Taking the ProjeKcts overall: the sheer energy and enthusiasm (despite the longeurs and moments of impressive limpness), the flowing of new ideas, I am happy (before I consider overmuch the implications of this on my life and my living of it) to report that King Crimson is alive and very well, and living in the bodies of several ProjeKcts. (An astonishing eruption behind me validates the claims of the sentence as it was being typed).
A repeating criticism of the Double Trio (more as concept than executant/s) has been that the DT Crim didn't realise its promise. I accept this, in the same way that a three year old hasn't yet realised the promise of their maturity either. Each of the ProjeKcts is only one facet, one part, of the whole while representing the whole. And what facets have been gleaming into the pearly auricles of your Diarist!
A Stick / Warr duet / exchange behind me: yes! I would queque up in the rain to get a ticket to hear & see these guys. And now - "Seizure": the most Crim piece P4 has yet delivered. Vintage, non-vintage, definitive Crim aroma arises from this little sucker - stomping, spitting (and limping a bit), honking, werning & twerning. It's the King.
A word or several to the earnest, facially hirsute and optically challenged Crim enthusiast - get ready to alienate any woman you formerly thought loved you.
16.27
An afternoon of paper, driven forward by the relentlessnesses of P4. I have now listened to both of the San Francisco performances and the first set, first night stands out. A "good show" - where the audience and performers know they have been somewhere together - does not necessarily imply "good" music. The music, of whatever intrinsic value, may have catalysed the relationship by bridging the seeming distance between audience and performer. Like:
1. The performer uses the music to reach the audience; or:
2. The audience uses the music to reach the performer.
This is experientially other than when:
3. The performer uses the audience to reach music; or:
4. The audience uses the performer to reach music.
The interesting triads are where:
5. The music employs the performer to touch the audience;
6. The music employs the audience to reach the audience.
The words here are roughly hewn, to give a flavour of what is involved. Other ways of expressing No. 1 might be:
The performer reaches the audience through music.
Music enables the performer to reach the audience.
Then:
2. The audience accesses the performer through music.
Music enables the audience to reach the performer.
Perhaps not everyone would agree with the view that music is the "body" of an aspect of Creative Intelligence. If we did have a sense of this (not a "theoretical" notion, but the experience of entering a field of Musical Intelligence) then we might also accept that "Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unikely characters to give it voice, and to give it ears".
This is an experience of being within the presence of a good friend. But we don't know many friends quite like Music: impartial, clean, without force yet of the gentlest necessity.
Hey Fripp! Chill dude! You've been listening to music and got excited! Mellow!
But this first set, first night in SF is a stomper. Beast! Beast!
The Seattle Guitar Circle is currently organising an At A Distance course, which is presently underway. As part of the new current in Guitar Craft, I have been reviewing the GC columns written for Guitar Player in 1989-90. That any quality mainstream magazine took an interest in this surprised me then, and surprises me even more since. The public response was as mixed as we might anticipate any KC / Close Encounter response to be. These are (the bulk of) the last two GC columns for GP...
Blasts From The Past:
Guitar Craft XIII
A Finish, A Conclusion, A Completion: Part One
Readers, Drugs, English, French and Pinheads;
In Any Order To Be Decided By The Current Reader.
Readers' comments on Guitar Craft columns have addressed a variety of matters, including the use of English by myself and the use of drugs by others. A reader in the Letters Column of December 1989 finds the "use of phrases like `a world of fixity' is enough to make (him) gag". I share this reader's frustration in the poverty of words to convey experience. I hope they have a bucket handy.
The word "world" is a technical word, and it refers to the group of limitations which restrain, constrain and make possible different qualities of experience. A "world of fixity" is where the constraints are considerable, and the level of experience and capacity for action are very limited. A craft is concerned with freeing experience and functioning from this level.
A reader in the letters column for January 1990 objected to my comment that some students "have suffered irrevocable damage to their attention spans from taking hallucinogenic substances. How does he know? Does he have some test that determines attention spans before and after drugs?". The answer to the second question is yes. The answer to the first question is years of experience dealing with musicians, businessmen and currently students who take or have taken drugs of all kinds, and then dealing with the repercussions.
