11.23
Hooray! Hooray! I've spoken to Toyah! The theatre received the goodwill fax from King Crimson which we sent yesterday.
The life of the professional musician has very little to do with music. This "truth which I hold to be self-evident" has been part of my morning's reflection. I have encountered "as much" musicness in Guitar Craft as in the professional arena; inverted commas because this is a qualitative domain, and not accessible to numeration.
It is not possible to convey the nature of Guitar Craft to anyone who hasn't been to a course, or undertaken a comparable field of endeavour, although many of those who have been touched by what is available on courses have tried. It's even harder than attempting to interest wives & friends in King Crimson music. Several of the more experienced Crafties have made public commentary and the following interview (with Muse) is freely available online, so I have snaffled it over here. The interview is with Debra Gavalas Kahan, whose first course was GC (Level One) II from the beginning of April 1985. (The day after this course I returned home to Wimborne. The day after my return my Father died). I make no comment on the interviewer's preamble.
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Debra Gavalas Kahan's Experience In Guitar Craft
In 1981, Robert Fripp was one of the most highly respected guitarists in the world: the founding member and guiding force of the critically acclaimed and seminal progressive rock band King Crimson. In 1981, Debra Gavalas Kahan was a struggling young guitarist with an unshakable desire to play.
Both musicians had two things in common. Both would confess to a lack of innate musical ability, and both overcame their limitations through sheer determination to succeed at a craft that sparked their desire for fulfillment. By sheer coincidence, the master found the student, and in an environment that often resembled a zen monastery as much as a music school, Debra found the keys to her hidden potential, learning the arcane ways of Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft in an ensemble which came to be known as the League of Crafty Guitarists. King Crimson has impressed and influenced bands as varied as Genesis and Metallica since its very inception. Fripp has continually cast the guitar in different roles and has expanded the tonal variations it can express, both electrically and acoustically. The League of Crafty Guitarists incorporated Fripp's 'New Standard Tuning' with his personal style of plectrum technique in the context of an avant garde guitar orchestra. Debra Gavalas Kahan continues to participate in the teaching of Guitar Craft, arranging seminars around the world.
This is the experience of one woman and her own personal impressions of a unique school of music.
Muse: When was your first introduction to the guitar?
Debra: At the late age of 22. The disillusioned young person that I was picked up the guitar after falling in love with Joni Mitchell and her music. I tried to play it, and I found that I couldn't. Singing is what really started me. I really wanted to be able to accompany myself. But I carried that old guitar around with me for 12 years of being very inadequate on it. And I mean really inadequate. Not even able to make audible tones.
Q.What was the reason for your difficulty with the instrument?
A.Perhaps because I'm 5'2", and I don't have an unusual amount of upper-body strength, like a lot of women don't. And my hands aren't very big. I had a hard time on the guitar, which I think is why many women are not attracted to it. You really don't make audible tones when you first start playing. You just get these thuds, and that probably happens to men also if they don't have very strong hands. It's not very encouraging.
Q.And then finally you met your teacher?
A.Yes, I was living in Charlestown, West Virginia, attending one of the courses that were being held at the Claymont Society for Continuous Education. Claymont is an unusual school: you don't come away with a degree. It's an alternative school, a leftover from the sixties, where one learns various meditation techniques among many other things. At that time I was not really a musician, but on my course. And I had a revelation. It came to me that at 31 years of age, it was time for me to get serious about music. At this time, I knew nothing of Robert Fripp or King Crimson.
I was just being a student, washing toilets, doing what I was told and having to go where everyone else went. And on the schedule was 'King Crimson Concert' on Saturday night in Washington D.C. We all piled into our ancient silver-blue schoolbus where I saw probably one of the shows of my life.
I was very impressed with 'Frame By Frame,' a piece in 7/8. I remember everyone standing up going utterly berserk. I, meanwhile, was the only person sitting down, because I was thoroughly intrigued trying to tap out the time. Although I was very skeptical, I should say, of Robert and any of Crimson's music at that point.
