Robert Fripp's Diary

Bredonborough.

09.00

Morning Sitting in the Study.
Morning reading and writing…

Morning listening: Unsuk Chin.

Reflecting. Anyone interested in discussing, explaining, analyzing, understanding King Crimson over its full (and continuing) lifespan, coming to terms with this way of doing things, will likely conclude that KC history is messy. A mess with distinct outlines, characteristics and contributions. It would surprise me if there were many people interested in the complete KC, seeking to make sense of their experience.

Currently, I am one of them. This has only become possible with recent arisings in the world situation. I am in one place, on a daily basis, and likely to be for the next ten months. There is a continuity presently available to me, not available to the touring player.  Hooray! The life of this working player has become more a state of mind: a way of dealing with yet another uncomfortable long-haul flight in economy to modest accommodations somewhere or other; to engage with industrials, audients, and perhaps other band members whose world views and life aims are varied and contradictory. A simple (historic) dyad of worldview from within KC:

It’s all about me.
It’s all about the band.

The current KC is a very different operation to prior incarnations, happily so for me. It is nevertheless the life of the touring player.

Reading and practicing has kept me sane for fifty years on the road. Both of these are solitary activities, so I have been alone-while-in-company for much of my touring life (fifty-one years to date). I am fortunate to have what John Sloboda https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sloboda refers to as a healthy introspection. Here, at home in Middle England, reading and practicing continue, happily with Sweetlips Willcox in the next room. This reading is, even more than usual, focused on mostly academic tomes of the –ologies and –isms variety. The aim is to help me better understand, digest and articulate my experience of KC…

musically
creatively
professionally
as a group of individuals
of individuals within the group
as a social act
musicologically
psychologically
emotionally
philosophically
aesthetically…

… and as an ongoing process.

Where published commentary and discussion refers to KC / RF, it is not always factually accurate in questions of time, place, person and circumstance. Interpreting the events is a more open question. I would perhaps now be considered a primary authority, if a contentious one (to quote Edward Macan).

If all this were to be put into one sentence: How does Music enter the world?

A second sentence: What is my part in this?

18.49        Burglar alarm at 10.00. Gym at 11.00. A hard work-out. E-flurrying – now down to an inbox beginning with the number 3.

Coffee No. 1 with T c. 15.40. And shopping.

The weather has been remarkably mixed for several days: rain, sun, clouds, each seguing into the next. As of perhaps ten days ago, I smelt autumn in the air. This is some six weeks early. It is as if the exceptional sunniness of a month ago was our summer. Seizing an afternoon opportunity…

To the Cellar with the new Breedlove Beginners model, being made available for the Introduction To The Guitar Circle https://robertfrippsguitarcircle.com/. A better beginning guitar than mine in 1957, and very much so. The action a little high for me, on unpacking, addressed with the enclosed truss rod. Oh no! the wrapped third string snapped while I was tuning it. A rite of passage, as Curt Golden would say.