Drugs puncture the energy field around the body, and screw up the co-ordination between head, hands and heart. This is quite visible (and generally audible) when working with musicians and students. The disruption varies from case to case and with the particular drug used. In some cases within my personal experience the damage is major, almost to the point of dysfunction. Drug use has surrounded me throughout my professional life, although less so nowadays. This is partly because serious users have disappeared from the mainstream of professional life, partly because I decline to work with drug users.
In the early days of the drug culture, and widespread drug availability, there was an innocence about much of the drug taking. Usage was "soft", a ritual, an affirmation of community, an act of sharing. Although we lived in a secular culture, many believed the spiritual power of rock music and the action of a young and united generation could change the world, shape the future.
And then the loss of innocence, and abuse. Like "spiking", violence by another name, and an increasing recreational, rather than respectful, intake. In 1969 the local happy hippy would often arrive with a bag of grass, or a block of Lebanese, to welcome the journeying band and offer community, reciprocation and generosity. In 1971 cocaine appeared in a King Crimson dressing room. The character with the polythene bag of coke was a famous guitarist in the headlining band. He disappeared from public view not long afterwards, spent many years recovering, and has recently been seen in public declaring a return from drugs. His partner in the band died.
In the Spring of 1972 I saw, for the first time, the calculated use of drugs by a manager to control and direct musicians. Two of the three musicians being manipulated became junkies, and the third merely a drug over-achiever. This was only the beginning. Throughout the late '70s I saw the extensive use of cocaine as an influencer in various parts of the business, both on stage and off. I don't know how much the public were aware of cocaine's influence within the music industry, but the list of artists and musicians who have suffered from drug use is now so long (and the public knows only a fraction of the actual total) I am surprised that anyone objects to a criticism of drug use.
Perhaps the subjective experience when high is that the music or performance is better. Having worked with musicians on dope, coke, heroin and beer I'd say the music suffers. After a while, generally two or three years, the playing gets worse. And sometimes it stops.
The life of a musician on the road is so hard that virtually everything is forgivable, even excusable. The point is this: if you are a serious (not a solemn) player, drug use is not compatible with your aim. As a postscript to this, five days ago I returned to England from a course in France. One of the older and more mature students was still trying to live and deal with the results of a bad trip 19 years before, when he was sixteen.
A friend of mine, known to the Guitar Player cover, saw Hendrix playing in Europe towards the end of his life. The music had gone and my friend, visiting the dressing room, found Hendrix upset and tried to console him. When we consider the legend today, of one of the most luminous people I have ever met, we forget the human side. Jimi Hendrix was a remarkable young man who got screwed by drugs, and we all lost.
In the Letters of March 1990 a reader expecting "high journalistic and instructional standards" has "been surprised at Robert Fripp's Guitar Craft column". I share our reader's surprise at the column. He continues, and offers "an observation ... that puts the matter in perspective. Mr. Fripp notes that he wrote this column (Nov.`89) in a low attic, and cites having hit his head some six times". Actually, it may well have been more. "Need any more be said?".
Is our reader implying that Fripp's cerebral faculties have been impaired by the striking of head against beams? Were his weak faculties already weak? Further enfeebled rather than caused by the repeated and cumulative impacts? Perhaps the reader's use of English is unclear? This same French course - from which I have only just returned - is actually the one which provides me with the attic room of now-famous low beams. Our reader of unclear-English-usage may be interested to learn that not once did my head strike these French beams. Perhaps the whole episode may be explained away by the traditional hostility between French and English, my placement in this room being a Gallic plot to revenge Agincourt. Which is a little unfair, given that some authorities see "Fripp" as a word of Huguenot derivation.
However, Fripp did strike his head three times on the top of the doorway, which is very much lower than the roof. The point in the column was to indicate the characteristic of a Crafty Way: to turn disadvantage to advantage. Once one has exhausted the possibilities of the roof, one turns to the doorpost.
This letter of March 1990 is followed by another which urges: "Keep doing Guitar Craft, despite what the pinheads say". Presumably Reader No.2 is calling Reader No.1 a pinhead. This is surely unfair. Someone who can offer the bons mots and witty riposte of Reader No.1 deserves to be called more than a pinhead.