The very next day, Robert showed up at the school. He looked completely different. He was kind of bookish. In a sweater and round glasses. Nothing like the black leotard he was wearing the night before. He gave a talk about music, and how it's really for the common man.
I decided that I would go up and tell Robert about how I had decided to make music part of my life, as he was walking to his rented car to return to the airport. We were walking toward each other, and I saw the utter stupidity of having to tell him any of this. And I just walked right past him again and I realized that I had to tell myself this. Not him.
He left, and I didn't see him again for four years, at which time, he had become president of the college and had determined to teach a class in Guitar Craft.
Having heard from my husband, Robert came up to me one day in the co-op and said, 'I hear you want to attend a Guitar Craft Course.' I said, 'yeah, but I can't really play.' 'No problem,' Robert said. 'This is not a deterrent.' Robert encouraged me to come, and so I did.
Q.At what stage of its evolution was Guitar Craft at that time?
A.The very beginning. I sat out the first course, but I would frequently go into the ballroom to listen. I chose the second course, because there was another woman and we were the only two women there. The first course had no women. I don't know if you can imagine being the only woman being in a room with 25 men, but I really enjoyed having that other girl with me. Plus, I was almost eight months pregnant.
I still could not produce an audible tone, but I had asked Robert to give me a way to prepare, and he had given me a simple excercise of playing one note for ten minutes every day. Six days on, one day off. That's how I prepared, and then I went off on my first Guitar Craft course... almost eight months pregnant. I happen to carry very large, and I couldn't really see the strings! It was ridiculous. But everyone was very nice to me, especially Robert, and I applied myself very seriously on this course, in an environment that I now recognize as almost a perfect world for a musician. You really live and breathe music with a group of people with a common affinity.
And so I took off as a musician at the age of thirty five, which is really too old, I would like to emphasize. It's much better when you're eleven or twelve. Even seven years old. But it's my burden in life to be a late bloomer and I'll always consider myself a beginner because of it.
Q.Could you describe your first experience performing with the Guitar Craft ensemble?
A.The first thing I did was to scream into my soundhole. Because I couldn't play! It was extremely frustrating. I was one of only two women, terrified of all these incredibly arrogant, speedy males around me. Who knew everything while I knew nothing, so for my little group we began by playing something silly, and we began shouting into the soundholes of our guitars, and it was great fun. Performing really is the school's specialty. It's Robert's specialty. Not his only specialty, but it's something I've heard him say: That performance is really what he does. And this is really the way to become proficient. And the sooner the better. So, yes, with the first taste, you begin to perform.
Q.What is Guitar Craft to you personally?
A.I could just recite words that I've heard, but to me... it's a safe place where you can be born ... as a musician, in a new world. It's a new school. And that doesn't mean it isn't building on traditions from the past. It's very much building on traditions, but in its own words. It's a safe ordeal.
Q.Is there a masculine and a feminine aspect to Guitar Craft music?
A.This question came up at our last application and assimilation class, which is how Robert is now working with his older students. These classes are meant to be a test and a reconnecting to see what we've all been doing for the last couple of years. This issue came up at the last such gathering. That Guitar Craft seems to be overbalanced toward the masculine without much feminine energy. This is all startling to me, because as a woman, one of the few women, I find Guitar Craft to be incredibly feminine, wonderfully nurturing, all these stereotypical, maybe sexist words that we've come to think are the feminine principle. It's very balanced. I do however reach more of the animus within me, which is probably not feminine. I find myself more strong and more 'male', I will say that. I take risks that I wouldn't normally take. But I know you have to be awfully strong to be a woman, so who's to say what is male and what is female. It does get confusing to me.
In terms of the masculine and feminine quality of the music itself, I think it is very balanced although some women don't. A lot of the 'Circulations' on the Show of Hands album are very feminine sounding. The singer on that album brought a certain sweetness to the music, and actually, Robert encourages women to come along because they're needed to balance. Most Guitar Craft courses and performances are comprised of males, so why wouldn't there be a strong male energy? Many men are not in touch with their feminine side, especially the young. Hopefully they will learn that side of themselves. When you fall on your face a couple times, it can wake that part of yourself up. Making mistakes on the guitar is a very big part of performing, and what do you do after that? That's where a lot of the feminine things come in. Acceptance and forgiveness and yielding.
