Over the years, Pat Metheny became famous for using his unique 42-string guitars at live shows. Of course, the rise in popularity of this instrument followed the guitarist’s rise to fame as well. It was his idea from a simple drawing, put into action by luthier Linda Manzer back in 1984. And since this is a real piece of art, they named it the Pikasso guitar.
As Andre Cholmondeley, Pat Metheny’s tech, pointed out in a recent interview and jazz legend’s gear rundown for Premier Guitar, “Pikasso” is the right spelling.
“Well, the Pikasso, folks — spelled with a K — also known as the 42-string guitar,” Andre offered while showing this guitar in all of its glory (transcribed by Killer Guitar Rigs). He continued:
“Once again, Linda Manzer. As Pat jokes in his show every night, she’s one of the few people he can go to and say, ‘Hey, I wonder what would happen if you built XYZ,’ and she doesn’t run out of the room.”
Pat came up with this ambitious idea initially, but Linda also had her input. Nonetheless, as Andre explains, Pat’s vision of the guitar was first shown on a simple napkin. Or a piece of paper. But the point still stands — it’s an impressive instrument. The tech continued:
“He drew this like the classic — on a napkin, on a piece of paper — kind of mapped it out, and said, ‘Could this happen?’ And she did it. It’s about 1000 lb of pressure.”
Having so many strings sure does put pressure on it. And 1000 pounds is roughly what Linda Manzer’s official website also says. So the next obvious question was how this instrument manages to stay together and “just not explode.”
“It’s really incredible work,” Andre replied. And 42 strings also brings up another issue — how do you tune the damn thing and keep it in tune all the time? Well, for Andre, it takes anywhere between 10 and 25 minutes. In most cases, it’s usually 15 to 20. He continued:
“People ask all the time about the tuning. In a hurry, I can do it in just under 10 minutes now, like 20 if I can, 25… But you know, 15-20 minutes.”
The instrument consists of four major sections. It’s not necks, per se, since the main part is like the conventional guitar while the rest is more like a harp with no fretting work required. Going over to the main section of the instrument, Andre said:
“This is standard tuning, with the middle two an octave up.”
Furthermore, he pointed out that Pat uses flatwound strings on the bottom.
“And then you’ve got kind of a D minor scale there,” he said while playing to the second major section with its own separate neck. “D E, F, G, there are no sharps in there, just a lot of Ds. D minor.”
The section with strings going across the body and over both of the soundholes is a story of its own. “And then this one is Stravinsky on a harp or something,” he said.
And finally, there’s that part at the lower bout where the strings spread out radially rather than in a straight line. Plucking its strings, Andre said:
“This one’s like a harp kind of a thing, a lot of half steps. I haven’t tuned it today, folks. But that’s pretty ballpark.”
Speaking of tuning this instrument, a lot of other challenges come with the Pikasso guitar. With about a 1000 pounds of pressure with its 42 strings, the instrument can be seriously affected by the outside factors.
“If the temperature and humidity is consistent, I take this out, and it’s just about in tune sometimes, which blows my mind,” admits Andre. “And sometimes there’s a period of time — if it’s in a stable storage in our warehouse — a couple of weeks, you go back, and some of the necks are just a couple cents out, which is crazy.
“But it’s very susceptible to temperature when we’re on tour in the winter — you come in, it hits the heat — or in the summer — AC comes on. It changes.”
Of course, there were also some cracks in the finish which the tech addressed:
“It’s time to take it in and do some stuff on the cracks.”
Going over to its controls, Andre said:
“So you got four volume [controls], and then you got a master volume, a master tone, and you got switches to turn each one on and off. So you can kill switch any of these.”
For the most part, Pat uses this instrument to perform his piece “The Sound of Water.” However, the guitar also has a lot more going on in there, including a “hex” pickup, also known as a hexaphonic pickup or a synth pickup. Or a MIDI pickup. In other words, it allows you to use this instrument with MIDI-oriented devices that give you the sound of pretty much anything.
“It actually has the hex pickup in there,” says Andre while pointing to the bridge of Pikasso’s main section. “So you could send out pitch to a VG-99, or any of those GP-10 Boss units, any of that stuff.”
Photo: PaulCHebert (MethenyPikasso)