31-VIII-90
Guitar Craft XIV
A Finish, A Conclusion, A Completion: Part Two
Hello, Goodbye, Hello.
In the Letters column of June 1990, under the heading "Shape Up Or Fripp Out", a reader states: "I can understand that he wants us to share his religion". This is impressively mistaken. The same reader writes: "I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks playing guitar ... is fun, a perfect outlet for expressing emotions. Even Mr. Fripp will agree on this one". This GP correspondent is bold to make claims on my behalf.
Playing guitar can be fun, and having fun is a necessary part of a craft practice. A better word is "play". The main difference between play and the work of the creative artist is in aim. Play is in the moment, spontaneous, and without concern for the repercussions. In a sense, it is innocent. The work of the creative artist is also in the moment and spontaneous, but it is the assumption of innocence within a field of experience. The intention is to generate repercussions. For example, a piece of music. The piece of music will, however, only reflect the process in which the music appeared, and this is the artist's proper concern. It may be possible for guitar playing to become a perfect outlet, but only after years of work - joyful, funful work perhaps, but work. "An outlet for expressing emotions" sounds rather like a bathroom of feelings: a good dump may be fine for the player, but I'd rather not be sitting in the audience.
This reader is referring to guitar playing as a hobby, where the reward comes to the player and little regard is given to anyone listening. This is quite appropriate for a hobby or pastime. The reader continues: "What bothers me most ... is that he keeps talking about `us' and `we'". This is legitimate for someone whose concern is "me".
Whenever we work creatively with other musicians, in a sense the group IS one person. Like John, Paul, George and Ringo were The Beatles, but The Beatles were not John, Paul, George and Ringo. Musicians in a real group are one musician in several bodies. In a performance which comes to life, the members of the audience are one listener, listening to one musician. I have experienced this often enough that I take it as a given. So, in Guitar Craft columns acknowledgement is made to the recognition that, essentially and in a creative context, we are the same person. The view that we are all individuals is also true, but limited. We deserve more than this. At least, I do.
This same reader has decided that the Guitar Craft column is a waste of time: "the issues in which (the) column appears are short by two pages". This is an intelligent choice for this particular reader. But for someone who feels more is possible from music and their instrument than self-expression, the Guitar Craft column may open a door. Perhaps the bathroom door.
This series of Guitar Craft articles has presented an introduction to principles of craft, and examples of how these principles are translated into action when approaching the work of the left and the right hands. Those who have some familiarity with the work of craft traditions may be surprised at how much has been presented in the preceding twelve columns. Those who are looking for a guitar method may be surprised at how little has been presented in the preceding twelve columns. On this, see the Letters column for March 1990, under the heading "Robert Fripp, Pinheads & Poofy Poodle-Hairs" where we read that the "Guitar Craft column ... seems to say nothing on first reading".
To those in the first category, my reply is that the information protects itself from casual interest, but reveals itself to those who persist. To the second, my reply is that as you are not reading this I shall reserve a reply.
Any school of craft attracts those who belong within the tradition, and who have a sympathetic resonance with the craft. A school also attracts some who, for various good reasons, should not take part in the work of the school. One means of attraction is printed information. Information presented in this manner, as an introduction and invitation to a way of craft, in this instance Guitar Craft, acts in three main ways:
1. To inform those who are likely to benefit from involvement in the craft;
2. To put off those who are likely to benefit from involvement in the craft;
3. To put off those who are unlikely to benefit from involvement in the craft.
Those in the first category will be attracted for the right reasons. Those in the second category will be attracted for the right reasons, and possibly the wrong reasons. Information presented like this is a technique for, among other things, setting the right reasons against the wrong reasons in the student. The potential student will then clarify their aim in approaching the school, and consider the price to be paid in going further. In some schools entrance is denied repeatedly until the instructor recognises that a change in the student has taken place, which then enables them to take part in the work of the school. The work of craft is too hard for casual interest. Better to stay away and have an easier life.
31-VIII-90
"We only have what we give away."