Q.Is there a place for improvisation within Guitar Craft?
A.Improvisation is a big part of what we do. The 'Circulations' are all improvisations. Hard to believe, isn't it? Sometimes we're given a scale, and we're given instruction as to what the notes are, and sometimes we aren't. Lots of the music is created by the students themselves, and a lot of that comes from just fooling around and having a good time.
Q.I have a impression of guitar craft as a discipline, rather like Tai Chi, in a addition to being a way of making music. Is that an apt description?
A.Yes, and that has been used before. You have a similar formula. There is a master, you begin by imitating your master. I wouldn't say it's a rigid discipline. It depends on how far you take it. Probably, ultimately, it will be much more disciplined that it is now. There are some days when it gets pretty taut. The string gets pulled pretty taut, just enough where you begin to feel it. If it's too disciplined, it begins to suffocate one. When Robert's around, it never quite happens. Many people have come through the school and gone away, to use your analogy, Tai Chi is not the thing for them, and they found out by tasting it. Some of them go away kind of angry (laughs) and some of them just let it go.
Q.Did you have any musical background that prepared you for the music of Robert Fripp and The League of Crafty Guitarists?
A.I had been married to a Greek man and was strumming along with Greek folk tunes, and playing for belly dancers before that in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Really good preparation, actually, for Guitar Craft because they're in odd time signatures. Eastern Mediterranean music is in 7/8, 5/8, usually, and that's very much what Crimson employed, and so does Guitar Craft. They use these odd time signatures, you may have noticed.
Q.You toured with the League didn't you?
A.Yes, I leaped rather quickly too. In three years, I was performing with Robert Fripp. Amazing, isn't it? From a complete beginner to touring with one of the greats, I think we can safely say. In those days, it very much was whoever showed up in a course and who could play the notes, got to be in the performance. And if you couldn't play the notes. There was one fellow who came onstage playing nothing. That was his role, he contributed silence. He sat there for the whole show, the whole tour and never touched his guitar onstage. I studied and practiced very hard. Robert would teach these little riffs and I would go home and furiously try to do it. I would be a bass player because Robert plays lead lines very fast; way out of my reach; but the bass lines were well within my reach, and I just had to practice.
Q.What was it like touring with the League?
A.Whenever a course would come up, I didn't know if there was going to be a tour or not. Robert would surprise us, and we would have three to five days to get ready. He was testing this idea of music being passed on to the common person and here we were very common people.
Most of us are not very good players, although there are a handful who are really tremendous players, the California Guitar Trio being an example. We would make some short jaunts to Boston and back, and then we did some longer tours. On my last tour which went to California, we did ten shows in six days. Many times we would take on more than one role, not being simply privileged musicians, but also moving equipment or making food or handling the books. It was really a journeyman's experience. We were there to do everything, including washing the toilets. Which believe me, is a very big art of guitar craft.
All the men who have come to Guitar Craft have to clean house. Isn't that wonderful?
We try to keep the craft of the guitar going at all times and one of the ways to try is by not talking so much. When we're on a course we do find ourselves having less and less to say verbally, and music is then able to come forward. A tour is very much like that. Even when we performed in the studios of VH1, we were all excited of course, but we really couldn't act out. This kind of music that we play is a bit challenging. Tricky little bits. You need to have your intention and you need to have energy to play it.
Q.I remember seeing your name in a compositional credit on my first Guitar Craft album.
A.If you ever hear "Spasm for Juanita," I'm actually Juanita. It's an incredibly crazy piece of music that was composed in a bathroom, which was a perfect place for it. I was playing the bass rhythm, and this guy would go berserk playing lead with me. Robert heard it through the bathroom door and loved it quite a lot because it's such a silly piece. Robert called it one night at one of our dark ballroom sessions. He does this thing where he turns the lights out on all of us when we're playing, and then he calls on a student to play. He liked it, and it got on the album somehow. 'Juanita' was this other person who would emerge from me in Guitar Craft courses. I wasn't always able to access her in ordinary life.
