Robert Fripp's Diary

The second Guitar Craft Level

The morning sitting was quieter, with less twitching & gurgling.

My dreams this week have had an unusual clarity & intensity. I'm not sure that this imparts to them any particular significance. I woke at 02.45 to hear the sounds of guitar playing: some of the Level One were obviously going for it.

12.20
The Little Horse is on her way to Edinburgh. My morning has included 3 hours of meetings with the Kitchen Team, some with guitars but mostly without. The Level One performance project is underway, with sounds of thrumming & werning echoing throughout the seminary.

13.41
A lunchtime of performances.

15.38
"Tomorrow" is the first lie of the Devil. This quoted by a Kitchen member, from their course a year ago, at a personal meeting.

18.08
Thirteen more personal meetings completed. A feature of teatime was "The League Of Gauchos" starring Maria Gabriella. They played one of her songs - "Caracoles" - plus "Heptaparaparshinokh" and a surfing tune featured in "Pulp Fiction". Steaming.

The Great Divide was mentioned during the House Meeting last night. On a short course, the duration of the Divide is correspondingly shorter. On a 3 month course, this is correspondingly longer and harder. On November 1st. 1989 I wrote the following letter from England to the members of the Level Three at Claymont. It was read aloud on that course by Debra Gavalas Kahan, and I pinned it to the notice board here 10 minutes ago.

Here is a question: what do you do when you have no enthusiasm, no interest, and no energy? The answer is simple. You cook lunch. And then you wash it up, clean the bathrooms, run the office, practice guitar, practice silence, and cook dinner.

Here is another question: what do you do when you can't do anything? The answer is simple. You do what has to be done. Like cook lunch, wash it up, clean the bathrooms, run the office, practice guitar, practice silence, and cook dinner.

The principle is this: suffer cheerfully. You are now being asked to deliver on your commitment to the course. Any fool can change the world, but it takes a real hero to cook lunch without demur, without complaint, and with a smile. This point of reliability is the basis of the spiritual life.

The one greatest single thing that I have learnt from Guitar Craft, this remarkable and unfolding action of which we are all privileged to be a part, is the inexpressible benevolence of the creative impulse. The Creation is creating itself all the time. This is not a finite event. It is ongoing. And we are part of this ongoing creation if we wish to be, and if we wish to place ourselves at the service of the creative impulse. Guitar Craft is only one example of the remarkable emergence of a major action of healing within our troubled world. The creative impulse, which invents Guitar Craft as it goes, is itself a vehicle for a far greater power, the power which maintains the Creation. In a word, love. The healing power, the power of making whole, of making holy that which is already holy but fragmented, acts through agents. Love does not exist, because it is not a power which can be constrained by existence. But, as we all know, love is quite real. To be present in the world it must be borne and carried by loving agents. The creative power is also a power which is beyond existence. To be present in the world it must be expressed through play, this creative action which is quite necessary. Play is spontaneous, in the moment and seeks no outcome, no result. The play of craftsmen and artists is in the moment, but moves from intention and seeks to generate repercussions.

I suggest that all of us have some sense of this, whatever words we may use to express it.

If we wish to participate within the loving, creative unfolding of our world, we place ourselves at the service of this unfolding. Because this is so much at variance with what we would call "a normal way of living", most of us need instruction, techniques, exercises and help. If we are clear that this is really what we wish, we test this wish.

The particular challenge of a Level Three course is crossing The Great Divide. The Great Divide is with us in many small processes throughout our day, but generally we can escape from it, for several reasons. But over a period of three months it hits hard. The Great Divide is a necessary and inevitable part of any and every process. It is where we are too far from the beginning to go back, and too far from the end to go forward. It is the point where processes break down and go off course.

If we wish to be vehicles for the creative impulse, it is no good falling apart en route. The passenger gets thrown out. Our friend love gets dumped in the mud, and our pal healing action gets helped into the ditch. So, we must introduce a small point of certainty. This is commitment. Commitment carries us through The Great Divide. Commitment comes from who we are, and exerts a demand upon what we are. I have just read again the aims declared at the beginning of the course. Consider them again for yourselves. Is this real for me or just fine words?

