Robert Fripp's Diary

Sunday 26 November 2006

Hotel Acceptable Nagoya To bed

03.43

Hotel Acceptable, Nagoya.

To bed around 14.40 Saturday, planning to be available & get up for dinner. At 17.45, nothing moved. It felt like hitting a wall. Looked at the watch next: 23.45.

A lay-in this morning, rising at 03.10.

09.30 Centre View…

Left…

Right…

A leisurely breakfast buffet & reflection time. This is rare for me nowadays, and a great loss in the quality of life. This morning: reflecting on performance, a subject that moved off my agenda by the outbreak of Endless Grief. Performance conditions are attracting my thinking. Continuing with Stewart Gordon’s Mastering The Art Of Performance: so far, his book has not mentioned the effects of the music industry or commerce on the performer. Perhaps, in Mr. Gordon’s field, the impact on the player is different to the field in which I find myself. In popular music, and/or rock music, where there is success there is trouble. Perhaps this is also the case with commercially successful classical performers. Perhaps this is also the state of the world.

10.37 John has delivered my gold Fernandes, guitar of choice for this tour. It is very wet. The strings have rusted, the frets are tarnished, the strap soaking, the spare strings also wet. The duster is soaking, and I have been able to press water from the case’s foam inlay of the flight case. Someone responsible for shipping the guitar to Japan from the UK has stood this in water, and not for just a moment.

Suffering instrument…