Q.Guitar Craft is not only taught at the Claymont School anymore, is it?
A.In New Zealand, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Israel, Buenos Aires, Japan, Italy. Robert has been all over the place, and it's become a global group.
Q.Can you explain why almost all Guitar Craft students play the Ovation Guitar?
A.When we come together to learn or to perform we generally use the recommended model, and we all have a uniform sound that way. The Martins and the Takamines always stand out, nothing like the plastic Ovation. We have some problems with guitars with the neck handling this tuning, warping and such with this strenuous tuning. The Ovation Legend can handle it better than the other guitars which is why Robert chose it. The Ovation Legend that we play is a shallow cutaway guitar which is amplified with a graphic equalizer in it. But it has a decidedly acoustic sound. There has been a lot of criticism even among us, because the Ovation is not the perfect guitar. We are hoping that one day a new guitar can be created. A famous luthier in San Francisco is making special guitars for the members of the Trio especially for this tuning.
Q.What part does Guitar Craft play in your life now?
A.Guitar Craft has become a vocation for me, but not a profession. I've never had a paying gig. Only perhaps ten people who have come through Guitar Craft have become professional musicians of any sort. For most of us, its a matter of what music can do for a human, and what an essential part of being a human music is. Even if you're not a very 'good' musician, everyone can be a musician and should be.
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12.44
Off to brunch with Vic Garbarini & Kate Dombroski.
19.21
The Rhythm Buddies + Bill were winding up in the garage as I arrived. They have been reworking the end of ProjeKct X's "Heaven And Earth", an initiative of Pat & Trey. My suggestion is we include this as a bonus track on the album.
The brunch with V&K was a treat for me. So rarely do I have the opportunity to discuss the mechanics of the musical process with someone who knows what's involved and can also articulate it. Victor, editor of Musician magazine in its days of glory, also put together Sting's first group (when Sting left The Police). This is a little known fact. Vic also provided me with a lot of support, encouragement, feedback and insight during the Crimson days of "Discipline". He is also a superb writer and editor. In case you think from this that my opinion of Vic is uncritically favourable, when food falls from his mouth it hangs on his bottom lip until requested to remove it.
Then, off to Davis-Kidd. The December issue of Mojo is on the shelves, and I had a quiet hoot or two reading it and discussing it with Trey once back here. John Bungey, the author of the Crimson piece, is very fair and even-handed. Bill Bruford generally gets to contribute the best quotes to any article on Crimson, and does well here. It was interesting, immediately coming from discussing the musical process with Vic & Katie, to reading one aspect of the Crimson process described in Mojo.
In terms of the process, at the level where the juice connects, the Mojo article is irrelevant. For those who like their processes based on personality, there is still information enough for anyone with eyes to see it. Otherwise, it's mostly a confirmation of what everyone already knew: Fripp is a jerk and impossible to work with. Trey Gunn is the only musician I have worked with who actually knows the why & what it is that Fripp does, and how. But the permitted commentary from Trey is short.
Perhaps with more time available, more commentary is in order. Briefly, I have no sense from reading the article of much awareness of my sense of humour, from bandmates or press. This humour is robust, and also somewhat extra brut (as we say whilst sipping on the lawn). And, accepting the difficulties of working with that recalcitrant, controlling eccentric from Dorset, I saw no reference to difficulties he may have had working with alcoholism, hard drug use, soft drug use, ongoing personal hostility & animosity, a lack of commitment, functional reliability, or blindness to the mechanics of one's personal processes.
One thing the article does demonstrate quite clearly is this: if you wish to lose faith in music, get to know musicians. Alternatively expressed, when the music plays it's because the musicians have got out the way. Otherwise, you can read about it in the music press.
"What is right accords with principle."
