain.
Rob B in CT Jun 06 2011 at 4:43 PM	Thanks for posting comments about the festival. Wish I had attended. Here’s a link to a NY Times story about the event: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/science/06wsfmusic.html?_r=1&ref=science.
Gotwake22 Jun 05 2011 at 6:41 PM	I was also lucky enough to attend, and my favorite part was far and away when Pat and Larry played Autumn Leaves. What was particularly cool, was that Pat decided to play the first chorus limiting himself to the use of one figer on one string (a level of dexterity that any beginner can muster), to show that it’s in his head more than in his hands. That chorus was SO musical and instantly recognizable as Pat’s sound. It’s pretty much exactly the kind of thing Mick Goodrich talks about in his book "The Advancing Guitarist."
marshall Jun 05 2011 at 6:40 PM	I attended last night as well--what a treat! My only gripe is that we didn’t get enough of Pat’s playing, but this is a science festival after all and not a concert. I got the impression much of the audience was familiar with Pat, however. I brought along a few Metheny virgins who were amply impressed. But to get down to the nuts and bolts: Pat played a total of three tunes, spread out pretty evenly throughout the performance: he came on stage with Larry Grenadier and played James (Offramp/1982), played Autumn Leaves halfway through the set, and closed with an on-the-spot Orchestrion improvised piece. The topics of discussion mostly involved what goes on in the brain during improvisation--the panel of (primarily) neuroscientists had done a few interesting studies using fMRI in an attempt to locate differences between musicians and non-musicians and memorized and improvised tasks. Their main finding that they agreed on: the temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), which is often considered to be the "self-monitoring/self-awareness" part of the brain is inhibited in trained musicians versus normal subjects. In other words--just as Pat said during the discussion--he can really tune out where he is while he plays and really is part of the music. For the record, the TPJ is the same part of the brain that, when inhibited via transcranial magnetic stimulation, can induce out-of-body experiences in subjects. It was interesting how well Pat’s interpretation of his own playing matched up to the neuroscience. Overall, I found Pat’s remarks far more interesting than the neuroscientists--he articulated well and really knew how to grab the audience with his words. He got quite a few chuckles throughout. The choice of Autumn Leaves was a fun one--he was originally going to play another one of his tunes (who knows what it was going to be?)--but, due to the nature of the discussion, which was centered around enjoyment of music as a function of the balance between familiarity and surprise, he chose a song that "everyone knows" (anyone who hasn’t been integrated in jazz undoubtedly did NOT know that one, but hopefully enough of the audience did)--and he chose it so he could begin improvising as simply as he could--one finger one one string and at any given time, as he put it. Boy was that a treat--one of the most goddamn melodic solos I’ve heard--you can really tell that he just GETS it--he understands the harmony and chord structure better than anyone on the planet. His improvising slowly became more complicated until near the end he was doing his train- track jumps and weird chords, and it was awesome. Overall, a great experience, and anybody who was unfamiliar with Pat surely walked away astounded.
alan2461 Jun 05 2011 at 5:13 PM	I attended this event last night. It was very interesting. There were a panel of 4 scientists, the moderator and Pat. The scientists talked about their fields of research which all involved music and spontaneity and the brain. Some pretty heavy stuff. Pat spoke about (among other things) what he thinks about when he is playing. As everyone I think here knows, Pat is a very eloquent speaker and very interesting to listen to him speak. The scientists were very interested in knowing if he has to really think a lot about what he is playing. Pat said something like he doesn’t have to think about it in the same way when people speak they don’t really have to think about moving their lips or their tongues, it just happens naturally. Anyway, it was a truly enjoyable evening and we got to hear Pat and Larry Grenadier play 2 tunes. We also got to preview a video of his soon to be released Orchestrion DVD, which from the 3 minute clip we saw looks amazing. Pat also played one improvised piece on a mini version of the Orchestrion, which he happened to have with him. I guess he carries it with him wherever he goes (lol). Pat said this represented 1/50th of the size of his world-wide tour in terms of instrumentation. Lots of fun. Long live Pat !!!
transcendentman May 30 2011 at 1:55 PM	theyve got simon singh, he wrote this book on cryptology or ciphers, and phillip glass too, man new york.
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