Commitment is to be practised daily. And here is a small beginning to this practice. It is an exercise called The Job For The Day (exercise omitted). There are three areas in which jobs may be done:

The principle which I find helpful when confronting The Great Divide is this:

So, when nothing seems possible, look and see one small action which is possible. And then discharge it. It may be as heroic as getting out of bed. And then cleaning your teeth.

The Level Three gives you a taste of what is actually involved in basing one's life on craft principles, whether we have any interest in playing guitar or not. Our rule of life is this: act on principle, move from intention. At Level Three we practice making a commitment for three months. Some of you have expressed interest in Level Four. At Level Four we say this:

But, we are not yet ready for this.

The situation is good.

My very best wishes to all you heroes.

22.38
The performance was a hoot. Actually, lots of hoots. More, an ongoing Hooting event. The performance, more accurately to report, was by the audience with Level One as spectators at their own show. But this time at least for a performance in the Gandara auditorium there were no plates of nuts, or bowls of soft & juicy fruit cut into pieces, distributed among the audience. Fruit pieces make a soft smacking noise as they hit Ovations, and almost no noise as they hit the players. The good news is, the fruit is fresh. The bad news is, to eat it firstly you must lift it off the floor & wash it.

An essay waits to be written on "The Art & Science of Heckling". Each qualitative "world" has its own degree & quality of heckling. Heckling moves from the disruption & oafishness of the basement, where this is an expression of dislike & thwarted expectation, to (theoretically) the promptings of a Holy Fool who offers the performer a reminder, example & encouragement to enter & embrace a world which is true, and is real. Most audiences can only aspire to have a character like this among them. But on this course we do have a Fool, and a good one.

Intentional heckling, undertaken as a piece of work, requires (as a bottom line) goodwill and (if possible) compassion. Without this, little is achieved in the best interests of the performer. And, therefore, the audience.

Tonight's tendered reality-checks were offered in good & high spirits. The pretensions of any performer is immediately recognisable. Here, each member of the audience has themself been in the same place, several times. Clevernesses, hot licks to amaze & dazzle, rip-offs & themes of questionable provenance, just don't work here. And while falling flat the rug is also pulled from under the conceits of the performer, to assist their speedy downfall. Support is offered by the audience when their reminder is recognised & accepted without undue complaint. But any irritation shown by a performer is the end of their performance. Look out, dude. You do not get irritated with an audience from Latin America, particularly one which is better educated than you are, more proficient & practised, and with a sense of humour sufficient to sustain life during the hard years.

One player, using a small amplifier, discovered that the electricity supply to Gandara is not completely reliable; especially when an audient pulled out a plug to encourage rapid thinking on that player's behalf. After all, it's the recovery that matters.

The first show was hard to hear, above the audience, from just in front of the stage. A second show was recommended to take place immediately, on the grounds that it would be a very bad idea to upset an Argentinian audience that wanted more. Then, immediately after the end of the second show, as if turning on a coin, uproar disappeared and silence entered within seconds. Ten minutes later a speaker watch announced: "It is ten o'clock and no seconds" (in Spanish with a Madrid accent). This prompted hoots of laughter and a shout of "It's a sign!" followed by more hoots of laughter. Then, once again within seconds, back into silence.

After 30 minutes, this intense embrace by silence gently released itself, and little tasty biscuit cakes given to the course by Charlina (the visiting mother of Christian de Santis) were distributed at the door.

"It's a sign!" is a running shout of this week. Whenever the lights have dimmed, and electricity supplies to Gandara are not completely reliable even without assistance, the call has gone up. This is of course a joke. But somewhere within the joke is the recognition that something is in fact underway here. The sceptic might well say: "How do we know?". The answer is experiential. Here it is. If you wish to taste this, stick out your tongue, Baby Blue. Otherwise, don't concern yourself & have an easier life.

Some things protect themselves by being what they are.